[Windows] [lem-pdcurses] MSYS2/MinGW-w64 PDCurses package version 4 is broken

[Hamayama]

I found the problem of lem-pdcurses on Windows. (display is broken)

This is caused by MSYS2/MinGW-w64 PDCurses package version 4.

Workaround is as follows.

1. Download version 3 from http://repo.msys2.org/mingw/x86_64/mingw-w64-x86_64-pdcurses-3.8-1-any.pkg.tar.xz

2. Uninstall version 4

   pacman -R mingw-w64-x86_64-pdcurses
   

3. Install version 3

   pacman -U mingw-w64-x86_64-pdcurses-3.8-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
   cp -i /mingw64/include/pdcurses.h /mingw64/include/ncurses.h
   

See also: https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/issues/5994

[Symbolics]

It looks like the msys2 guys have switch permanently from the wmcbrine version to the Bill Gray version of PDCurses. This suggest it isn't going to be fixed in msys2. Perhaps a better alternative is to adjust lem to use the new version 4 PDCurses.

Reading the webpage for version 4, it seems to have a richer feature set than v3, including an SDL2 back-end.

[Symbolics]

Any time frame to for this one? It looks like it's blocking three other issues (see #532) and Lem is unusable on Windows without downgrading MSYS, and that breaks other things.

[Hamayama]

Uhm, difficult to explain ...

1. about PDCursesMod

   • not compatible with PDCurses e.g.
     • initscr function doesn't exist. https://github.com/Bill-Gray/PDCursesMod/blob/71214f6b36d718e052551b7f8356cafb2ed74d2f/curses.h#L1281
     • all key codes are different. https://github.com/Bill-Gray/PDCursesMod/blob/71214f6b36d718e052551b7f8356cafb2ed74d2f/curses.h#L908
   • not support wide characters well https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/issues/5994
   • many complex functions are added? (I don't know well ...) see PDCursesMod issues number 110. see PDCursesMod issues number 177.
   • not tested on Windows well see PDCursesMod issues number 156. (owner said I don't actually use Microsoft products very much, and almost never in recent years.)
   • it returns a version string as PDCurses instead of PDCursesMod. so, it cannot be distinguished. https://github.com/Bill-Gray/PDCursesMod/blob/e71d952bfd4581882a4869378d3c3eff668ec27e/pdcurses/initscr.c#L134

2. about MSYS2/MinGW-w64 package

   • I sent a issue to separate PDCurses and PDCursesMod to different packages. https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/issues/5994 but, no response ...

3. for now

   • use modified version of PDCurses package for MSYS2/MinGW-w64. https://github.com/Hamayama/PDCurses-win10-jp-package/releases see the installation procedure in #531 .

   • if someone wants to support PDCursesMod, he should make cl-charms-for-pdcurses-mod and lem-pdcurses-mod newly. ( though I can't ... )

[Symbolics]

Has anyone tried this recently? PDCursesMod issues 110, 156 and 177 have all been closed.