Re: Help with libcurses and lynx under NetBSD-9 and -current?

[Brian Buhrow <buhrow%nfbcal.org@localhost>]

	hello.  The PREFER.curses=pkgsrc
workd fine to get lynx to link against the ncurses library.

	the ncurses library uses a terminfo database, but it's incompatible with the NetBSD
libterminfo library.  Fortunately, the NetBSD libterminfo  library can exist with just a file
called .terminfo.cdb in one's home directory for containing all of the compiled terminal
description one plans to use.  The ncurses library wants a tree of compiled terminal
description files, one for each terminal, in a directory called .terminfo in one's home
directory.  And, just to make things even more interesting, one must use the appropriate
version of tic(1) to compile these descriptions for each of the libraries.
	
	the upshot of all of this are the following observations:

1.  When lynx is linked against the NetBSD curses library, the .terminfo.cdb file can be used
successfully if it contains a terminal description for the terminal you're using with either
tmux or window(1).  However, when looking at select menus in lynx, the show_cursor feature does
not work with the NetBSD curses library.  I think, but do not know, this is because the select
window is implemented as a pad on top of the regular screen and it appears however lynx
accomplishes the cursor tracking in this mode doesn't work with our library.

2.  When lynx is linked against the ncurses library and the .terminfo tree is properly
installed, all screen rendering and cursor tracking works in all modes.

	So, while our curses library isn't as broken as I originally thought, I do think there is
an issue with the library in that it produces this strange behavior with lynx when using select
menus.

	Finally, I want to thank everyone for the help in getting to the bottom of this issue.
I'm usually pretty good at chasing  down issues, but this one was definitely confounding me.
I will try to look at the lynx code and see if I can figure out what it does differently when
trying to show cursor tracking for select menus.  If it's a simple fix, then I'd like to see us
implement it and publish it in our tree.

-thanks
-Brian