arsd.terminal

Module for interacting with the user's terminal, including color output, cursor manipulation, and full-featured real-time mouse and keyboard input. Also includes high-level convenience methods, like Terminal.getline, which gives the user a line editor with history, completion, etc. See the examples.

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Members

Classes

FileLineGetter class FileLineGetter: This is a line getter that customizes the tab completion to fill in file names separated by spaces, like a command line thing.
LineGetter class LineGetter: FIXME: support lines that wrap FIXME: better controls maybe

Enums

Color enum Color: Defines the list of standard colors understood by Terminal.
ConsoleInputFlags enum ConsoleInputFlags: When capturing input, what events are you interested in?
ConsoleOutputType enum ConsoleOutputType: Defines how terminal output should be handled.
ForceOption enum ForceOption: Some methods will try not to send unnecessary commands to the screen. You can override their judgement using a ForceOption parameter, if present
ModifierState enum ModifierState

Functions

main void main(): View the source of this!

Mixin templates

LineGetterConstructors mixin template LineGetterConstructors(): Adds default constructors that just forward to the superclass

Static variables

hangedUp bool hangedUp;: similar to interrupted.
interrupted bool interrupted;: you might periodically check this in a long operation and abort if it is set. Remember it is volatile. It is also sent through the input event loop via RealTimeConsoleInput

Structs

CharacterEvent struct CharacterEvent
EndOfFileEvent struct EndOfFileEvent: Sent upon receiving end-of-file from stdin.
HangupEvent struct HangupEvent: If the user hangs up (for example, closes the terminal emulator without exiting the app), this is sent. If you receive it, you should generally cleanly exit.
InputEvent struct InputEvent: RealTimeConsoleInput.nextEvent returns one of these. Check the type, then use the get method to get the more detailed information about the event.
KeyboardEvent struct KeyboardEvent: The new style of keyboard event
MouseEvent struct MouseEvent: .
NonCharacterKeyEvent struct NonCharacterKeyEvent
PasteEvent struct PasteEvent: .
RGB struct RGB: Represents a 24-bit color.
RealTimeConsoleInput struct RealTimeConsoleInput: Encapsulates the stream of input events received from the terminal input.
ScrollbackBuffer struct ScrollbackBuffer
SizeChangedEvent struct SizeChangedEvent: When you get this, check terminal.width and terminal.height to see the new size and react accordingly.
Terminal struct Terminal: Encapsulates the I/O capabilities of a terminal.
UserInterruptionEvent struct UserInterruptionEvent: the user hitting ctrl+c will send this You should drop what you're doing and perhaps exit when this happens.

Detailed Description

The main interface for this module is the Terminal struct, which encapsulates the output functions and line-buffered input of the terminal, and RealTimeConsoleInput, which gives real time input.

Creating an instance of these structs will perform console initialization. When the struct goes out of scope, any changes in console settings will be automatically reverted.

Note: on Posix, it traps SIGINT and translates it into an input event. You should keep your event loop moving and keep an eye open for this to exit cleanly; simply break your event loop upon receiving a UserInterruptionEvent. (Without the signal handler, ctrl+c can leave your terminal in a bizarre state.)

As a user, if you have to forcibly kill your program and the event doesn't work, there's still ctrl+\

On Mac Terminal btw, a lot of hacks are needed and mouse support doesn't work. Most functions basically work now though.

Future Roadmap

The CharacterEvent and NonCharacterKeyEvent types will be removed. Instead, use KeyboardEvent on new programs.
The ScrollbackBuffer will be expanded to be easier to use to partition your screen. It might even handle input events of some sort. Its API may change.
getline I want to be really easy to use both for code and end users. It will need multi-line support eventually.
I might add an expandable event loop and base level widget classes. This may be Linux-specific in places and may overlap with similar functionality in simpledisplay.d. If I can pull it off without a third module, I want them to be compatible with each other too so the two modules can be combined easily. (Currently, they are both compatible with my eventloop.d and can be easily combined through it, but that is a third module.)
More advanced terminal features as functions, where available, like cursor changing and full-color functions.
The module will eventually be renamed to arsd.terminal.
More documentation.

WHAT I WON'T DO:

support everything under the sun. If it isn't default-installed on an OS I or significant number of other people might actually use, and isn't written by me, I don't really care about it. This means the only supported terminals are:
- xterm (and decently xterm compatible emulators like Konsole)
- Windows console
- rxvt (to a lesser extent)
- Linux console
- My terminal emulator family of applications https://github.com/adamdruppe/terminal-emulator
Anything else is cool if it does work, but I don't want to go out of my way for it.
Use other libraries, unless strictly optional. terminal.d is a stand-alone module by default and always will be.
Do a full TUI widget set. I might do some basics and lay a little groundwork, but a full TUI is outside the scope of this module (unless I can do it really small.)

Examples

This example will demonstrate the high-level getline interface.

The user will be able to type a line and navigate around it with cursor keys and even the mouse on some systems, as well as perform editing as they expect (e.g. the backspace and delete keys work normally) until they press enter. Then, the final line will be returned to your program, which the example will simply print back to the user.

1 import arsd.terminal;
2 
3 void main() {
4 	auto terminal = Terminal(ConsoleOutputType.linear);
5 	string line = terminal.getline();
6 	terminal.writeln("You wrote: ", line);
7 }

This example demonstrates color output, using Terminal.color and the output functions like Terminal.writeln.

1 import arsd.terminal;
2 void main() {
3 	auto terminal = Terminal(ConsoleOutputType.linear);
4 	terminal.color(Color.green, Color.black);
5 	terminal.writeln("Hello world, in green on black!");
6 	terminal.color(Color.DEFAULT, Color.DEFAULT);
7 	terminal.writeln("And back to normal.");
8 }