[](https://github.com/m-doughty/Notcurses-Native/actions)
NAME
====
Notcurses::Native - Complete NativeCall bindings for the notcurses TUI library
SYNOPSIS
========
```raku
use Notcurses::Native;
use Notcurses::Native::Types;
use Notcurses::Native::Plane;
# Initialize notcurses
my $nc = notcurses_init(NotcursesOptions.new, Pointer);
my $std = notcurses_stdplane($nc);
# Write colored text
ncplane_set_fg_rgb8($std, 0, 255, 128);
ncplane_putstr_yx($std, 0, 0, 'Hello from notcurses!');
notcurses_render($nc);
# Wait for input
my $ni = Ncinput.new;
notcurses_get_blocking($nc, $ni);
notcurses_stop($nc);
```
DESCRIPTION
===========
Notcurses::Native provides complete 1:1 NativeCall bindings for [notcurses](https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses) v3.0.17, a modern terminal UI library supporting rich text, colors, images, video, and pixel-perfect rendering via Sixel and Kitty graphics protocols.
This module vendors notcurses and builds it from source, so no system installation of notcurses is required. FFmpeg is used for multimedia support (image/video loading).
**606 functions** are bound across 9 modules, covering 100% of the bindable notcurses API. The only unbound functions are 4 `vprintf` variants that take `va_list`, which cannot be bridged through any FFI.
MODULES
=======
Notcurses::Native
-----------------
Core context management: init, stop, render, input, capabilities.
```raku
use Notcurses::Native;
my $nc = notcurses_init(NotcursesOptions.new, Pointer);
notcurses_render($nc);
my $ni = Ncinput.new;
my $key = notcurses_get_blocking($nc, $ni);
notcurses_stop($nc);
```
Key functions: `notcurses_init`, `notcurses_stop`, `notcurses_render`, `notcurses_stdplane`, `notcurses_get_blocking`, `notcurses_get_nblock`, `notcurses_cantruecolor`, `notcurses_canutf8`, `notcurses_mice_enable`.
Notcurses::Native::Types
------------------------
All CStruct definitions, enums, constants, and opaque handle types.
**CStruct types:** NotcursesOptions, NcplaneOptions, Nccell, Ncinput, Ncstats, Nccapabilities, Ncvgeom, NcvisualOptions, Timespec, and all widget options structs (NcselectorOptions, NcmenuOptions, NctabbedOptions, NcplotOptions, NcprogbarOptions, NcreaderOptions, etc.)
**Enums:** NcLogLevel, NcAlign, NcBlitter, NcScale, NcInputType, NcPixelImpl.
**Key constants:** 130 NCKEY_* key codes (NCKEY_UP, NCKEY_ESC, NCKEY_F01, NCKEY_BUTTON1, etc.), NCSTYLE_*, NCOPTION_*, NCALPHA_*, NCVISUAL_OPTION_*, NCMICE_*, NCBOX_*, NCKEY_MOD_*.
Notcurses::Native::Plane
------------------------
133 plane functions: create, destroy, write text, read back, cursor, colors, styles, channels, box drawing, lines, gradients, merge, resize, reparent, z-ordering, printf (variadic).
```raku
use Notcurses::Native::Plane;
my $child = ncplane_create($std, NcplaneOptions.new(:rows(10), :cols(40)));
ncplane_set_fg_rgb8($child, 255, 0, 0);
ncplane_putstr_yx($child, 0, 0, 'Red text');
ncplane_rounded_box($child, 0, 0, 9, 39, 0);
ncplane_destroy($child);
```
Notcurses::Native::Cell
-----------------------
56 cell functions: load characters, get/set colors, styles, channels, alpha, palette index, duplicate, compare, box cell helpers.
```raku
use Notcurses::Native::Cell;
my $c = Nccell.new;
nccell_load($plane, $c, 'A');
nccell_set_fg_rgb($c, 0xFF0000);
nccell_set_styles($c, NCSTYLE_BOLD);
my $text = nccell_strdup($plane, $c);
nccell_release($plane, $c);
```
Notcurses::Native::Channel
--------------------------
60 channel functions: pure computation on 32-bit single channels and 64-bit dual channels. Set/get RGB, alpha, palette index, default flags. Also pixel (ABGR uint32) creation and component access.
```raku
use Notcurses::Native::Channel;
my uint64 $channels = 0;
ncchannels_set_fg_rgb($channels, 0xFF0000);
ncchannels_set_bg_rgb($channels, 0x0000FF);
my $reversed = ncchannels_reverse($channels);
```
Notcurses::Native::Context
--------------------------
55 functions: pile operations, palette management, capabilities queries, statistics, alignment, string width, fade context, metric formatting, system info.
