Jexer - Java Text User Interface library
========================================
-This library implements a text-based windowing system 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 public domain
-sources released by Borland.](http://tvision.sourceforge.net/) )
+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 using UTF8 and SGR coordinates
- are supported. For the demo application, this is the default
- backend on non-Windows platforms.
+ 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 socket. jexer.demos.Demo3 demonstrates how one might use a
- character encoding than the default UTF-8.
+ TCP (telnet) socket. jexer.demos.Demo3 demonstrates how one might
+ use a character encoding than the default UTF-8.
-* Java Swing UI. This backend can be selected by setting
- jexer.Swing=true. The default window size for Swing is 132x40,
- which is set in jexer.session.SwingSession. For the demo
- application, this is the default backend on Windows platforms.
+* 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.
+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 .
addFileMenu();
addWindowMenu();
- // Add a custom window, see below for its code.
- addWindow(new MyWindow(this));
+ // 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) {
See the files in jexer.demos for many more detailed examples showing
-all of the existing UI controls. The demo can be run in three
-different ways:
+all of the existing UI controls. The available demos can be run as
+follows:
* 'java -jar jexer.jar' . This will use System.in/out with
- xterm-like sequences on non-Windows platforms. On Windows it will
- use a Swing JFrame.
+ 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.
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 one
+ application performing I/O to two screens: an xterm screen and a
+ Swing screen.
+
More Screenshots
+
+
+
+
System Properties
jexer.Swing
-----------
- Used only by jexer.demos.Demo1. If true, use the Swing interface
- for the demo application. Default: true on Windows platforms
- (os.name starts with "Windows"), false on non-Windows platforms.
+ 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.io.SwingScreen. Selects the cursor style to draw.
- Valid values are: underline, block, outline. Default: underline.
+ 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.
obviously expected behavior did not happen or when a specification was
ambiguous. This section describes such issues.
- - TTerminalWindow will hang on input from the remote if the
- TApplication is exited before the TTerminalWindow's process has
- closed on its own. This is due to a Java limitation/interaction
- between blocking reads (which is necessary to get UTF8 translation
- correct) and file streams.
-
- See jexer.tterminal.ECMA48 for more specifics of terminal
emulation limitations.
input (see the ENABLE_LINE_INPUT flag for GetConsoleMode() and
SetConsoleMode()).
- - TTerminalWindow launches 'script -fqe /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 but might not on other Posix-y platforms.
+ - 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
check the current window size, performing the same function as
ioctl(TIOCGWINSZ) but without requiring a native library.
- - jexer.io.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.
-
-
-
-Roadmap
--------
-
-Many tasks remain before calling this version 1.0:
-
-0.0.4
-
-- TStatusBar
-- TEditor
-- TWindow
- - "Smart placement" for new windows
-
-0.0.5: BUG HUNT
+ - 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.
-- Swing performance. Even with double buffering it isn't great.
+ - 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.
-0.1.0: BETA RELEASE
-- TSpinner
-- TComboBox
-- TCalendar
-Wishlist features (2.0):
+See Also
+--------
-- TTerminal
- - Handle resize events (pass to child process)
-- Screen
- - Allow complex characters in putCharXY() and detect them in putStringXY().
-- Drag and drop
- - TEditor
- - TField
- - TText
- - TTerminal
- - TComboBox
+[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.
git://git.nikiroo.be / fanfix.git / blobdiff