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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FUNCTIONS | RETURN VALUE | NOTES | PORTABILITY | HISTORY | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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panel(3X) Library calls panel(3X)
panel - manage overlapping curses windows
#include <panel.h>
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);
Panels are curses(3X) windows with the added property of depth.
Panel functions allow the use of stacked windows and ensure that
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 each panel. The panel routines enable
you to create, move, hide, and show panels. You can relocate a
panel to any desired position in the stack.
Panel routines are a functional layer added to curses, make only
high-level curses calls, and work anywhere curses does.
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 FALSE if the panel pan is in the panel
stack, and TRUE if it is not. If the panel is a null pointer, it
returns 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 if, for example, 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 “PORTABILITY” below.
top_panel
top_panel(pan) puts the given visible panel pan on top of all
panels in the stack. See “PORTABILITY” 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.
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 either is null, an error is returned.
The move_panel function uses mvwin(3X), and returns ERR if mvwin
returns ERR.
The header file panel.h itself includes the header file curses.h.
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 never
changed. 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 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 System V panel libraries.
A panel facility was documented in SVr4.2's Character User
Interface Programming document.
It is not part of X/Open Curses.
A few implementations exist:
• Systems based on SVr4 source code, such as 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 is a public domain implementation by Warren Tucker
published in u386mon 2.20 (1990).
According to Tucker, the System V 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, based on the System V documentation.
Warren Tucker <wht@n4hgf.mt-park.ga.us> originally wrote this
implementation, primarily to assist in porting u386mon to systems
without a native panel library.
Zeyd ben-Halim repackaged it for ncurses.
Juergen Pfeifer and Thomas E. Dickey revised and improved the
library.
curses(3X), curs_variables(3X)
This page is part of the ncurses (new curses) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html⟩. If you have a
bug report for this manual page, send it to bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
This page was obtained from the tarball ncurses-6.6.tar.gz fetched
from ⟨https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/⟩ on 2026-01-16. 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
ncurses @NCURSES_MAJOR@.@NCU... 2024-12-28 panel(3X)
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HTML rendering created 2026-01-16 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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