Notcurses::Native::Direct
-------------------------
70 direct mode functions: simple terminal control without full-screen takeover. Colors, styles, cursor, box drawing, input, capabilities.
```raku
use Notcurses::Native::Direct;
my $ncd = ncdirect_core_init(Str, Pointer, 0);
ncdirect_set_fg_rgb8($ncd, 255, 0, 0);
ncdirect_putstr($ncd, 0, "Red text\n");
ncdirect_stop($ncd);
```
Notcurses::Native::Input
------------------------
15 input query functions: modifier key predicates, key classification.
```raku
use Notcurses::Native::Input;
if ncinput_ctrl_p($ni) { say "Ctrl held" }
if nckey_synthesized_p($ni.id) { say "Synthesized key" }
if nckey_mouse_p($ni.id) { say "Mouse event" }
```
Notcurses::Native::Visual
-------------------------
23 visual/image functions: load from file, decode, resize, pixel manipulation, blit to planes, geometry queries.
```raku
use Notcurses::Native::Visual;
my $v = ncvisual_from_file('photo.png');
my $vopts = NcvisualOptions.new(:scaling(NCSCALE_SCALE), :blitter(NCBLIT_PIXEL));
$vopts.set-plane($std);
ncvisual_blit($nc, $v, $vopts);
ncvisual_destroy($v);
```
Notcurses::Native::Widgets
--------------------------
124 widget functions: progress bar, reel, selector, multiselector, tree, menu, tabbed, plot (uint64 and double), reader, FD plane, subprocess.
```raku
use Notcurses::Native::Widgets;
my $bar = ncprogbar_create($plane, NcprogbarOptions.new);
ncprogbar_set_progress($bar, 0.75e0);
ncprogbar_destroy($bar);
```
IMAGE VIEWING
=============
Notcurses supports multiple rendering backends for images. On terminals that support it (Kitty, iTerm2), pixel-perfect rendering is available:
```raku
my $v = ncvisual_from_file('image.png');
# Check for pixel protocol support
my $pixel-ok = notcurses_check_pixel_support($nc);
my $blitter = $pixel-ok > 0 ?? NCBLIT_PIXEL
!! ncvisual_media_defblitter($nc, NCSCALE_SCALE);
my $plane = ncplane_create($std, NcplaneOptions.new(:rows($rows), :cols($cols)));
my $vopts = NcvisualOptions.new(:scaling(NCSCALE_SCALE), :blitter($blitter));
$vopts.set-plane($plane);
ncvisual_blit($nc, $v, $vopts);
```
INPUT HANDLING
==============
```raku
loop {
my $ni = Ncinput.new;
notcurses_get_blocking($nc, $ni);
given $ni.id {
when NCKEY_UP { say "Up arrow" }
when NCKEY_DOWN { say "Down arrow" }
when NCKEY_ESC { last }
when NCKEY_ENTER { say "Enter" }
when NCKEY_F01 { say "F1" }
default { say "Key: {chr($ni.id)}" if $ni.id >= 32 }
}
if ncinput_ctrl_p($ni) { say " +Ctrl" }
if ncinput_shift_p($ni) { say " +Shift" }
}
```
MOUSE SUPPORT
=============
```raku
notcurses_mice_enable($nc, NCMICE_ALL_EVENTS);
my $ni = Ncinput.new;
notcurses_get_blocking($nc, $ni);
if nckey_mouse_p($ni.id) {
say "Mouse at ({$ni.y}, {$ni.x})";
say "Button 1" if $ni.id == NCKEY_BUTTON1;
say "Scroll up" if $ni.id == NCKEY_SCROLL_UP;
}
notcurses_mice_disable($nc);
```
BUILD REQUIREMENTS
==================
Notcurses is vendored and built from source. You need:
* CMake 3.14+
* A C compiler (gcc, clang, or mingw-w64 under MSYS2)
* `ncurses`, `libunistring`, `libdeflate` development headers
* FFmpeg for image/video support (Linux, macOS, and Windows)
Linux (Debian / Ubuntu)
-----------------------
sudo apt install \
cmake pkg-config \
libncurses-dev libunistring-dev libdeflate-dev \
libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev libavdevice-dev \
libavutil-dev libswscale-dev
Fedora / RHEL equivalents:
sudo dnf install cmake pkgconf-pkg-config \
ncurses-devel libunistring-devel libdeflate-devel ffmpeg-devel
Arch / Manjaro equivalents:
sudo pacman -S cmake pkgconf base-devel \
ncurses libunistring libdeflate ffmpeg
Linux (openSUSE Tumbleweed)
---------------------------
openSUSE splits FFmpeg's libraries into per-component `ffmpeg-7-*` packages. With thanks to user feedback from the Hacker News thread, the verified minimum set is:
sudo zypper in cmake pkg-config gcc \
ncurses-devel libunistring-devel libdeflate-devel \
ffmpeg-7-libavcodec-devel ffmpeg-7-libavformat-devel \
ffmpeg-7-libavutil-devel ffmpeg-7-libavdevice-devel \
ffmpeg-7-libswscale-devel
`libswresample`, `libavfilter`, and `libpostproc` devel packages are pulled in automatically as transitive dependencies; notcurses itself doesn't link them directly.
