Mouse movement example for NCURSES

ncurses_mouse_movement.c

// I had problems getting mouse movement events working in ncurses, but after
// some research, it seems as if this is how you can do it. The magic is in the
// printf("\033[?1003h\n") which was the missing piece in the puzzle for me
// (see console_codes(4) for more information). 1003 means here that all events
// (even position updates) will be reported.
//
// This seems to work in at least three X-based terminals that I've tested:
// xterm, urxvt and gnome-terminal. It doesn't work when testing in a "normal"
// terminal, with GPM enabled. Perhaps something for the next gist version? :)

#include <curses.h>
#include <stdio.h>
 
int main()
{
  initscr();
  cbreak();
  noecho();

  // Enables keypad mode. This makes (at least for me) mouse events getting
  // reported as KEY_MOUSE, instead as of random letters.
  keypad(stdscr, TRUE);

  // Don't mask any mouse events
  mousemask(ALL_MOUSE_EVENTS | REPORT_MOUSE_POSITION, NULL);

  printf("\033[?1003h\n"); // Makes the terminal report mouse movement events

  for (;;) { 
    int c = wgetch(stdscr);
 
    // Exit the program on new line fed
    if (c == '\n')
      break;
 
    char buffer[512];
    size_t max_size = sizeof(buffer);
    if (c == ERR) {
      snprintf(buffer, max_size, "Nothing happened.");
    }
    else if (c == KEY_MOUSE) {
      MEVENT event;
      if (getmouse(&event) == OK) {
        snprintf(buffer, max_size, "Mouse at row=%d, column=%d bstate=0x%08lx",
                 event.y, event.x, event.bstate);
      }
      else {
        snprintf(buffer, max_size, "Got bad mouse event.");
      }
    }
    else {
      snprintf(buffer, max_size, "Pressed key %d (%s)", c, keyname(c));      
    }
 
    move(0, 0);
    insertln();
    addstr(buffer);
    clrtoeol();
    move(0, 0);
  }
 
  printf("\033[?1003l\n"); // Disable mouse movement events, as l = low

  endwin();
 
  return 0;
}

not working in windows terminal or cmd

August 29th 2022, Works perfectly on Raspbian / Raspberry Pi OS Bullseye 64bit on a RPi 4
Linux RPi164 5.15.56-v8+ #1575 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jul 22 20:31:26 BST 2022 aarch64 GNU/Linux
via SSH from an Apple iMac Terminal application. Works beautifully and consistently.
Yes I want to know more about the secret activation sequence and where it is defined.
It is VERY close to standard ANSI Screen colour escape definitions... e.g.
printf(“\033[0;31m”); prints the colour red. \033[0m - default colour.

I've scoured the Internet for a working solution concerning mouse control with ncurses. This one works, none of the others do. It should not be this difficult to find working examples of ncurses. Thank you. 2023 & your solution still works.

Conforming that it works with qterminal too.

You are the best. OMG. It runs so good on MacOS sequoia. I installed ncurses over homebrew. With clang you just have to use the
-lncurses flag to not get a linker error and then it will work. You can also modify the env vars: LDFLAGS and CPPFLAGS but i find the lncurse flag better

Im using Iterm with tmux btw and still works