Demo Showcase

A comprehensive demonstration of charmed_rust capabilities—showcasing bubbletea, lipgloss, bubbles, glamour, huh, harmonica, and charmed_log in a single multi-page TUI application.

TL;DR

The Problem: It’s hard to evaluate a TUI framework without a complete, real-world application that exercises the full stack.

The Solution: The demo showcase is the canonical integration app for charmed_rust. It wires every major crate together and provides a single, consistent place to verify behavior, styling, and interaction.

Why Use the Showcase

• Integration proof: validates real-world composition across crates.
• Reference UX: shows recommended patterns for navigation and theming.
• Test harness: headless self-check mode for CI validation.

Installation

Run from source (recommended while developing):

cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase

Install the binary:

cargo install charmed-demo-showcase

Role in the charmed_rust (FrankenTUI) stack

The demo showcase is the integration test and visual reference application for the entire ecosystem. It wires together nearly every crate in the stack to prove real-world composition, exercise themes, and validate behavior under actual interaction. It is the fastest way to see how the pieces fit together.

Crates.io package

Package name: charmed-demo-showcase
Binary name: charmed-demo-showcase

Quick Start

# Run the showcase
cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase

# Run with a specific theme
cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase -- --theme dracula

# Run with deterministic data (same seed = same demo data)
cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase -- --seed 42

# Run headless self-check (for CI)
cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase -- --self-check

CLI Options

SSH Mode

Run the showcase as an SSH server, allowing remote connections to your TUI application. This demonstrates the wish crate's SSH server capabilities.

Quick Start (SSH)

# 1. Generate a host key (one-time setup)
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ./demo_host_key -N ""

# 2. Start the SSH server with password authentication
cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase --features ssh -- ssh \
  --host-key ./demo_host_key \
  --password demo123

# 3. Connect from another terminal
ssh -p 2222 -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no localhost
# Enter password: demo123

SSH CLI Options

Authentication Modes

Password Authentication (recommended for demos):

# Any username, specific password
cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase --features ssh -- ssh \
  --host-key ./demo_host_key \
  --password secret123

# Specific username + password
cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase --features ssh -- ssh \
  --host-key ./demo_host_key \
  --username demo \
  --password secret123

Environment Variables (for deployment):

export DEMO_SSH_PASSWORD=secret123
export DEMO_SSH_USERNAME=demo  # optional
cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase --features ssh -- ssh --host-key ./demo_host_key

No Authentication (development only):

# WARNING: Accepts ALL connections!
cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase --features ssh -- ssh \
  --host-key ./demo_host_key \
  --no-auth

Host Key Setup

SSH requires a host key to identify the server. Generate one with:

# Generate ED25519 key (recommended)
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ./demo_host_key -N ""

# Or RSA key (wider compatibility)
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ./demo_host_key -N ""

Required permissions: The host key file must be readable by the server:

chmod 600 ./demo_host_key      # Private key
chmod 644 ./demo_host_key.pub  # Public key (optional)

Troubleshooting SSH

Session Tracking

The SSH server logs session information:

• Session start: username, session number, active count
• Session end: username, duration, remaining active sessions

Example log output:

INFO  Session started user="demo" session_num=1 active_sessions=1
INFO  Session ended user="demo" duration_secs=45.2 active_sessions=0

Pages

The showcase includes 8 interactive pages:

Keybindings

Global

Help Overlay

Jobs Page

Logs Page

Docs Page

Settings Page

Testing

Unit Tests

# Run all demo_showcase tests
cargo test -p charmed-demo-showcase

# Run specific page tests
cargo test -p charmed-demo-showcase -- jobs
cargo test -p charmed-demo-showcase -- logs
cargo test -p charmed-demo-showcase -- docs

Self-Check Mode

The --self-check flag runs a headless validation that:

• Creates the app without a TTY
• Renders all pages
• Verifies no panics occur

cargo run -p charmed-demo-showcase -- --self-check

Output on success:

Running self-check...
✓ App creates successfully
✓ View renders (10 chars)
✓ Jobs page renders
✓ Logs page renders
✓ Docs page renders
✓ Dashboard page renders
✓ Self-check passed (4 pages validated)

E2E Tests

E2E tests use the E2ETestRunner harness for scenario-based testing:

# Run E2E smoke tour
cargo test -p charmed-demo-showcase -- e2e_smoke_tour

# Run with verbose output
cargo test -p charmed-demo-showcase -- e2e_smoke_tour --nocapture

Artifacts are written to target/demo_showcase_e2e/<scenario>/<run_id>/:

• summary.txt — Test results and timeline
• frames/ — Captured terminal frames
• logs/ — Exported log files

Environment Variables for Testing

Feature Coverage Matrix

This table shows which charmed_rust features are demonstrated and tested:

Manual-Only Checks

Some features require manual testing:

• Mouse drag — Table column resize, viewport scroll
• SSH mode — See SSH Mode section for setup
• Terminal resize — Responsive layout reflow
• Theme file loading — Custom TOML/JSON/YAML themes
• High-DPI rendering — Visual inspection on HiDPI displays

Architecture

demo_showcase/
├── src/
│   ├── app.rs          # Main App model, routing, chrome
│   ├── pages/          # Page models (Dashboard, Jobs, Logs, etc.)
│   ├── components/     # Reusable UI components
│   ├── data/           # Domain models, simulation, actions
│   ├── theme.rs        # Theme system with presets
│   ├── keymap.rs       # Keybinding definitions
│   ├── messages.rs     # Message types for routing
│   ├── config.rs       # CLI config and env mapping
│   ├── ssh.rs          # SSH server mode (feature: ssh)
│   └── test_support.rs # E2E testing harness
└── assets/
    ├── docs/           # Embedded markdown documentation
    └── fixtures/       # Test fixtures and sample data

Exports

The showcase supports exporting content:

In E2E mode (DEMO_SHOWCASE_E2E=1), exports go to target/demo_showcase_e2e/logs/.

About Contributions

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I do not accept outside contributions for any of my projects. I simply don't have the mental bandwidth to review anything, and it's my name on the thing, so I'm responsible for any problems it causes; thus, the risk-reward is highly asymmetric from my perspective. I'd also have to worry about other "stakeholders," which seems unwise for tools I mostly make for myself for free. Feel free to submit issues, and even PRs if you want to illustrate a proposed fix, but know I won't merge them directly. Instead, I'll have Claude or Codex review submissions via gh and independently decide whether and how to address them. Bug reports in particular are welcome. Sorry if this offends, but I want to avoid wasted time and hurt feelings. I understand this isn't in sync with the prevailing open-source ethos that seeks community contributions, but it's the only way I can move at this velocity and keep my sanity.

License

MIT. See LICENSE at the repository root.