FTXUI/doc/mainpage.md

\mainpage

Introduction

Welcome to the FTXUI documentation. Here, you will find the detail of every functions and classes.

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Short example

main.cpp

#include <ftxui/dom/elements.hpp>
#include <ftxui/screen/screen.hpp>
#include <iostream>

int main(void) {
  using namespace ftxui;

  // Define the document
  Element document =
    hbox({
      text(L"left")   | border,
      text(L"middle") | border | flex,
      text(L"right")  | border,
    });

  auto screen = Screen::Create(
    Dimension::Full(),       // Width
    Dimension::Fit(document) // Height
  );
  Render(screen, document);
  screen.Print();

  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

output

┌────┐┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐┌─────┐
│left││middle                                                           ││right│
└────┘└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘└─────┘

Build

Using CMake

CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required (VERSION 3.11)

# --- Fetch FTXUI --------------------------------------------------------------
include(FetchContent)

set(FETCHCONTENT_UPDATES_DISCONNECTED TRUE)
FetchContent_Declare(ftxui
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/ArthurSonzogni/ftxui
  # Specify a GIT_TAG here.
)

FetchContent_GetProperties(ftxui)
if(NOT ftxui_POPULATED)
  FetchContent_Populate(ftxui)
  add_subdirectory(${ftxui_SOURCE_DIR} ${ftxui_BINARY_DIR} EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL)
endif()

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

project(ftxui-starter
  LANGUAGES CXX
  VERSION 1.0.0
)

add_executable(ftxui-starter src/main.cpp)
target_include_directories(ftxui-starter PRIVATE src)

target_link_libraries(ftxui-starter
  PRIVATE ftxui::screen
  PRIVATE ftxui::dom
  PRIVATE ftxui::component # Not needed for this example.
)

Build

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make
./main

List of modules.

The project is split into 3 modules:

1. ftxui/screen defines a ftxui::Screen, this is a grid of ftxui::Pixel.

2. ftxui/dom is the main module. It defines a hierarchical set of ftxui::Element. An element draws something on the ftxui::Screen. It is responsive to the size of its container.

3. ftxui/component The part is only needed if you need to respond to the User input. It defines a set of ftxui::Component. The use can navigates using the arrow keys and interact with widgets like checkbox/inputbox/... You can make you own components.

screen

It defines a ftxui::Screen. This is a grid of ftxui::Pixel. A Pixel represent a Unicode character and its associated style (bold, colors, etc...). The screen can be printed as a string using ftxui::Screen::ToString().

  #include <ftxui/screen/screen.hpp>
  #include <iostream>

  int main(void) {
    using namespace ftxui;
    auto screen = Screen::Create(Dimension::Fixed(32), Dimension::Fixed(10));

    auto& pixel = screen.PixelAt(9,9);
    pixel.character = U'A';
    pixel.bold = true;
    pixel.foreground_color = Color::Blue;

    std::cout << screen.ToString();
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
  }

dom

This module defines a hierarchical set of Element. An element manages layout and can be responsive to the terminal dimensions.

Example:

// Define the document
Element document = vbox({
    text(L"The window") | bold | color(Color::Blue),
    gauge(0.5)
    text(L"The footer")
  });

// Add a border.
document = border(document);

List of elements

You only need one header: ftxui/dom/elements.hpp

\include ftxui/dom/elements.hpp

text

The most simple widget. It displays a text.

text(L"I am a piece of text");

I am a piece of text.

border

Add a border around an element

border(text(L"The element"))

┌───────────┐
│The element│
└───────────┘

window

A ftxui::window is a ftxui::border, but with some text on top of the border. Add a border around an element

window(L"The window", text(L"The element"))

┌The window─┐
│The element│
└───────────┘

separator

Display a vertical or horizontal line to visually split the content of a container in two.

border(
  hbox({
    text(L"Left"), 
    separator(),
    text(L"Right")
  })
)

┌────┬─────┐
│left│right│
└────┴─────┘

gauge

A gauge. It can be used to represent a progress bar.

border(gauge(0.5))

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│██████████████████████████████████████                                      │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

graph

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Colors

A terminal console can usually display colored text and colored background.

Decorator color(Color);
Decorator bgcolor(Color);

Palette16

On most terminal the following colors are supported:

• Default

• Black

• GrayDark

• GrayLight

• White

• Blue

• BlueLight

• Cyan

• CyanLight

• Green

• GreenLight

• Magenta

• MagentaLight

• Red

• RedLight

• Yellow

• YellowLight

Example:

text(L"Blue foreground") | color(Color::Blue);
text(L"Blue background") | bgcolor(Color::Blue);
text(L"Black on white") | color(Color::Black) | bgcolor(Color::White);

Palette256

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text(L"HotPink") | color(Color::HotPink);

TrueColor

On terminal supporting trueColor, you can directly chose the 24bit RGB color:

There are two constructors:

ftxui::Color::RGB(uint8_t red, uint8_t green, uint8_t blue);
ftxui::Color::HSV(uint8_t hue, uint8_t saturation, uint8_t value);

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Style

A terminal console can usually display colored text and colored background. The text can also have different effects: bold, dim, underlined, inverted, blink.

