cpptui

still under heavy development

description

A minimal library for creating TUI applications. Uses macro magic (not intentionally, but it's needed to reduce code size and overcome some of c++ 's difficulties).

features

• minimal
• zero dependencies
• cross-platform (mostly?)
• c++11
• low-level
• performance: TODO

---

• colors
• styles
• raw mode
• alternate screen
• performant screen size query
• custom function for resize handling, NOTE: you should probably lock stdout, stdin when you use this feature, also, doesn't work on Windows

input

a pretty handy header with functions and types to improve reading input from stdin.

supported input:

• basic symbols, such as ['~', ';', '*', ...], but not ['$', '€', ...]
• Ctrl+alphabetical characters
• arrows
• Backspace, (Shift)Tab, Enter/Return, Delete, Page[Up,Down], Home,End, Insert,
• F[1,2,3,4] NOTE: the other F-keys are damn hard to implement, might be done in the future though
• basic characters, be it upper or lowercase, special ones like: ['ö', 'ä', 'á', ...] are safely ignored

coordinates

coords.hpp provides easy management of coordinates

usage

you could use poac:

poac new my-tui-app
cd my-tui-app
poac add "csboo/cpptui"

see examples, but basically just

#include "tui.hpp"
#include <utility> // for std::pair

using namespace tui::input;

int main() {
    tui::init(false);                       // alternate buffer, raw mode, no cursor
    auto screen_size = tui::screen::size(); // initially set

    const tui::string msg = "Hello Bello, TUI!"; // stylable extension of `std::string`
    const tui::string note = "press q or Ctrl+C to quit";

    Input input;                                      // this will handle special stuff like arrows, ctrl+c, ...
    while (input != SpecKey::CtrlC && input != 'q') { // main loop
        // NOTE: use `.size()` before styling, as it'd be completely crazy after applying styles
        // `msg` will be in the middle of the screen
        tui::cursor::set_position(screen_size.first / 2 - 1, screen_size.second / 2 - (msg.size() / 2));
        std::cout << msg.blue().link("https://github.com/csboo/cpptui").bold().underline();

        // `msg` will be in the middle of the screen
        tui::cursor::set_position(screen_size.first / 2 + 1, screen_size.second / 2 - (note.size() / 2));
        std::cout << note.on_rgb(106, 150, 137).rgb(148, 105, 117).italic().dim();

        std::cout.flush();
        input = Input::read(); // read into an `Input`
    }

    tui::reset(); // restore to where we came from
    return 0;
}

why

• see features
• for fun

non-goals

• mouse support
• huge number of widgets
• high level functions
• thousands of more features: just what's necessary

kinda alternatives

• crossterm: it's in Rust and (therefore) also a lot better

• Ratatui: Rust and the name speak for itself, uses crossterm

• FTXUI: pretty awesome indeed

• imtui: this guy is a c++ wizard

• tvision: not bad

• finalcut: super

• TermOx: astonishing

• AppCUI: wasn't built in a week for sure

• TUI: nice