nCurses Tutorial

Filiz Şenyüzlüler Güzelbey

What is nCurses?

• Ncurses is a library, which is used for creating and using windows, screen painting and using function keys for text-based terminals.

What is nCurses?

• What you can do with Ncurses:

– Use any part of the screen according to your request.

– Create and manage windows.– Use 8 different colors.– Use the function keys on the keyboard.

Getting Ready

• Add #include <ncurses.h>

• Open Terminal (Compile & Run from Terminal)

Basic Functions • initscr();

– initializes the terminal in curses mode.– it clears the screen and presents a blank screen.

• printw("Hello World !!!");

• refresh() checks the window and updates only the portion which has been changed.

• endwin() frees the memory taken by curses sub-system and its data structures and puts the terminal in normal mode.

Hello World !!

Hello World !! (2)

Using Terminal

• cd Desktop (to reach the file-path)

• cd foldername

• g++ filename.cpp –lncurses (to compile)

• ./a.out (to run)

Basic Functions

• getch() – Waits for user input

• clear()– Clears the screen

clearing the screen

attributes

• attributes are used to print characters with some special effects.

• attron(), attroff() can be used to switch attributes on/off

A_BOLD attron(A_BOLD);

printw("%c", ch);attroff(A_BOLD);

COLOR_PAIR(n) start_color(); /* Start color*/init_pair(1, COLOR_RED, COLOR_GREEN); attron(COLOR_PAIR(1));printw("%c", ch);attroff(COLOR_PAIR(1));