X-Git-Url: http://git.nikiroo.be/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=README.md;h=60b666a211fb97c48fb799b8406b43921b3d7580;hb=9c238a4be4c64ef7e651c722fd66edcd92f6cb57;hp=11e09c34f4abc63564e2b4fb21e413f495769b10;hpb=7272e49f35db74caa16eead38aa39a80bb9fc641;p=nikiroo-utils.git diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 11e09c3..60b666a 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -1,118 +1,419 @@ Jexer - Java Text User Interface library ======================================== -This library is currently in design, but when finished it is intended -to implement a text-based windowing system loosely reminiscient of -Borland's [Turbo Vision](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Vision) -library. For those wishing to use the actual C++ Turbo Vision -library, see [Sergio Sigala's updated -version](http://tvision.sourceforge.net/) that runs on many more -platforms. +This library implements a text-based windowing system loosely +reminiscient of Borland's [Turbo +Vision](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Vision) system. (For those +wishing to use the actual C++ Turbo Vision library, see [Sergio +Sigala's C++ version based on the sources released by +Borland,](http://tvision.sourceforge.net/) or consider Free Pascal's +[Free Vision library.](http://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision)) + +Jexer currently supports three backends: + +* System.in/out to a command-line ECMA-48 / ANSI X3.64 type terminal + (tested on Linux + xterm). I/O is handled through terminal escape + sequences generated by the library itself: ncurses is not required + or linked to. xterm mouse tracking is supported using both UTF8 and + SGR coordinates. Images are optionally rendered via sixel graphics + (see jexer.ECMA48.sixel). For the demo application, this is the + default backend on non-Windows/non-Mac platforms. + +* The same command-line ECMA-48 / ANSI X3.64 type terminal as above, + but to any general InputStream/OutputStream or Reader/Writer. See + the file jexer.demos.Demo2 for an example of running the demo over a + TCP (telnet) socket. jexer.demos.Demo3 demonstrates how one might + use a character encoding than the default UTF-8. + +* Java Swing UI. The default window size for Swing is 80x25 and 20 + point font; this can be changed in the TApplication(BackendType) + constructor. For the demo applications, this is the default backend + on Windows and Mac platforms. This backend can be explicitly + selected for the demo applications by setting jexer.Swing=true. + +Additional backends can be created by subclassing +jexer.backend.Backend and passing it into the TApplication +constructor. See Demo5 and Demo6 for examples of other backends. + +The Jexer homepage, which includes additional information and binary +release downloads, is at: https://jexer.sourceforge.io . The Jexer +source code is hosted at: https://gitlab.com/klamonte/jexer . + License ------- -This library is licensed LGPL ("GNU Lesser General Public License") -version 3 or greater. See the file LICENSE for the full license text, -which includes both the GPL v3 and the LGPL supplemental terms. +This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the file LICENSE +for the full license text. + + +Maven +----- + +Jexer is available on Maven Central: + +```xml + + com.gitlab.klamonte + jexer + 0.3.0 + +``` + + + +Acknowledgements +---------------- + +Jexer makes use of the Terminus TrueType font [made available +here](http://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/) . + Usage ----- -The library is currently under initial development, usage patterns are -still being worked on. Generally the goal will be to build -applications somewhat as follows: +Simply subclass TApplication and then run it in a new thread: ```Java import jexer.*; -public class MyApplication extends TApplication { +class MyApplication extends TApplication { - public MyApplication() { - super(); - - // Create an editor window that has support for - // copy/paste, search text, arrow keys, horizontal - // and vertical scrollbar, etc. - addEditor(); + public MyApplication() throws Exception { + super(BackendType.SWING); // Could also use BackendType.XTERM // Create standard menus for File and Window addFileMenu(); addWindowMenu(); + + // Add a custom window, see below for its code. The TWindow + // constructor will add it to this application. + new MyWindow(this); } - public static void main(String [] args) { + public static void main(String [] args) throws