CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jscommand-line-interface
Donovan_DMC
Donovan_DMC

Reputation: 175

How to format the terminal window node is using to be in sections

I'm wanting to make an application with node have a cli interface, as it needs to be ran in a terminal. I want to split the terminal into several sections, one with some identification as to who is viewing the application, another with some other random info, a menu on the side that you can use the arrow keys to move up and down the options, a main logs section, and another that you can type, and press enter to send text in. I've drawn up a little diagram of how I want to make it: (I know this looks awful, it was made in mspaint)
diagram

I've gotten the console input part working by using the readline module, but I don't even know where to really start with designing the terminal how I want it, setting text in certain sections, etc. I've looked around at things like terminal-kit, and clci, but either they didn't seem like what I wanted, or their docs/examples were a mess.

I would prefer to do this with node only, not using another application in another language, as all of the stuff going to the console sections will be from the same node application.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 642

Answers (1)

user7269511
user7269511

Reputation:

I found the blessed library at https://github.com/chjj/blessed. It is based on the ncurses library (written in C, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncurses) and it allows you to create different sections with specified heights, widths, etc. in different areas of the terminal. Very useful in theory, and you can follow the advice on the github page, clone the repo into your desktop, look into the test folder, and then run the different files ie. node test/widget-form.js to see the different types of interfaces that you can create in your terminal.

It hasn't really worked for me, because it keeps crashing on my end, but I see that there are a lot of open pull requests and that people are still trying, so it might be working for some, although I think that the usage for some "widgets" is limited. The next best thing I can recommend is either blessed-contrib or neo-blessed, the former being developed by some dude from Facebook. Blessed-contrib is newer so you might have more luck with it, but it's essentially made for visual output, so you'd be able to create a section for a log, a selection menu, a paragraph section, etc. but nothing to create an area where you can input text (so 4/5 of what you need), based on my reading of the documentation, which you'll find here https://github.com/yaronn/blessed-contrib.

I personally think it's dope. Good luck with it, I'm going through the motions of understanding the documentation better myself, and I've delved pretty deeply in it, so feel free to reach out if you need any help.

On another note, let me know if you've found anything else other than the resources I mentioned, which would be very helpful for me, as the alternative right now is for me to code the text user interface myself using C and the ncurses library, which I'm trying to avoid if it's unnecessary :)

EDIT:

I found something for you and for me that might send us in the right direction. Good news. This is the gitter-cli. It uses the library I mentioned above blessed. If you clone the gitter-cli's repo, follow the instructions to get a token and create an account, and join one of the rooms (you can find the name of the rooms like 'gitterHQ/javascript' on the gitter.im website), you'll see that the chat works. There might be some optimizations I'm not aware of, but I recommend just delving into their code while also delving into the blessed documentation to understand how it works. It should give you an idea of what to do next.

It took me a lot of hours to find all these different resources and connect the dots so you should definitely check them out.

Upvotes: 2

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