ncurses ☆

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Description:
Text-based UI library

Type: Formula | Tracked Since: Dec 28, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: System utilities

Tags: tui library terminal ui curses

Install: brew install ncurses

About:
Ncurses is a programming library that enables the creation of text-based user interfaces (TUI) in terminal environments. It provides an API for controlling cursor movement, colors, and screen painting, allowing developers to build interactive console applications. It is a crucial dependency for many command-line tools that require more than simple line-based output.

Key Features:

Terminal-independent screen painting
Support for colors and character attributes
APIs for C, C++, and other languages
Support for mouse events and key pads

Use Cases:

Building interactive configuration menus (e.g., 'make menuconfig')
Creating text editors or file managers
Displaying progress bars and complex dashboards in CLI

Alternatives:

readline – Readline focuses on command-line input editing, while ncurses focuses on full-screen text display and UI.
notcurses – Notcurses is a modern, high-performance successor that utilizes Unicode and pixel-graphics capabilities.

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
Sep 10, 2025 10:23am		0	VERSION_BUMP	018e2b6f