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David Stes

CURSEL is a freeware FMLI implementation, a small language that allows you to quickly make a form- and menu- based character interface to shell scripts and other programs.

CURSEL filenames normally start with either "Menu", "Form" or "Text".

For example, the command,

./cursel Menu.example

would interpret the contents of the file "Menu.example" and display an example Menu.

CURSEL provides a language similar to the AT&T FMLI shell. Note that the language is similar to, but certainly not the same as, a /bin/sh shell; in particular, backquoted expressions are NOT evaluated by a shell such as BASH, but rather by the builtin CURSEL "shell" (which does not have all features of e.g. BASH).

There are also a few CURSEL extensions:

  1. text frames can use the "alignment" descriptor, a CURSEL extension, which allows you to left or right align text in a Text frame (centering and justification is also supported).

  2. backquoted expressions can use () grouping of parentheses, as in the UNIX shell

I wrote cursel based on the following book:

UNIX SVR4 Programmer's Guide Character User Interface (FMLI and ETI)", by The UNIX System Group, UNIX Press.

Published 1992, Prentice Hall PTR (ISBN 0-13-020637-7).