Element bold(Element);
Element dim(Element);
Element inverted(Element);
Element underlined(Element);
Element blink(Element);
Decorator color(Color);
Decorator bgcolor(Color);

Example:

underlined(bold(text(L"This text is bold and underlined")))

Tips: The pipe operator can be used to chain Decorator:

text(L"This text is bold")) | bold | underlined

Layout

These layout are similar to the HTML flexbox:

• vbox (Vertical-box)
• hbox (Horizontal-box)
• dbox (Z-axis-box) They are used to compose all the elements together. Each children are put side by side. If the container is flexible, the extra space available will be shared among the remaining flexible children.

flex(element) can be used to make a non-flexible element flexible. filler() is a flexible empty element. You can use it align children on one side of the container.

An horizontal flow layout is implemented by:

• hflow (Horizontal flow)

Examples

  hbox({
    text(L"left") | border ,
    text(L"middle") | border | flex,
    text(L"right") | border,
    });

┌────┐┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐┌─────┐
│left││middle                                                           ││right│
└────┘└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘└─────┘

  hbox({
    text(L"left") | border ,
    text(L"middle") | border | flex,
    text(L"right") | border | flex,
    });

┌────┐┌───────────────────────────────────┐┌───────────────────────────────────┐
│left││middle                             ││right                              │
└────┘└───────────────────────────────────┘└───────────────────────────────────┘

component

The ftxui/component directory defines the logic to get produce interactive component responding to user's events (keyboard, mouse, etc...)

A ftxui::ScreenInteractive defines a main loop to render a component.

A ftxui::Component is a shared pointer to a ftxui::ComponentBase. The later defines

• ftxui::ComponentBase::Render(): How to render the interface.
• ftxui::ComponentBase::OnEvent(): How to react to events.
• ftxui::ComponentBase::Add(): Give a parent/child relation ship in between two component. This defines a tree a components, which help properly define how keyboard navigation works.

Predefined components are available in ftxui/dom/component.hpp:

\include ftxui/component/component.hpp

Element are stateless object. On the other side, components are used when an internal state is needed. Components are used to interact with the user with its keyboard. They handle keyboard navigation, including component focus.

Input

Produced by: ftxui::Input() from "ftxui/component/component.hpp"

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Menu

Produced by: ftxui::Menu() from "ftxui/component/component.hpp"

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Toggle.

Produced by: ftxui::Toggle() from "ftxui/component/component.hpp"

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CheckBox

Produced by: ftxui::Checkbox() from "ftxui/component/component.hpp"

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RadioBox

Produced by: ftxui::Radiobox() from "ftxui/component/component.hpp"

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Renderer

Produced by: ftxui::Renderer() from \ref "ftxui/component/component.hpp". This component decorate another one by using a different function to render an interface.

CatchEvent

Produced by: ftxui::CatchEvent() from \ref "ftxui/component/component.hpp". This component decorate another one and catch the events before the underlying component.

Container::Horizontal

Produced by: ftxui::Container::Horizontal() from "ftxui/component/component.hpp". It displays a list of components horizontally and handle keyboard/mouse navigation.

Container::Vertial

Produced by: ftxui::Container::Vertical() from "ftxui/component/component.hpp". It displays a list of components vertically and handles keyboard/mouse navigation.

Container::Tab

Produced by: ftxui::Container::Tab() from "ftxui/component/component.hpp". It take a list of component and display only one of them. This is useful for implementing a tab bar.

ResizableSplit::{Left, Right, Top, Bottom}

Produced by:

• ftxui::ResizableSplitLeft()
• ftxui::ResizableSplitRight()
• ftxui::ResizableSplitTop()
• ftxui::ResizableSplitBottom() from "ftxui/component/component.hpp"

It defines an horizontal or vertical separation in between two children component. The position of the split is variable and controllable using the mouse.

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Force a frame redraw.

Whenever a new group of events have been processed: keyboard, mouse, window resize, etc..., the ftxui::ScreenInteractive::Loop() is responsible for drawing a new frame.

You might want to react to arbitrary events that are unknown to FTXUI. This can be achieve by posting events via ftxui::ScreenInteractive::PostEvent, via a thread. You can post the eventftxui::Event::Custom.

screen->PostEvent(Event::Custom);

ftxui::ScreenInteractive::PostEvent is thread safe.