#tui #user-interface #widgets #cross-platform #ensure #text-input #applications

simple_tui

SimpleTUI is a lightweight and cross-platform Text User Interface (TUI) library

2 releases

0.1.1 Dec 12, 2023
0.1.0 Dec 12, 2023

#1045 in GUI

MIT license

34KB
676 lines

SimpleTUI

SimpleTUI is a lightweight and cross-platform Text User Interface (TUI) library designed for simplicity and ease of use. Leveraging the powerful crossterm backend for input handling, SimpleTUI ensures a seamless cross-platform experience, making it an ideal choice for developers seeking a straightforward solution for building TUI applications.

Demo

OS: Windows 10 Pro

demo-gif

Features

  • Widget-Centric Design: Build your TUI applications using a widget-centric approach, where every component is a widget. This makes the library intuitive and developer-friendly.

  • Custom Widget: You can make your custom Widget easily.

  • Cross-Platform Compatibility: Leveraging the crossterm backend, simple_tui ensures consistent TUI behavior across different platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux.

  • Callback Support with on_click: Effortlessly handle user interactions with the on_click callback, enabling developers to create responsive and dynamic UIs.



Super Widgets

Super widgets are the widget that implement EventHandler trait; it will give them special capabilities:

  1. Start application (drawing on the screen)
  2. Render other widgets
  3. Handle mouse, keystrokes, and resize events

This approche might change in future. But for now this will keep everything simple ;P

Widgets:

Widget Description Status
vbox (sw) Vertical layout Available
hbox (sw) Horizontal layout Available
label Text display Available
button Button with on_click Available
input User text input Todo
paragraph Paragraph with title Todo
... more ... ...

(sw) Super Widget


Getting Started

use simple_tui::functions::*;

fn main() {
    hbox(    // Construct new Horizontal Layout `Super Widget`.

        // Macro: Vector of Widgets (implement AsWidget trait)
        widgets![ 
            label("مرحباََ")                      // Construct new lable widget with `ََمرحبا` text.
                .align(Alignment::Center)     // Center text.
                .wrap()                       // wrap around
        ]

    ).start(); // Calling start method to start the app.
}

Add your custom Widget

To add your custom widget you need to do some steps:

  1. add your widget into enum Widget

    enum Widget{
      ....
    MyWidget(MyWidgetStruct)
    }
    
  2. implement AsWidget for your widget.

    impl AsWidget for MyWidgetStruct {
        fn as_widget(self) -> Option<Widget>{
            Some(Widget::MyWidget(self))
        };
    }
    
  3. Your widget MUST have those methods and fields:

    struct CustomWidget{
        console: Console,
        rect: Rect
    }
    
      fn render(&mut self, rect: Rect) {
          // draw your Widget using the rect.
    
           // self.console.draw((rect.x, rect.y), "My custom widget!!!")
           // ...
    
          // after drawing you need to move rect to self.rect .
          // self.rect = rect
    }
    
      fn shape(&self) -> Rect { self.rect }
    

In future:

  • step 1, 2 will be dynamic.
  • step 3 you will implement CustomWidget trait for your custom widget.


Example Usage

Callbacks with on_click

use simple_tui::functions::*;

fn add_one(w: &mut Widget) -> &mut Widget {
    if let Widget::Lable(l) = w {
        let n = &l.text["Counter: ".len()..].parse::<usize>().unwrap();
        l.text = "Counter: ".to_string() + &(n + 1).to_string();
    }
    w
}

fn main() {
    vbox(widgets![
        lable("Counter: 0")
            .set_id(1337)
            .align(Alignment::Center)
            .wrap(),
        button("Click me!")
            .set_rid(1337)
            .on_click(|w| add_one(w))
    ])
    .start();
}

Horizontal Layout

use simple_tui::functions::*;

fn main() {
    hbox(
        widgets![
            label("Hello 1").align(Alignment::Left),
            label("Hello 2").align(Alignment::Center),
            label("Hello 3").align(Alignment::Right),
            label("Hello 4").align(Alignment::Left).wrap(),
            label("Hello 5").align(Alignment::Center).wrap(),
            label("Hello 6").align(Alignment::Right).wrap()
        ]
    )
    .start();
}

Vertical Layout

use simple_tui::functions::*;

fn main() {
    vbox(
        widgets![
            label("Hello 1").align(Alignment::Left),
            label("Hello 2").align(Alignment::Center),
            label("Hello 3").align(Alignment::Right),
            label("Hello 4").align(Alignment::Right).wrap(),
            label("Hello 5").align(Alignment::Center).wrap(),
            label("Hello 6").align(Alignment::Left).wrap()
        ]
    )
    .start();
}

Creating a Grid

use simple_tui::functions::*;

fn main() {
    vbox(widgets![
        hbox(widgets![
            label("Hello 1").align(Alignment::Right).wrap(),
            label("Hello 2").align(Alignment::Right).wrap(),
            label("Hello 3").align(Alignment::Left).wrap()
        ]),
        hbox(widgets![
            label("Hello 4").align(Alignment::Left).wrap(),
            label("Hello 5").align(Alignment::Center).wrap(),
            label("Hello 6").align(Alignment::Right).wrap()
        ]),
        hbox(widgets![
            label("Hello 7").align(Alignment::Right).wrap(),
            label("Hello 8").align(Alignment::Left).wrap(),
            label("Hello 9").align(Alignment::Left).wrap()
        ])
    ])
    .start();
}

Dependencies

~0.8–5.5MB
~20K SLoC