<Chapter Label="ch:intro"><Heading>Introduction and Overview</Heading> <Section Label="sec:intro"><Heading>Introduction</Heading> The motivation of the package <Package>Browse</Package> was to provide better functionality for displaying two-dimensional arrays of data (e.g., character tables): moving through the data without loosing row and column labels, searching for text, displaying extra information, hiding information, allowing interactive user input, ... <P/> We wanted to achieve this by using the capabilities of the terminal emulations in which &GAP; is running, and not by some external graphical user interface. For this we have chosen to use the widely available <C>C</C>-library <C>ncurses</C>, see <Cite Key="NCursesWeb"/>. It contains functions to find out terminal capabilities, to change properties of terminals, to place text, to handle several windows with overlapping, ... To use these functions the terminal is switched to a <Emph>visual mode</Emph> <Index>visual mode</Index> so that the display of the non-visual mode of your terminal in which &GAP; is running is not clobbered. <P/> <Package>Browse</Package> has now three levels of functionality: <List > <Mark>A low level interface to <C>ncurses</C></Mark> <Item> This may be interesting for all kinds of applications which want to display text with some markup including <Index>colors as text attributes</Index>colors, maybe in several windows, using the available capabilities of a terminal. </Item> <Mark>A medium level interface to a generic function <Ref Func="NCurses.BrowseGeneric"/></Mark> <Item> This is for displaying two-dimensional arrays of data, handles labels for rows and columns, searching, sorting, binding keys to actions, ... If you want to implement such applications for further kinds of data, first look at the examples in Section <Ref Func="BrowseData.IsBrowseTable" Style="Number"/>, then check what can be copied from the examples in Chapter <Ref Chap="ch:appl"/>, and consult the descriptions in Chapters <Ref Chap="chap:browse-user"/> and <Ref Chap="chap:browse-prg"/>. </Item> <Mark>Applications of these interfaces</Mark> <Item> We provide some applications of the <C>ncurses</C> interface and of the generic <Ref Func="NCurses.BrowseGeneric"/> function. These may be interesting for end users, and also as examples for programmers of further applications. This includes (of course) a method for browsing through character tables, functions for browsing through data collections, several games,<Index>game</Index> and an interface for demos. </Item> </List> Users interested only in these applications should perhaps just try <C>NCurses.Demo()</C>. </Section> <Section Label="sec:overview"><Heading>Overview</Heading> <Subsection Label="ssec:ov_ncurses"> <Heading>The <C>ncurses</C> interface</Heading> Chapter <Ref Chap="ch:curses"/> describes &GAP;'s interface to the <C>ncurses</C> <C>C</C>-library. The imported <C>C</C>-functions are shortly explained, but for further details we refer to the documentation of that library. There are also a few utility functions on &GAP; level, such as <Ref Func="NCurses.SetTerm"/>, which simplify the use of the library. <P/> The concept of an <Emph>attribute line</Emph><Index>attribute line</Index>, see <Ref Func="NCurses.IsAttributeLine"/>, helps to deal with text with markup for its display in a terminal window. <P/> This chapter is for users who want to write their own applications of <C>ncurses</C>. </Subsection> <Subsection Label="ssec:ov_ncappl"><Heading>Applications of <C>ncurses</C></Heading> In Chapter <Ref Chap="ch:util"/> we describe some interactive applications of the <C>ncurses</C> interface. For example, there is <Ref Func="NCurses.Select"/> for asking a user to choose one or several of a given list of items. There is also a demo function <Ref Func="NCurses.Demo"/> which we use to demonstrate features of the <Package>Browse</Package> package, but it may be interesting for other kinds of demos as well. </Subsection> <Subsection Label="ssec:ov_genbrowse"> <Heading>The interface to browse two-dimensional arrays</Heading> Chapters <Ref Chap="chap:browse-user"/> and <Ref Chap="chap:browse-prg"/> describe the interface to a generic function <Ref Func="NCurses.BrowseGeneric"/> which can be used for an interactive display of two-dimensional arrays of data. The first of these covers the basic functionality which may be sufficient for many applications and the second gives more technical details. With interactive display we mean that it is not only possible to scroll through the data, but one can search for strings, sort by rows or columns, select entries, bind arbitrary actions to keys and mouse events, ask for help, and more. </Subsection> <Subsection Label="ssec:ov_browseappl"> <Heading>Applications of the generic function <C>NCurses.BrowseGeneric</C></Heading> In Chapter <Ref Chap="ch:appl"/> we describe several applications which are using the generic <Ref Func="NCurses.BrowseGeneric"/> interface introduced before. They are provided as prototype applications and so we include some implementation remarks in their documentation. <P/> Users who just want to use these applications hopefully do not need to read this <Package>Browse</Package> manual, all applications are coming with built-in help windows. <P/> There are different kinds of applications. First, there are methods for browsing through character tables and tables of marks (our original motivation for this package). Then there are applications for browsing through data collections, e.g., the data available through the <Package>AtlasRep</Package> package, the &GAP; bibliography or the sections of the &GAP; manuals. Finally, there are several games like Sam Loyd's fifteen puzzle (generalized), peg solitaire, and Sudoku (including functions to create new puzzles and to solve puzzles). </Subsection> </Section> </Chapter>