macOS (Homebrew)
----------------
brew install cmake pkg-config ffmpeg ncurses libunistring libdeflate
Windows (MSYS2 UCRT64)
----------------------
Windows support requires MSYS2 in its **UCRT64** environment — this produces native Windows DLLs via mingw-w64 GCC. Visual Studio / MSVC are not supported. Upstream notcurses docs recommend OpenImageIO on Windows, but current MSYS2 OIIO (3.1.x) has ABI drift vs notcurses 3.0.17's oiio.cpp, so we use FFmpeg instead — same media path as Linux/macOS.
Install MSYS2 from [https://www.msys2.org/](https://www.msys2.org/), open a **UCRT64** shell, and:
pacman -S \
mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-cmake \
mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-ninja \
mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain \
mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-libdeflate \
mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-libunistring \
mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-ncurses \
mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-ffmpeg
Build tests (`notcurses-tester`) do not run on Windows — upstream limitation. The module builds and loads; terminal-dependent tests (`xt/`) need to be run on Linux or macOS.
Core-only (no multimedia)
-------------------------
If you don't need image/video support, you can omit the FFmpeg dependency. The build detects missing multimedia libraries and falls back automatically.
INSTALLATION
============
zef install Notcurses::Native
On supported platforms this downloads a prebuilt self-contained archive from GitHub Releases, SHA256-verifies it against a checksum baked into the dist, and stages it into the user's XDG data dir. **No system packages are touched.** See **PREBUILT BINARIES** below for the platform matrix.
If you're on an unsupported platform, the build falls back to compiling notcurses from source via CMake — see **BUILD REQUIREMENTS** above for the dev packages that needs.
Installation runs `t/` tests only — pure-Raku channel math and input struct tests that don't need a terminal. The full terminal-dependent test suite lives in `xt/` and can be run manually:
prove -e 'raku -I lib -I t/lib' xt/*.rakutest
`prove` (Perl 5) is recommended for `xt/` tests because [prove6 has a bug](https://github.com/Raku/tap-harness6/issues/64) where terminal escape sequences from C libraries corrupt its TAP parser.
PREBUILT BINARIES
=================
Each prebuilt archive contains the notcurses libraries plus every non-system runtime dependency, with linker paths (`@loader_path` on macOS, `$ORIGIN` on Linux, sibling-DLL on Windows) rewritten so the binaries find each other inside the staged directory without touching the host system's libraries.
Supported platforms
-------------------
* **macOS arm64** (Apple Silicon, macOS 11.0 Big Sur and newer)
* **macOS x86_64** (Intel Mac / Hackintosh, macOS 10.15 Catalina and newer)
* **Linux x86_64 glibc** — manylinux_2_28 baseline (glibc 2.28; RHEL 8+ / Ubuntu 18.10+ / Debian 10+ / Fedora 28+ / Arch / Manjaro)
* **Linux aarch64 glibc** — same baseline
* **Linux x86_64 musl** — alpine:3.20 baseline (musl 1.20+; Alpine 3.13+ / Postmarket OS / Void / Adelie)
* **Linux aarch64 musl** — same baseline
* **Windows x86_64** — mingw-w64 / UCRT
* **Windows arm64** — clang / UCRT (**not CI-verified**; see below)
The CI release pipeline runs a codec capability probe against every artefact before publish: dlopens the bundled `libavcodec`, confirms the accelerated decoder libraries (`libdav1d`, `libvpx`, `libvpx-vp9`, `libopus`) are registered, and actually decodes PNG / JPEG / BMP fixtures end-to-end. A build with a misconfigured or broken libavcodec doesn't reach the release.