Exception { MyApplication app = new MyApplication(); - app.run(); + (new Thread(app)).start(); } } ``` +Similarly, subclass TWindow and add some widgets: -Roadmap -------- +```Java +class MyWindow extends TWindow { + + public MyWindow(TApplication application) { + // See TWindow's API for several constructors. This one uses the + // application, title, width, and height. Note that the window width + // and height include the borders. The widgets inside the window + // will see (0, 0) as the top-left corner inside the borders, + // i.e. what the window would see as (1, 1). + super(application, "My Window", 30, 20); + + // See TWidget's API for convenience methods to add various kinds of + // widgets. Note that ANY widget can be a container for other + // widgets: TRadioGroup for example has TRadioButtons as child + // widgets. + + // We will add a basic label, text entry field, and button. + addLabel("This is a label", 5, 3); + addField(5, 5, 20, false, "enter text here"); + // For the button, we will pop up a message box if the user presses + // it. + addButton("Press &Me!", 5, 8, new TAction() { + public void DO() { + MyWindow.this.messageBox("Box Title", "You pressed me, yay!"); + } + } ); + } +} +``` + +Put these into a file, compile it with jexer.jar in the classpath, run +it and you'll see an application like this: + +![The Example Code Above](/screenshots/readme_application.png?raw=true "The application in the text of README.md") + + + +More Examples +------------- + +The examples/ folder currently contains: + + * A [prototype tiling window + manager](/examples/JexerTilingWindowManager.java) in less than 250 + lines of code. + + * A [prototype image thumbnail + viewer](/examples/JexerImageViewer.java) in less than 350 lines of + code. + +jexer.demos contains official demos showing all of the existing UI +controls. The demos can be run as follows: + + * 'java -jar jexer.jar' . This will use System.in/out with + xterm-like sequences on non-Windows non-Mac platforms. On Windows + and Mac it will use a Swing JFrame. + + * 'java -Djexer.Swing=true -jar jexer.jar' . This will always use + Swing on any platform. + + * 'java -cp jexer.jar jexer.demos.Demo2 PORT' (where PORT is a + number to run the TCP daemon on). This will use the telnet + protocol to establish an 8-bit clean channel and be aware of + screen size changes. + + * 'java -cp jexer.jar jexer.demos.Demo3' . This will use + System.in/out with xterm-like sequences. One can see in the code + how to pass a different InputReader and OutputReader to + TApplication, permitting a different encoding than UTF-8. + + * 'java -cp jexer.jar jexer.demos.Demo4' . This demonstrates hidden + windows and a custom TDesktop. + + * 'java -cp jexer.jar jexer.demos.Demo5' . This demonstrates two + demo applications using different fonts in the same Swing frame. + + * 'java -cp jexer.jar jexer.demos.Demo6' . This demonstrates two + applications performing I/O across three screens: an xterm screen + and Swing screen, monitored from a third Swing screen. + + + +More Screenshots +---------------- + +![Several Windows Open Including A Terminal](/screenshots/screenshot1.png?raw=true "Several Windows Open Including A Terminal") + +![Yo Dawg...](/screenshots/yodawg.png?raw=true "Yo Dawg, I heard you like text windowing systems, so I ran a text windowing system inside your text windowing system so you can have a terminal in your terminal.") + +![Sixel Pictures Of Cliffs Of Moher And Buoy](/screenshots/sixel_images.png?raw=true "Sixel Pictures Of Cliffs Of Moher And Buoy") + +![Sixel Color Wheel](/screenshots/sixel_color_wheel.png?raw=true "Sixel Color Wheel") + + +Terminal Support +---------------- + +The table below lists terminals tested against Jexer's ECMA48/Xterm +backend. + +| Terminal | Environment | Mouse Click | Mouse Cursor | Images | +| -------------- | ------------------ | ----------- | ------------ | ------ | +| xterm | X11 | yes | yes | yes | +| lcxterm | CLI, Linux console | yes | yes | no | +| rxvt-unicode | X11 | yes | yes | no | +| alacritty(3) | X11 | yes | yes | no | +| gnome-terminal | X11 | yes | yes | no | +| xfce4-terminal | X11 | yes | yes | no | +| aminal(3) | X11 | yes | no | no | +| konsole | X11 | yes | no | no | +| yakuake | X11 | yes | no | no | +| screen | CLI | no(1) | no | no(2) | +| tmux | CLI | no(1) | no | no | +| putty | X11, Windows | yes | no | no(2) | +| Linux | Linux console | no | no | no(2) | +| qodem(3) | CLI, Linux console | yes | yes(4) | no | +| qodem-x11(3) | CLI | yes | no | no | + +1 - Passes mouse to its host console, so will support mouse if the +host console does. + +2 - Also fails to filter out sixel data, leaving garbage on screen. + +3 - Latest in repository. + +4 - Requires TERM=xterm-1003 before starting. + + + +System Properties +----------------- + +The following properties control features of Jexer: + + jexer.Swing + ----------- + + Used only by jexer.demos.Demo1 and jexer.demos.Demo4. If true, use + the Swing interface for the demo application. Default: true on + Windows (os.name starts with "Windows") and Mac (os.name starts with + "Mac"), false on non-Windows and non-Mac platforms. + + jexer.Swing.cursorStyle + ----------------------- + + Used by jexer.backend.SwingTerminal. Selects the cursor style to + draw. Valid values are: underline, block, outline. Default: + underline. + + jexer.Swing.tripleBuffer + ------------------------ + + Used by jexer.backend.SwingTerminal. If true, use triple-buffering + which reduces screen tearing but may also be slower to draw on + slower systems. If false, use naive Swing thread drawing, which may + be faster on slower systems but also more likely to have screen + tearing. Default: true. + + jexer.TTerminal.ptypipe + ----------------------- + + Used by jexer.TTerminalWindow. If true, spawn shell using the + 'ptypipe' utility rather than 'script'. This permits terminals to + resize with the window. ptypipe is a separate C language utility, + available at https://gitlab.com/klamonte/ptypipe. Default: false. + + jexer.TTerminal.closeOnExit + --------------------------- + + Used by jexer.TTerminalWindow. If true, close the window when the + spawned shell exits. Default: false. + + jexer.ECMA48.rgbColor + --------------------- + + Used by jexer.backend.ECMA48Terminal. If true, emit T.416-style RGB + colors for normal system colors. This is expensive in bandwidth, + and potentially terrible looking for non-xterms. Default: false. + + jexer.ECMA48.sixel + ------------------ + + Used by jexer.backend.ECMA48Terminal. If true, emit image data + using sixel, otherwise show blank cells where images could be. This + is expensive in bandwidth, very expensive in CPU (especially for + large images), and will leave artifacts on the screen if the + terminal does not support sixel. Default: true. + + + +Known Issues / Arbitrary Decisions +---------------------------------- + +Some arbitrary design decisions had to be made when either the +obviously expected behavior did not happen or when a specification was +ambiguous. This section describes such issues. + + - See jexer.tterminal.ECMA48 for more specifics of terminal + emulation limitations. + + - TTerminalWindow uses cmd.exe on Windows. Output will not be seen + until enter is pressed, due to cmd.exe's use of line-oriented + input (see the ENABLE_LINE_INPUT flag for GetConsoleMode() and + SetConsoleMode()). + + - TTerminalWindow by default launches 'script -fqe /dev/null' or + 'script -q -F /dev/null' on non-Windows platforms. This is a + workaround for the C library behavior of checking for a tty: + script launches $SHELL in a pseudo-tty. This works on Linux and + Mac but might not on other Posix-y platforms. + + - Closing a TTerminalWindow without exiting the process inside it + may result in a zombie 'script' process. + + - When using the Swing backend, and not using 'ptypipe', closing a + TTerminalWindow without exiting the process inside it may result + in a SIGTERM to the JVM causing it to crash. The root cause is + currently unknown, but is potentially a bug in more recent + releases of the 'script' utility from the util-linux package. + + - TTerminalWindow can only notify the child process of changes in + window size if using the 'ptypipe' utility, due to Java's lack of + support for forkpty() and similar. ptypipe is available at + https://gitlab.com/klamonte/ptypipe. + + - Java's InputStreamReader as used by the ECMA48 backend requires a + valid UTF-8 stream. The default X10 encoding for mouse + coordinates outside (160,94) can corrupt that stream, at best + putting garbage keyboard events in the input queue but at worst + causing the backend reader thread to throw an Exception and exit + and make the entire UI unusable. Mouse support therefore requires + a terminal that can deliver either UTF-8 coordinates (1005 mode) + or SGR coordinates (1006 mode). Most modern terminals can do + this. + + - jexer.session.TTYSession calls 'stty size' once every second to + check the current window size, performing the same function as + ioctl(TIOCGWINSZ) but