CHARVA: A Java Windowing Toolkit for Text Terminals
Keywords: java, text, terminal, user, interface, VT100, curses, ncurses

# A Java Windowing Toolkit for Text Terminals

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Operating System: Linux
Language: Java, C
Licence: GNU
Author: Rob Pitman
Status
#### Version 1.1.4 (current, 2006/09/11) Fixed JPopupMenu so that whenever it is displayed, the first menu item gets the input focus. Fixed the "ant makeDLL" target so that it asks the user for the operating system type. #### Version 1.1.3 (2006/08/14) Fixed the mouse support (in PuTTY and xterm), which was broken in version 1.1.2. Changed all debugging statements (previously using `System.err.println()`) to use Jakarta Commons Logging instead. #### Version 1.1.2 (2006/08/07) Implemented support for UTF-8 character set (contributed by Leos Urban). Applied bugfixes contributed by Sergio Szychowski to correct the management of FocusEvents and add support for `setBounds()` (for more compatibility with Swing). #### Version 1.1.1 (2005/12/17) Moved the project to SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/charva). #### Version 1.1.0 (2004/12/02) All calls to ncurses functions are now made from the same thread (because ncurses is not thread-safe). This should fix the screen-corruption that some users have been experiencing (especially on multiprocessor systems). Fixed the script-recording and -playback feature. Mouse-clicks (as well as keystrokes) are now correctly played back from the recorded script. Added a Makefile for the BeOS operating system. #### Version 1.0.2 (2004/05/25) Implemented a patch originally suggested by Olaf Wendt and Nick Liebmann, to ensure that only one instance of the keyboard-reader thread runs. Rearranged the project structure and implemented a new build system using Apache Ant. Fixed the colors in the Win32 version of Charva. Included a makefile for building a native Charva executable using gcj (the GNU compiler for Java) (contributed by Nick Liebmann). #### Version 1.0.1 (2003/07/28) Improved portability to Win32, and added a README file giving step-by-step instructions for building the Terminal.dll file for Win32. Also added a pre-built Terminal.dll file (in the $CHARVA_HOME/c/src directory). #### Version 1.0.0 (2003/07/24) CHARVA previously redirected `stderr` to `$HOME/charva.log`; this made it difficult for a user to run multiple CHARVA applications concurrently. It is now the responsibiity of the calling script or application to redirect `stderr` to a logfile or other PrintStream. This approach is more flexible. Applied a multitude of bug-fixes and enhancements supplied by Garrett D'Amore; thanks Garrett! Implemented mouse-support! (On xterm and PuTTY) #### Version 1.0.0-beta3 (2003/06/20) Fixed the way Charva handles foreground and background colors, to be more compatible with Swing. Reworked JOptionPane and JFileChooser extensively. #### Version 1.0.0-beta2 (2003/06/02) Fixed various bugs in the scrolling behaviour of JList and JFileChooser. Fixed the keyboard focus so that it doesn't move when it isn't supposed to (thanks to Fred Taieb for reporting this). Added the skeleton of a new JTree class (and its related interfaces and supporting classes). #### Version 1.0.0-beta1 (2003/04/28) Revised JList, JComboBox, JScrollPane and JViewport extensively. Previously, JList and JComboBox provided scrolling behaviour by themselves; this behaviour was not compatible with Swing. They now have to be inserted into a JScrollPane if scrolling is desired (which is normally the case). Unfortunately, this change may break some existing Charva applications slightly; if so, I apologise, but the improved Swing compatibility was worth it. JScrollPane now has a setViewportBorder() method which allows a border to be added around the component in the viewport (i.e. JTable, JList or JComboBox). JScrollPane now also displays scrollbars if the component in the viewport is larger than the viewport. The new features are demonstrated in the Tutorial application. Added a setColumns() method to JList to set the number of columns which will be displayed in a JComboBox, or when a JList is inside a JScrollPane (this feature requested by Najmi). In JList and JTable, the current row (and column in the case of JTable) is highlighted (this feature requested by Marcin Naglik). A JScrollBar class has been added; it supports both determinate and indeterminate modes. The portability of Charva to PDCurses and to curses (as opposed to ncurses) has been greatly improved (thanks to Kevin Wu). Fixed JTable so that it repaints itself if its setValueAt() method is called (bug reported by Lawrence Chan). Fixed Toolkit.readKey() so that it doesn't crash the Charva application if the user resizes the window (bug reported by Chris Rogers). Fixed the bug in JTextArea where if line-wrap