**Windows arm64 caveat:** we build the prebuilt and ship it, but the end-to-end Raku verify lane is currently disabled. Rakudo's source-build path (rakubrew → MoarVM) fails on Windows ARM64 MSYS2 CLANGARM64 — NQP's `Configure.pl` probe trips on a perl-output parse — and `setup-raku@v1` has no native Windows ARM64 prebuilt yet, so there's no Rakudo to test against in CI. The bundle audit on the build side (objdump-based import-table walk, sibling-DLL self-containment check) still runs, so a broken bundle would still fail the release. Users on Windows ARM64 are encouraged to report issues.
Codec coverage
--------------
Every prebuilt bundles libavcodec configured with:
* **`libdav1d`** — AV1 video decode, ~10× faster than ffmpeg's internal AV1 decoder for 4K content
* **`libvpx`** — VP8 / VP9 video decode
* **`libopus`** — Opus audio decode
Image formats (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, TIFF, BMP, etc.) and the other common video / audio codecs (H.264, HEVC, MPEG-4, MP3, AAC, Vorbis, FLAC, …) use ffmpeg's internal decoders — same code path on every platform.
Third-party licensing
---------------------
A prebuilt archive is a binary redistribution, so every archive ships its own `THIRD-PARTY.md` and a `LICENSES/` directory next to the libraries. Between them they name every component in that particular archive, its version, its SPDX licence, its copyright notice, the exact upstream source it was built from (tarball URL plus SHA-256, or a commit SHA), and the full text of every licence involved.
Both are generated from `resources/third-party.json` in this repository, which doubles as a release gate: every file in an archive must match a component listed there, and every component listed for that platform must be present, or the build lane fails. A dependency cannot arrive in a shipped archive without somebody having read its licence first.
The bundled ffmpeg is a decoder-only build with neither `--enable-gpl` nor `--enable-nonfree`, so it is conveyed under the LGPL v2.1 or later. It and GNU libunistring are the two copyleft libraries in the archives; the exact source tarballs both were built from are attached to every binary release alongside the archives, and are covered by the same `checksums.txt`. Everything else is permissive (Apache-2.0, BSD-2, BSD-3, MIT, X11-style, Zlib) apart from the MSYS2 toolchain runtimes the Windows archives carry, which are listed individually in their `THIRD-PARTY.md`.
Platform C runtimes — glibc, musl, Apple's `/usr/lib` and frameworks, Windows' own DLLs — are dynamically linked against whatever the user's machine provides and are never bundled, so they are not redistributed here at all.
Source-build fallback
---------------------
For platforms outside the matrix (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, i686, riscv64, ppc64le, …) or when you explicitly set `NOTCURSES_NATIVE_BUILD_FROM_SOURCE=1`, Notcurses::Native compiles notcurses from source via CMake. That path needs the system packages listed in **BUILD REQUIREMENTS**. The source build takes 5–15 minutes depending on the machine; the prebuilt download path is seconds.
Environment knobs
-----------------
* `NOTCURSES_NATIVE_BUILD_FROM_SOURCE=1` — skip the prebuilt download and always compile from source.
* `NOTCURSES_NATIVE_BINARY_ONLY=1` — refuse to fall back to source build; fail loudly if no prebuilt is available for this platform. Useful in CI where source-build is undesired.
* `NOTCURSES_NATIVE_BINARY_URL=I
` — override the GitHub Release base URL (point at a mirror).
* `NOTCURSES_NATIVE_CACHE_DIR=I` — override the prebuilt-download cache directory.
* `NOTCURSES_NATIVE_DATA_DIR=I` — override the staged-libs directory (defaults to XDG_DATA_HOME).
* `NOTCURSES_NATIVE_LIB_DIR=I` — at runtime, load notcurses from this directory instead of the staged data dir (escape hatch for custom builds).
EXAMPLES
========
See the `examples/` directory for complete working programs:
* `01-hello.raku` — Hello world
* `02-colors.raku` — Color palette and style showcase
* `03-boxes.raku` — Box drawing with nesting and colors
* `04-input.raku` — Interactive keypress event viewer
* `05-clock.raku` — Color-cycling real-time clock
* `06-imgview.raku` — Terminal image viewer with pixel protocol support
* `07-direct.raku` — Direct mode (no full-screen takeover)
* `08-progress.raku` — Animated progress bar widgets
AUTHOR
======
Matt Doughty
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
=====================
Copyright 2026 Matt Doughty
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the Artistic License 2.0.