docs/032_announcement.txt

   1 Jexer 0.3.2 Release
   2 ===================
   3
   4 I am pleased to announce the release of Jexer 0.3.2.  This release
   5 completes nearly every feature I set out to make, and is the last
   6 major milestone before 1.0.0.
   7
   8 Jexer is not an application itself, but rather an advanced text
   9 windowing system framework to help new applications take full
  10 advantage of the terminal.  Its major features are:
  11
  12   * MIT licensed.
  13
  14   * Direct support for xterm-like terminals: mouse, keyboard, 24-bit
  15     RGB color, UTF-8, fullwidth characters (CJK and emoji), and sixel
  16     images.
  17
  18   * A Swing-based GUI window that ships with a good-looking Terminus
  19     font.
  20
  21   * Sixel image support, for both input in its terminal window and
  22     output to the host terminal.  Jexer is (to my knowledge) the first
  23     and only system capable of managing multiple terminal windows
  24     displaying properly overlapping images.
  25
  26   * Draggable / resizable windows, menu bar, and system-modal dialogs
  27     (message/input boxes and filename picker).
  28
  29   * A full complement of widgets: button, text field, checkbox,
  30     combobox, list, radio button, scrollbars, data table, calendar
  31     picker, progress bar, text display, and simple text editor.  Plus
  32     layout manager support for resizable widgets and windows.
  33
  34   * A terminal window capable of passing "vttest" (including VT100
  35     double-width / double-height), and supporting all of Jexer's
  36     features.  Jexer can run inside itself, with full keyboard, mouse,
  37     and image support.
  38
  39   * Extensively documented in the code (Javadoc), a wiki, and ships
  40     with a demonstration application showing off all of its available
  41     widgets.
  42
  43
  44 Find out more at the Jexer Sourceforge or GitLab project pages:
  45
  46   * https://jexer.sourceforge.io/
  47
  48   * https://gitlab.com/klamonte/jexer
  49
  50
  51 Download
  52 --------
  53
  54 GitLab: git clone https://gitlab.com/klamonte/jexer.git
  55
  56 Binary downloads: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2829121
  57
  58 On Maven:
  59
  60     group: com.gitlab.klamonte
  61     artifact: jexer
  62     version: 0.3.2
  63
  64
  65 Ugh, Java Sucks!
  66 ----------------
  67
  68 (Thor squint) But does it though?
  69
  70 More seriously, I initially picked D because it was sexy.  But D circa
  71 2013 brought too many headaches for me, so I switched to Java because
  72 I wanted a cross-platform standard library that would be stable over
  73 many years.  And Java is OK, it is a solid workhorse that gets the job
  74 done.
  75
  76 Yet in porting my initial work to Java I stumbled upon an unexpected
  77 benefit: I found ways to accomplish all of what Jexer does _without
  78 calling C directly_.  No termios, no ncurses, no forkpty(), and thus
  79 no serious hurdles porting it to anything that can spawn programs and
  80 read their output.  On Linux, BSD, or OSX, all you need is 'stty' and
  81 'script' to make things work.  (And if you want resizable terminal
  82 windows, add 'ptypipe'.)
  83
  84 So for those who want something like Jexer but in your own favorite
  85 language, I encourage you to check out the [Porting
  86 Jexer](https://gitlab.com/klamonte/jexer/wikis/porting) page on the
  87 wiki: it has pointers to where the key features are, and a potential
  88 roadmap if you wanted to take part or all of it into your own hands.
  89 I licensed Jexer as MIT, stuck with simple Java 1.6, and thoroughly
  90 documented it in the hope that fans of other languages could more
  91 easily create or enhance their own text user interfaces.