Bug#1128961: xterm: selection not fully cleared after text changes

On 2026-04-20 19:50:47 -0400, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> ncurses is given an old/current and new/desired screen contents, and
> writes the updated screen using as few characters as possible (within
> its repertoire of course).  So it may move text that's already on the
> screen if moving it takes fewer characters than writing it again.

Optimizing the number of characters to change was useful in the past,
e.g. with slow modem connections. But this has nowadays negligible
effects (taking into account that ncurses applications are interactive).
And since this can break features provided by the terminal, such as
whether the selection would be preserved, this optimization should
be dropped, IMHO; or there should be an option to choose whether to
enable it.