without requiring a native library. + + - jexer.backend.ECMA48Terminal calls 'stty' to perform the + equivalent of cfmakeraw() when using System.in/out. System.out is + also (blindly!) put in 'stty sane cooked' mode when exiting. + + - jexer.backend.ECMA48Terminal uses a single palette containing + MAX_COLOR_REGISTERS colors for all sixel images. These colors are + generated in the SixelPalette.makePalette() method with bits for + hue, saturation, and luminance, and the two extremes set to pure + black and pure white. This provides a reasonable general-purpose + palette light on CPU, but at a cost that individual images do not + look as good as the terminal is actually capable of. + + + +See Also +-------- + +[Tranquil Java IDE](https://tjide.sourceforge.io) is a TUI-based +integrated development environment for the Java language that was +built using a very lightly modified GPL version of Jexer. TJ provided +a real-world use case to shake out numerous bugs and limitations of +Jexer. + + + +Maintainers Wanted +------------------ + +Both Jexer and TJIDE are seeking additional maintainers. I am not in +a position in life to take on significant off-hours programming work, +and am willing to hand these projects over to one or more persons with +time and interest. + +My personal code design philosophy for TJIDE/Jexer is outlined at +https://gitlab.com/klamonte/tjide/blob/master/java/docs/code_design.txt +. I realize that some of the features listed below may require +deviations from this philosophy, but this is what I have built so far. + +Some of the areas that will likely require significant efforts are: + + * Editor improvements. The editor is currently very minimalistic, + much closer to MS-DOS edit.com than a real programmer's editor. + Users will probably desire many more features: drag-and-drop, real + syntax or at least regexp highlighting (not just keywords), paren + matching, paragraph/comment reflow, and dozens more. The + underlying Document/Line/Word model is not going to be sufficient + to meet these features. + + * Better Windows and OSX support. It would be nice to ship a + jlink'ed JVM on these platforms with the JRE, JDK, and JPDA + modules all together. For Windows, it might be preferable to + consider doing any of the following: ship a third-party terminal, + use PowerShell, or use the newer ConPTY for TTerminalWindow. + + * Bug fixes. The Jexer codebase is quite large despite my best + efforts. Bugs are typically very small to fix, but can take some + time to find: a simple NPE or AssertionError can sometimes take + 4-8 hours to squash. Fortunately, fixing issues in one place has + not often led to breakages elsewhere. + + * New Jexer applications. So far as I know, Jexer is the only + mouse-supporting full TUI windowing framework with sixel image + support in existence. I cannot predict what kinds of applications + could be built out of it, and how those needs will push back to + the framework. + +These are what I can clearly see right now. Obviously users are +capable of finding many more. + +I intend to continue poking on Jexer and TJIDE, and will maintain a +branch to be "the fastest and simplest Java language IDE available", +which will deliberately remain small. -Many tasks remain before calling this version 1.0: - -0.0.1: - -- TDirectoryList -- TField -- TMessageBox -- TProgressBar -- TTimer -- TRadioGroup / TRadioButton -- THScroller / TVScroller -- TText -- TTreeView - -0.0.2: - -- TEditor -- TFileOpen -- TTerminal - -0.0.3: - -- Bugs - - TSubMenu keyboard mnemonic not working - - kbDel assertion failure in TMenu (MID_CLEAR) -- TEditor - - Word wrap - - Forward/backward word - - Search - - Replace - - Cut/Copy/Paste - -0.0.4: - -- ECMATerminal - - Mouse 1006 mode parsing -- Bugs - - TDirectoryList cannot be navigated only with keyboard - - TTreeView cannot be navigated only with keyboard - - RangeViolation after dragging scrollbar up/down - -Wishlist features (2.0): - -- TTerminal - - Handle resize events (pass to child process) - - xterm mouse handling -- TWindow - - "Smart placement" for new windows -- Screen - - Allow complex characters in putCharXY() and detect them in putStrXY(). -- TComboBox -- TListBox -- TSpinner -- TCalendar widget -- TColorPicker widget -- Drag and drop - - TEditor - - TField - - TText - - TTerminal - - TComboBox -- AWTBackend +I hope that other languages choose to transliterate Jexer to provide +TUIs to their own platforms. I will be happy to help them understand +the code to support those efforts.