panel(3x) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FUNCTIONS | DIAGNOSTICS | COMPATIBILITY | NOTE | PORTABILITY | FILES | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR | COLOPHON

panel(3X)                                                      panel(3X)

NAME         top

       panel - panel stack extension for curses

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <panel.h>

       cc [flags] sourcefiles -lpanel -lncurses

       PANEL *new_panel(WINDOW *win);

       int bottom_panel(PANEL *pan);
       int top_panel(PANEL *pan);
       int show_panel(PANEL *pan);
       void update_panels(void);
       int hide_panel(PANEL *pan);

       WINDOW *panel_window(const PANEL *pan);
       int replace_panel(PANEL *pan, WINDOW *window);
       int move_panel(PANEL *pan, int starty, int startx);
       int panel_hidden(const PANEL *pan);

       PANEL *panel_above(const PANEL *pan);
       PANEL *panel_below(const PANEL *pan);

       int set_panel_userptr(PANEL *pan, const void *ptr);
       const void *panel_userptr(const PANEL *pan);

       int del_panel(PANEL *pan);

       /* ncurses-extensions */
       PANEL *ground_panel(SCREEN *sp);
       PANEL *ceiling_panel(SCREEN *sp);

DESCRIPTION         top

       Panels are curses(3X) windows with the added feature of depth.
       Panel functions allow the use of stacked windows and ensure the
       proper portions of each window and the curses stdscr window are
       hidden or displayed when panels are added, moved, modified or
       removed.  The set of currently visible panels is the stack of
       panels.  The stdscr window is beneath all panels, and is not
       considered part of the stack.

       A window is associated with every panel.  The panel routines
       enable you to create, move, hide, and show panels, as well as
       position a panel at any desired location in the stack.

       Panel routines are a functional layer added to curses(3X), make
       only high-level curses calls, and work anywhere terminfo curses
       does.

FUNCTIONS         top

   bottom_panel
       bottom_panel(pan) puts panel pan at the bottom of all panels.

   ceiling_panel
       ceiling_panel(sp) acts like panel_below(NULL), for the given
       SCREEN sp.

   del_panel
       del_panel(pan) removes the given panel pan from the  stack and
       deallocates the PANEL structure (but not its associated window).

   ground_panel
       ground_panel(sp) acts like panel_above(NULL), for the given
       SCREEN sp.

   hide_panel
       hide_panel(pan) removes the given panel pan from the panel stack
       and thus hides it from view.  The PANEL structure is not lost,
       merely removed from the stack.

   move_panel
       move_panel(pan,starty,startx) moves the given panel pan's window
       so that its upper-left corner is at starty, startx.  It does not
       change the position of the panel in the stack.  Be sure to use
       this function, not mvwin(3X), to move a panel window.

   new_panel
       new_panel(win) allocates a PANEL structure, associates it with
       win, places the panel on the top of the stack (causes  it to  be
       displayed above any other panel) and returns a pointer to the new
       panel.

   panel_above
       panel_above(pan) returns a pointer to the panel above pan.  If
       the panel argument is (PANEL *)0, it returns a pointer to the
       bottom panel in the stack.

   panel_below
       panel_below(pan) returns a pointer to the panel just below pan.
       If the panel argument is (PANEL *)0, it returns a pointer to the
       top panel in the stack.

   panel_hidden
       panel_hidden(pan) returns TRUE if the panel pan is in the panel
       stack, FALSE if it is not.  If the panel is a null pointer,
       return ERR.

   panel_userptr
       panel_userptr(pan) returns the user pointer for a given panel
       pan.

   panel_window
       panel_window(pan) returns a pointer to the window of the given
       panel pan.

   replace_panel
       replace_panel(pan,window) replaces the current window of panel
       pan with window This is useful, for example if you want to resize
       a panel.  In ncurses, you can call replace_panel to resize a
       panel using a window resized with wresize(3X).  It does not
       change the position of the panel in the stack.

   set_panel_userptr
       set_panel_userptr(pan,ptr) sets the panel's user pointer.

   show_panel
       show_panel(pan) makes a hidden panel visible by placing it on top
       of the panels in the panel stack.  See COMPATIBILITY below.

   top_panel
       top_panel(pan) puts the given visible panel pan on top of all
       panels in the stack.  See COMPATIBILITY below.

   update_panels
       update_panels() refreshes the virtual screen to reflect the
       relations between the panels in the stack, but does not call
       doupdate(3X) to refresh the physical screen.  Use this function
       and not wrefresh(3X) or wnoutrefresh(3X).

       update_panels may be called more than once before a call to
       doupdate, but doupdate is the function responsible for updating
       the physical screen.

DIAGNOSTICS         top

       Each routine that returns a pointer returns NULL if an error
       occurs.  Each routine that returns an int value returns OK if it
       executes successfully and ERR if not.

       Except as noted, the pan and window parameters must be non-null.
       If those are null, an error is returned.

       The move_panel function uses mvwin(3X), and will return an error
       if mvwin returns an error.

COMPATIBILITY         top

       Reasonable care has been taken to  ensure  compatibility with
       the  native  panel facility introduced in System V (inspection of
       the SVr4 manual pages suggests the programming interface is
       unchanged).  The PANEL data structures are merely  similar.  The
       programmer is cautioned not to directly use PANEL fields.

       The functions show_panel and top_panel are identical in this
       implementation, and work equally well with displayed or hidden
       panels.  In the native System V implementation, show_panel is
       intended for making a hidden panel visible (at the top of the
       stack) and top_panel is intended for making an already-visible
       panel move to the top of the stack.  You are cautioned to use the
       correct function to ensure compatibility with native panel
       libraries.

NOTE         top

       In your library list, libpanel.a should be before libncurses.a;
       that is, you should say “-lpanel -lncurses”, not the other way
       around (which would give a link-error with static libraries).

PORTABILITY         top

       The panel facility was documented in SVr4.2 in Character User
       Interface Programming (UNIX SVR4.2).

       It is not part of X/Open Curses.

       A few implementations exist:

       •   Systems based on SVr4 source code, e.g., Solaris, provide
           this library.

       •   ncurses (since version 0.6 in 1993) and PDCurses (since
           version 2.2 in 1995) provide a panel library whose common
           ancestor was a public domain implementation by Warren Tucker
           published in u386mon 2.20 (1990).

           According to Tucker, the SystemV panel library was first
           released in SVr3.2 (1988), and his implementation helped with
           a port to SVr3.1 (1987).

           Several developers have improved each of these; they are no
           longer the same as Tucker's implementation.

       •   NetBSD 8 (2018) has a panel library begun by Valery Ushakov
           in 2015.  This is based on the AT&T documentation.

FILES         top

       panel.h interface for the panels library

       libpanel.a the panels library itself

SEE ALSO         top

       curses(3X), curs_variables(3X),

       This describes ncurses version @NCURSES_MAJOR@.@NCURSES_MINOR@
       (patch @NCURSES_PATCH@).

AUTHOR         top

       Originally written by Warren Tucker <wht@n4hgf.mt-park.ga.us>,
       primarily to assist in porting u386mon to systems without a
       native panels library.

       Repackaged for ncurses by Zeyd ben-Halim.

       Juergen Pfeifer and Thomas E. Dickey revised/improved the
       library.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the ncurses (new curses) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/ncurses.html⟩.  If you have
       a bug report for this manual page, send it to
       bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org.  This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git mirror of the CVS repository
       ⟨https://github.com/mirror/ncurses.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2023-03-12.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

                                                               panel(3X)