Pcurses, a ncurses libalpm package browser

Question

pcurses is a (very) basic ncurses package browser sitting on top of libalpm.
Current features:
* pane based display of package list and infos
* chained filtering of packages by any combination of info fields using regexp
* sorting by any field
* searching by any combination of info fields using regexp
* custom colorcoding by any field
* command history in input modes
Next up: _performance improvements_, code cleanup,
A screenshot (as of 2010-11-20)
Examples of some useful commands:
* jump to next package with name (or description) matching 'chat': ,chat
* filter by name (or description) containing 'chat': /chat
* filter by all packages built in october 2010: /b:Oct.*2010
* sort by download size: .z
* filter by all packages built in 2010, then all packages built by me:  /b:2010 , then /a:schuay
* clear all filters (display full package list): c
* color code by repository: ;r
* scroll through command history: while in input mode, up and down arrows
A quick tutorial (copy and pasted from the README):
QUICK TUTORIAL
Keybindings are displayed by pressing the 'h' (Help) key in pcurses.
Filtering takes the following syntax:
nd:game
1 23
1
is a list of field specifiers. These tell pcurses which fields to search. Field
specifiers are the highlighted characters in the field names in the info pane.
In this example, this means that the Name and Description are searched for the
phrase 'game'.
2
the character ':' separates the field specifier list from the search phrase. If
this character is not present, the entire string is interpreted as the search
phrase.
3
is the actual search phrase. If it contains only alphanumeric characters, a
simple and quick string search is used. Otherwise, it is treated as a regular
expression (which is a bit slower). The search is case INSENSITIVE.
1 and 2 are OPTIONAL.
These searches can be chained. This means that a search for 'n:^a', followed by
'b:2010' will show all packages beginning with the letter 'a' and having a build
date in the year 2010.
Previous filters are cleared by pressing the 'c' key.
A package is available at http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=42685
Last edited by schuay (2010-11-23 12:42:34)

Answer 1

Chippeur wrote:I think it's not a good idea the uppercase letter in the middle of word (like 'dEpends', pAckager') ^^.
It was easiest to implement quickly Changed to color highlighting for now.
Chippeur wrote:
For the look of boxes you can search #define ACS_ in ncurses.h, but man 'box' seems to be more appropriate.
the following line work for me:
box(w_border, ACS_VLINE, ACS_HLINE);
Thanks for that, applied.
Chippeur wrote:qmake for a CLI is certainly not necessary, please change.
Again, mostly a convenience thing because it integrates so well with QtCreator. Just added a regular makefile and removed the qt makedep.
Chippeur wrote:Actually you call something like clear() (I think) on each movement on the window, it's really annoying when I keep my finger on KEY_DOWN.
Maybe you could see newpad() and prefresh() function .
I never noticed this because konsole / gnome-terminal do not have this behavior. I'm going to read up on pad. Does ncurses have something similar to double buffering? Doing only partial screen updates sounds really involved..
Updated the screenshot above.