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
+reminiscent of Borland's [Turbo
+Vision](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Vision) system. It looks
+like this:
-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.
+Jexer works on both Xterm-like terminals and Swing, and supports
+images in both Xterm and Swing. On Swing, images are true color:
-* 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.
+
-* 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.
+On Xterm, images are dithered to a common palette:
-Additional backends can be created by subclassing
-jexer.backend.Backend and passing it into the TApplication
-constructor.
+
License
-------
-This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the file LICENSE
+Jexer is available to all under the MIT License. See the file LICENSE
for the full license text.
-Acknowledgements
-----------------
+Obtaining Jexer
+---------------
-Jexer makes use of the Terminus TrueType font [made available
-here](http://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/) .
+Jexer is available on Maven Central:
+```xml
+<dependency>
+ <groupId>com.gitlab.klamonte</groupId>
+ <artifactId>jexer</artifactId>
+ <version>0.3.2</version>
+</dependency>
+```
+Binary releases are available on SourceForge:
+https://sourceforge.net/projects/jexer/files/jexer/
-Usage
------
+The Jexer source code is hosted at: https://gitlab.com/klamonte/jexer
-Simply subclass TApplication and then run it in a new thread:
-```Java
-import jexer.*;
-class MyApplication extends TApplication {
+Documentation
+-------------
- public MyApplication() throws Exception {
- super(BackendType.SWING); // Could also use BackendType.XTERM
+* [Java API Docs](https://jexer.sourceforge.io/apidocs/api/index.html)
- // Create standard menus for File and Window
- addFileMenu();
- addWindowMenu();
+* [Wiki](https://gitlab.com/klamonte/jexer/wikis/home)
- // Add a custom window, see below for its code.
- addWindow(new MyWindow(this));
- }
+* [Jexer web page](https://jexer.sourceforge.io/)
- public static void main(String [] args) {
- try {
- MyApplication app = new MyApplication();
- (new Thread(app)).start();
- } catch (Throwable t) {
- t.printStackTrace();
- }
- }
-}
-```
-Similarly, subclass TWindow and add some widgets:
-
-```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:
+Programming Examples
+--------------------
+
+The examples/ folder currently contains:
+
+ * A [prototype tiling window
+ manager](/examples/JexerTilingWindowManager.java) in less than 250
+ lines of code.
-
+ * A much slicker [prototype tiling window
+ manager](/examples/JexerTilingWindowManager2.java) in less than 200
+ lines of code.
-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:
+ * 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 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.
* '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.
+ number to run the TCP daemon on). This will use the Xterm backend
+ on a telnet server that will update with 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.
-More Screenshots
-----------------
-
-
+ * '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.
+ * 'java -cp jexer.jar jexer.demos.Demo7' . This demonstrates the
+ BoxLayoutManager, achieving a similar result as the
+ javax.swing.BoxLayout apidocs example.
-System Properties
------------------
-The following properties control features of Jexer:
+More Screenshots
+----------------
- jexer.Swing
- -----------
+Jexer can be run inside its own terminal window, with support for all
+of its features including images and mouse, and more terminals:
- 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.
+
- jexer.Swing.cursorStyle
- -----------------------
+Sixel output uses a single palette which works OK for a variety of
+real-world images:
- Used by jexer.io.SwingScreen. Selects the cursor style to draw.
- Valid values are: underline, block, outline. Default: underline.
+
+The color wheel with that palette is shown below:
+
-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.
- - 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.
+Terminal Support
+----------------
- - See jexer.tterminal.ECMA48 for more specifics of terminal
- emulation limitations.
+The table below lists terminals tested against Jexer's Xterm backend:
- - 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()).
+| Terminal | Environment | Mouse Click | Mouse Cursor | Images |
+| -------------- | ------------------ | ----------- | ------------ | ------ |
+| xterm | X11 | yes | yes | yes |
+| jexer | CLI, X11, Windows | yes | yes | yes |
+| mlterm | X11 | yes | yes | yes |
+| RLogin | Windows | yes | yes | yes |
+| alacritty(3) | X11 | yes | yes | no |
+| gnome-terminal | X11 | yes | yes | no |
+| iTerm2 | Mac | yes | yes | no(5) |
+| kitty(3) | X11 | yes | yes | no |
+| lcxterm(3) | CLI, Linux console | yes | yes | no |
+| mintty | Windows | yes | yes | no(5) |
+| rxvt-unicode | X11 | yes | yes | no(2) |
+| xfce4-terminal | X11 | yes | yes | no |
+| aminal(3) | X11 | yes | no | no |
+| konsole | X11 | yes | no | no |
+| yakuake | X11 | yes | no | no |
+| Windows Terminal(6) | Windows | no | no | no(2) |
+| screen | CLI | yes(1) | yes(1) | no(2) |
+| tmux | CLI | yes(1) | yes(1) | 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) | X11 | yes | no | no |
+| yaft | Linux console (FB) | no | no | yes |
- - 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.
+1 - Requires mouse support from host terminal.
- - 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.
+2 - Also fails to filter out sixel data, leaving garbage on screen.
- - 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.
+3 - Latest in repository.
- - 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.
+4 - Requires TERM=xterm-1003 before starting.
+5 - Sixel images can crash terminal.
+6 - Version 0.4.2382.0, on Windows 10.0.18362.30. Tested against
+ WSL-1 Debian instance.
-Roadmap
--------
-Many tasks remain before calling this version 1.0:
-0.0.4
+See Also
+--------
-- TStatusBar
-- TEditor
-- TWindow
- - "Smart placement" for new windows
+* [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.
-0.0.5: BUG HUNT
+* [LCXterm](https://lcxterm.sourceforge.io) is a curses-based terminal
+ emulator that allows one to use Jexer with full support on the raw
+ Linux console.
-- Swing performance. Even with double buffering it isn't great.
+* [ptypipe](https://gitlab.com/klamonte/ptypipe) is a small C utility
+ that permits a Jexer TTerminalWindow to resize the running shell
+ when its window is resized.
-0.1.0: BETA RELEASE
-- TSpinner
-- TComboBox
-- TCalendar
-Wishlist features (2.0):
+Acknowledgements
+----------------
-- 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
+Jexer makes use of the Terminus TrueType font [made available
+here](http://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/) .
git://git.nikiroo.be / nikiroo-utils.git / blobdiff