Background color using ncurses on Linux

Question

first post here so I apologize for any errors.

Basically, when I run my code, everything works properly except for changing the background color. For some reason it is always grey. I'm attempting to change it to black but it's not working and I'm not sure why.

The main part of my code that I believe should be changing the background color is this: wattron(mainWindow, COLOR_BLACK);

Any help to figure out how to change my background to Black would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!

Here is what I have so far in case it helps give some context for my problem:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <curses.h>
#include <time.h>

// Variables
int nlines;
int ncols;
int x;
int y;
int y0;
int x0;
int input;

// Constants
const int MAX_LINES = 10;
const int MAX_COLUMNS = 10;

// Main function
int main(void) {
    WINDOW * mainWindow;

    // Initialize ncurses
    if ( (mainWindow = initscr()) == NULL) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Could not initialize ncurses!\n");
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    // Call function to use color
    start_color();

    // Create my own color pairs
    init_pair(1, COLOR_CYAN, COLOR_BLACK);
    init_pair(2, COLOR_BLUE, COLOR_RED);

    // First clear off the screen
    clear();

    // Move the cursor
    y = 8;
    x = 30;
    move(y, x);

    // Refresh
    refresh();

    // Test output - working
    // printw("Testing...");

    waddch(mainWindow, 'T' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(1));
    waddch(mainWindow, 'E' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(2));
    waddch(mainWindow, 'S' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(1));
    waddch(mainWindow, 'T' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(2));
    waddch(mainWindow, 'I' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(1));
    waddch(mainWindow, 'N' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(2));
    waddch(mainWindow, 'G' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(1));
    waddch(mainWindow, '.' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(2));
    waddch(mainWindow, '.' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(1));
    waddch(mainWindow, '.' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(1));
    waddch(mainWindow, '.' | A_UNDERLINE | COLOR_PAIR(2));

    // Make background a different color
    wattron(mainWindow, COLOR_BLACK);

    // Hold until user inputs a character
    input =  getch();

    // Clean up
    delwin(mainWindow);
    endwin();
    refresh();

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Answer 1

You need to call wbkgd(WINDOW *win, chtype ch)