NCURSES Tutorial

This course introduces the development using ncurses library, include its panel, menu, and form extensions. Although GUI applications dominate the world, TUI (text-based user interface) programs still prove their value where X window is not available or the limited network bandwidth. Many popular tools developed on top of ncurses, like Midnight Commander, vi, nano, and htop, are still popular.

In this course, a TUI file management tool will be developed to demonstrate how to use ncurses library. Here are what you will learn:

1. Basics of ncurses library, like ncurses initialization;

2. Introduce the terminal that ncurses relies on;

3. How to use window;

4. How to output text;

5. How to render text with the font type face like bold or underline, and colors;

6. How to read key input from user, or text from screen;

7. How to use mouse in a TUI program;

8. How to make a window scroll;

9. How to use pad, and what's the difference between window and pad;

10. How to use panel extension manage overlapping windows;

11. How to display a menu or a cascading menu;

12. How to use form to collect user's input, including multi-page form.

This course is also helpful, if you are going to use ncurses++, python curses module, or the Rust version, ncurses-rs. They share the same program model with ncurses.

Look forward to seeing you in the course.