is on, and the last character on the line is a newline ("\n"), the text area is corrupted (also reported by Chris Rogers). #### Version 0.9.14 (2003/02/08) The JNI shared library ("libTerminal.so") now has a separate Makefile for each supported operating system. There is now also a Makefile for Win32, using the PDCurses (Public Domain Curses) library and the MinGW compiler. #### Version 0.9.13 (2002/11/13) JTextArea now accepts the keyboard focus if its "editable" attribute is set to "false", provided that its "enabled" attribute is true. JTextArea can also be scrolled up and down with the PAGE_UP and PAGE_DOWN keys if it is in a ScrollPane. Subclasses of charvax.swing.AbstractButton (JButton, JRadioButton, JCheckBox, JMenuItem) now support mnemonic keys. Previously, if Charva was running in a Telnet session and the TCP connection became disconnected, Charva would go into a loop and use a lot of CPU time. Charva now exits cleanly in this situation (thanks to Uwe Buettner for the fix). The static method "invokeLater(Runnable)" has been added to the EventQueue class. This provides a way for threads other than the event-dispatching thread to (indirectly) call methods on graphic components. A JProgressBar class has been added to the library. The tutorial program (tutorial/charva/Tutorial.java) demonstrates how to use the new class. #### Version 0.9.12 (2002/10/24) Added some methods (contributed by Chris Rogers) to JTabbedPane. Fixed charva.awt.Toolkit so that System.err and System.out both get redirected to $HOME/charva.log, and output can be sent to each stream without overwriting output on the other (thanks Chris). Added a Toolkit.redrawWin() method with which one can force a redraw of the screen (thanks to Craig O'Shannessy). #### Version 0.9.11 (2002/9/23) Fixed a problem reported by Uwe Buettner, in which input from a barcode scanner was read incorrectly. This was caused by the ncurses "refresh()" function being called many times in rapid succession. In CHARVA version 0.9.11, multiple SyncEvents appearing on the event-queue are coalesced into a single event, which prevents "refresh()" being called too often. #### Version 0.9.10 (2002/8/16) Added the method `Toolkit.triggerGarbageCollection()`. This is a convenient but optional way of triggering garbage-collection; one would typically call it after every major user action (for example, just before returning from the `actionPerformed()` method that handles the menu commands). The actual call to `System.gc()` does not happen until the screen has been redrawn, so the user does not notice any delay. Also added the following interfaces, classes, constructors and methods: interface `ComboBoxModel` interface `MutableComboBoxModel` class `DefaultComboBoxModel` constructor `JScrollPane()` method `JScrollPane.getViewport()` method `JList.setListData(Vector)` method `JList.setListData(Object[])` constructor `JComboBox(Vector)` method `JComboBox.setModel(ComboBoxModel)` method `JComboBox.setSelectedItem(int)` Reworked JComboBox extensively to make it more consistent with the Swing API; it now also supports the `ItemSelectable` interface. Refactored AbstractButton and its subclasses (JButton, JCheckBox and JRadioButton) to implement the ItemSelectable interface consistently. #### Version 0.9.9 (2002/6/15) Fixed a problem in JTextField where keystrokes were not being echoed until the next key was typed. Fixed a problem in JTable where, if a cell was wider than the JScrollPane that contained the JTable, the table would not scroll left and right correctly. The JTable now also reacts to the HOME and END keys, which move the cursor to the start or end of the current cell respectively. Fixed a bug in the recording of scripts (using the "-Dcharva.script.record" option); the function-keys above F9 are now recorded correctly. #### Version 0.9.8 (2002/4/08) Added the ListDataListener interface and the AbstractListModel and ListDataEvent classes, and fixed up DefaultListModel so that it notifies the ListDataListeners when the list contents change. Added functionality into the tutorial program to demonstrate how this works. Implemented a nice suggestion from Josh Helmer to make the keyboard input focus wrap around to the first focus-traversable component, if TAB is pressed while the focus is on the last component. #### Version 0.9.7 (2002/3/14) Extensively reworked JList and JTable to be much more compatible with javax.swing. Both of these classes now delegate to a newly-created ListSelectionModel. JList now also delegates to a ListModel. JTable now allows multiple rows and/or columns to be selected. The regression test program has been extensively reworked to test the new capabilities of JList and JTable. It has been moved to `tutorial/charva/Tutorial.java`, and an equivalent Swing version of the same program (which differs in only a few