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https://github.com/annexi-strayline/Curses

Advanced UNIX Terminal UI Ada Binding Package
https://github.com/annexi-strayline/Curses

curses curses-library tui

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Advanced UNIX Terminal UI Ada Binding Package

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README 

        
# Introduction



The Curses library provides a very high-level **thick** binding for the common "ncurses" terminal control library common on most *nixes.



The library has the following key features:

* **Fully task-safe**, and allows for concurrent interface driving

* Full color support for xterm and xterm-256color, including palette changing ability (though this rarely supported by terminal emulators in the wild)

* Non signal-based, synchronous dynamic terminal resizing support with hooks

* Designed to drive multiple terminals simultaneously

  * Includes a unified color space shared amongst all terminals

  * Supports cross-terminal Surface (window, pad) transcription

* Abstracted "Surface" type represents traditional curses Windows, with fully automatic re-rendering on update, including visibility computation (automatic layering).

* The Curses package does not use allocators anywhere (however the (n)curses library itself likely does use allocations from the heap). All objects are stack allocated, unless explicitly created with a user-defined allocator.



# State of Release

This package is currently in **pre-release alpha** and is still very much under development. 



Core functionality (Surface primitives) is complete and working. Work on higher-level UI abstractions is underway.



**The interface is subject to breaking changes until further notice**



## Open issues

* Gnome terminal can't handle Set_Background with a Colored_Cursor. Artifacts appear during refresh. Almost all other tested terminals work fine (xterm, uxrvt, konsole).



## Work queue

- [ ] Higher-level UI abstractions

- [ ] "Dialog boxes", Menus, Forms, etc.

- [ ] Expanded documentation

- [ ] Examples



# Building and using

This library is presented as a gpr "library project" - libnadacurses.gpr.



The library can be built directly with grpbuild, or included within another project file.



The library project has two primary configuration properties \(set with -XProperty=..\), as follows:



1. HOST_OS



   * FreeBSD

   * Solaris

   * Linux

     Linux should have a distribution set if relevent, which shall be one of the following:

     * Ubuntu \(Default\)



2. WIDE_SUPPORT



   * NO \(Default\)

     No wide character (unicode) support. This links with the regular ncurses library.



   * YES

     Includes full wide character support. This requires the ncursesw library. When using this option, ensure the terminal supports wide character or UTF-8 encoding, and that "locale" for the terminal is set appropriately (eg. en_US.UTF-8).



# Alpha test-drive



* Refer to the extensive comments in the Curses package to understand basic Surface operations

* Refer to the Curses.Terminals for the Terminal type and comments for setting up a Terminal

* Refer to Curses.Terminals.Surfaces.Standard (Curses.Standard) for the basic Screen and Window primitive Surfaces

* Refer to Curses.Terminals.Color for enabling Color options (especially via the Colored_Cursor type)



Here is a basic example program which places a filled window in the centre of the screen, and prints "Hello World!" with centered justification.



```

with Curses;           use Curses;

with Curses.Terminals; use Curses.Terminals;

with Curses.Standard;  use Curses.Standard;



with Curses.Terminals.Surfaces;

with Curses.Device.Environment;



procedure Example is

   TTY: aliased Terminal (Curses.Device.Environment.Environment_Terminal);

   subtype Control_Character is Curses.Terminals.Surfaces.Control_Character;

begin

   TTY.Attach;



   declare

      Main_Screen: Screen       := New_Screen (TTY);

      My_Window  : Window'Class := Main_Screen.New_Window 

        (Proposed_Extents => (Row => 4, Column => 40));

      

      Input_Char: Control_Character;

      -- This will be centered on the screen, of size 4x40

      

      Fill_Cursor: Cursor := (Style    => (Inverted => True, others => <>),

                              others   => <>);

   begin

      

      My_Window.Set_Background (Fill_Cursor => Fill_Cursor);

      

      My_Window.Position_Cursor ( (Row    => 2,

                                   Column => (My_Window.Extents.Column / 2)) );

      

      My_Window.Put (Content        => "Type 'x' to exit.",

                     Justify        => Center,

                     Advance_Cursor => True);

      

      

      My_Window.Position_Cursor ( (Row => 3, Column => 2) );

      My_Window.Put (Content => ">",

                     Advance_Cursor => True);

      

      My_Window.Show;

      -- New windows are hidden by default

      

      loop

         Input_Char := My_Window.Input_Key;

         exit when Input_Char.Class = Graphic

           and then Input_Char.Key = 'x';

         

         if Input_Char.Class = Graphic 

           and then My_Window.Current_Cursor.Position < My_Window.Extents 

         then

            My_Window.Put (Content        => String'(1..1 => Input_Char.Key),

                           Advance_Cursor => True);

         end if;

      end loop;

      

      -- That's it, the Curses package will automatically shut everything down

      -- for you!

   end; 

end Example;

```



This example code can be found in the root directory under Tests/example.adb. A gprbuild project file can be found in the root directory as example.gpr



Compile as follows (gnat must be installed):

```

$ gprbuild -p -P example.adb -XHOST_OS=[Your host OS]

```



HOST_OS Must be set to one of the three currently supported OS types:

1. "Linux"

2. "FreeBSD"

3. "Solaris"



This binding has been tested to work as is on

- FreeBSD

- Linux

- Solaris (illumos)