Jexer - Java Text User Interface library
========================================
-WARNING: THIS IS ALPHA CODE! PLEASE CONSIDER FILING BUGS AS YOU
-ENCOUNTER THEM.
+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 sources
+released by Borland,](http://tvision.sourceforge.net/) or consider
+Free Pascal's [Free Vision
+library.](http://wiki.freepascal.org/Free_Vision))
-This library 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.
-
-Three backends are available:
+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.
+ 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. See the file
- jexer.demos.Demo2 for an example of running the demo over a TCP
- socket.
-
-* 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.
-
-The demo application showing the existing UI controls can be seen in
-three ways:
+ 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 -jar jexer.jar' . This will use System.in/out on
- non-Windows, or Swing on Windows.
-
- * 'java -Djexer.Swing=true -jar jexer.jar' . This will always use
- Swing.
-
- * '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 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.
+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://github.com/klamonte/jexer .
+
License
-------
-This project is licensed LGPL ("GNU Lesser General Public License",
-sometimes called the "Library GPL") version 3 or greater. You may
-freely use Jexer in both closed source (proprietary) and open source
-applications, however any changes you make to the Jexer code must be
-made available to your users.
-
-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.
Usage
-----
-Usage patterns are still being worked on, but in general the goal will
-be to build applications 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() {
+ 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.
+ addWindow(new MyWindow(this));
}
public static void main(String [] args) {
- MyApplication app = new MyApplication();
- (new Thread(app)).start();
+ try {
+ MyApplication app = new MyApplication();
+ (new Thread(app)).start();
+ } catch (Throwable t) {
+ t.printStackTrace();
+ }
}
}
```
-See the files in jexer.demos for more detailed examples.
+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:
-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 the files in jexer.demos for many more detailed examples showing
+all of the existing UI controls. The available demos can be run as
+follows:
- - 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.
+ * '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.
- - See jexer.tterminal.ECMA48 for more specifics of terminal
- emulation limitations.
+ * 'java -Djexer.Swing=true -jar jexer.jar' . This will always use
+ Swing on any platform.
- - 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()).
+ * '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.
- - 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.
+ * '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.
- - 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.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.
+More Screenshots
+----------------
+
+
+
+
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.
-Roadmap
--------
-Many tasks remain before calling this version 1.0:
-0.0.3: FINISH PORTING
+Known Issues / Arbitrary Decisions
+----------------------------------
-0.0.4: NEW STUFF
+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.
-- Making TMenu keyboard accelerators active/inactive
-- TStatusBar
-- TEditor
-- TWindow
- - "Smart placement" for new windows
+ - The JVM needs some warmup time to exhibit the true performance
+ behavior. Drag a window around for a bit to see this: the initial
+ performance is slow, then the JIT compiler kicks in and Jexer can
+ be visually competitive with C/C++ curses applications.
-0.0.5: BUG HUNT
+ - See jexer.tterminal.ECMA48 for more specifics of terminal
+ emulation limitations.
-- Swing performance. Even with double buffering it isn't great.
+ - 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()).
-0.1.0: BETA RELEASE
+ - TTerminalWindow 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.
-- TSpinner
-- TComboBox
-- TListBox
-- TCalendar
-- TColorPicker
+ - Closing a TTerminalWindow without exiting the process inside it
+ may result in a zombie 'script' process.
+
+ - 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.
-Wishlist features (2.0):
+ - 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.
-- TTerminal
- - Handle resize events (pass to child process)
-- Screen
- - Allow complex characters in putCharXY() and detect them in putStrXY().
-- Drag and drop
- - TEditor
- - TField
- - TText
- - TTerminal
- - TComboBox
+ - 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.
-Screenshots
------------
-
+Roadmap
+-------
-
+Many tasks remain before calling this version 1.0. See docs/TODO.md
+for the complete list of tasks.
git://git.nikiroo.be / nikiroo-utils.git / blobdiff