lines) is now in the `tutorial/java` directory. #### Version 0.9.6 (2002/2/22) Completed the regression test (`test/TerminalTest.java`). Modified JOptionPane and JFileChooser so that their button-labels can be customized, and to allow "hot-keys" or "accelerator-keys" to be set up as equivalents of the buttons. #### Version 0.9.5 (2002/2/19) Re-wrote the regression test (`test/TerminalTest.java`) to demonstrate the features of Charva more clearly. Added the static methods `showConfirmDialog()` and `showInputDialog()` to the JOptionPane class. Thanks to Craig O'Shannessy for this suggestion. Also fixed the JComponent class (and its subclasses, i.e. most of the non-container widgets) so that it generates a FOCUS_GAINED event when it gains the keyboard focus. Thanks to Karl Barber for pointing out that these events were not being generated. #### Version 0.9.4 (2001/12/11) Refactored the code so that most of the Swing components are now subclasses of JComponent. This enables them to have a border (using `setBorder()`). Also refactored the code so that JButton, JCheckBox and JRadioButton now subclass AbstractButton. Previously, `JFrame.getContentPane()` just returned a reference to the JFrame itself, which did not conflict with the API documentation because `getContentPane()` returns a `Container`. But the javax.swing.JFrame implementation actually returns a `JPanel`, and Borland JBuilder generates code which assumes this fact. So `charvax.swing.JFrame.getContentPane()` now also returns a `JPanel`. #### Version 0.9.3 (2001/11/8) Added the method Toolkit.print(), to do pass-through printing to a printer attached to the terminal. #### Version 0.9.2 (2001/11/5) Added the ability to record and play back scripts (see the FAQ). #### Version 0.9.1 (2001/10/29) Added a ShutdownHook to call the Toolkit.close() method automatically when the application program terminates, regardless of how it terminates. Thus it is no longer necessary for the application code to call `Toolkit.close()`. Note that because the ShutdownHook feature was introduced in JDK1.3, CHARVA can no longer be compiled using JDK1.2; it requires JDK1.3 or JDK1.4. #### Version 0.9.0 (2001/9/13) Revised the library extensively. You can now generate a GUI program using Borland JBuilder, change all occurrences of "java.awt" to "charva.awt" (and of "javax.swing" to "charvax.swing"), and the resulting code will work using CHARVA. CHARVA now does NOT display color unless the system property "charva.color" is defined (e.g. `java -Dcharva.color Classname`) AND the terminal itself has color capability. #### Version 0.8.11 (2001/7/9) Added a method `getTtyName()` to the Toolkit object, to return the tty devicename. This provides an interface to the Unix `ttyname()` function. #### Version 0.8.10 (2001/6/13) Fixed some bugs, mainly in JPopupMenu but also throughout the code. Improved compatibility with Swing. Also added two versions of a new demo program which is under construction; one version mplemented with AWT/Swing and the other with Charva. The two programs have almost identical source code. They are in subdirectories of charva/java/src/example. To run the demos, use the scripts "test2.sh" and "testjfc.sh". #### Version 0.8.9 (2001/6/8) Added JMenuBar, JMenuItem, JMenu and JPopupMenu. #### Version 0.8.8 (2001/6/5) Fixed a problem with resizing of the JList component. Thanks to Allabakash for pointing this problem out. #### Version 0.8.7 (2001/6/4) Added a new charvax.swing.JComboBox component. The old Choice component is still in the charva.awt package, but will be phased out at some stage. Also modified the API of the JList component to be more "compatible" with its Swing counterpart. #### Version 0.8.6 (2001/6/4) Added a new charvax.swing.JFileChooser dialog, that allows selection of both files and directories, and is modelled closely on the Swing JFileChooser. The old DirectoryChooser is still in the charva.awt package, but will be phased out at some future stage. #### Version 0.8.5 (2001/5/3) Changed the Makefile and test script to ensure that the version of the Java compiler/interpreter run by these scripts is the correct (1.3 or 1.4) version, not the Kaffe version. Thanks to Keith Watson for pointing this problem out. #### Version 0.8.4 Added new classes JTextArea, JRadioButton and ButtonGroup. Also added and improved comments throughout the code. #### Version 0.8.3 Changed private classes (in JOptionPane and DirectoryChooser) to inner classes, to improve encapsulation. #### Version 0.8.2 Used "jlint" to clean up the Java code. Also added in the capability to log key-codes by setting the "keys.debug" property. #### Version 0.8.1 Fixed a bug which caused CHARVA to throw a TerminfoCapabilityException if color capability is not defined in the terminfo file. #### Version 0.8.0 Initial release.

Last updated: 11 September, 2006