Explore the world of interactive and visually appealing command line interfaces (CLIs) in this GopherCon 2018 conference talk. Learn how to create CLIs that rival desktop and web apps in terms of interactivity and aesthetics. Discover techniques for implementing progress bars, color, mouse input, and animated graphics on the command line. Understand how to detect feature availability across different terminals and ensure cross-platform compatibility. Dive into topics such as carriage return usage, Unicode implementation, text decoration, multiline output with cursor movement, and terminal capability detection using Terminfo. Gain insights on handling Windows-specific challenges, including VT processing and Windows Subsystem for Linux. Master the art of detecting terminal size for optimized output and creating multi-line interactive inline inputs. Equip yourself with the knowledge to build eye-catching and functional CLIs that work seamlessly across various operating systems and terminals.
Overview
Syllabus
CL EYE-CATCHING USER INTERFACES
CARRIAGE RETURN YOUR NEW SECRET WEAPON
UNICODE YOUR OTHER NEW SECRET WEAPON
MISSING CHARACTERS IN A TYPEFACE
TEXT DECORATION AND COLOR
MULTILINE OUTPUT WITH CURSOR MOVEMENT
HOW CAN WE TELL WHAT IS SUPPORTED?
TERMINFO A database of terminal names (from TERM) and capabilities that started in ncurses. Includes escape codes.
RELY ON THE USER Provide flags and configuration for color and interactivity
HANDLING WINDOWS • Windows 10 can enable VT processing • For other versions, wrap the output and parse escape codes
WINDOWS SUBSYSTEM FOR LINUX - ANSI escape codes and POSIX syscalls under Windows • The console related API don't work across environments
DETECTING TERMINAL SIZE Great for columnar output and wrapping
MULTI-LINE INTERACTIVE INLINE INPUTS Raw mode
POTPOURRI
READING LIST . Windows console reference • ANSI escape codes
Taught by
Gopher Academy
