ConsoleTK

ConsoleTK is a simple, stand-alone Python class to draw colorful command-line interfaces. Think 'curses for dummies'.

To draw your interface, you first place your cursor with moveto(x,y) (or relmoveto(x,y) for a relative motion), and you then draw a widget: label, bars, separators, etc.

ConsoleTK also implements non-blocking polling of the keyboard (including arrow keys) that enables user interactions.

Note that ConsoleTK requires a terminal emulator that supports ANSI sequences and 256 colours.

Installation

Easy enough:

$ pip install consoletk

Example

The interface pictured above is generated with the following code (see example.py for the complete example, including reading the keyboard):

import consoletk

with consoletk.ConsoleTK(height=20) as c:

    # Title
    c.label("ConsoleTK demo", fg="violet",bold=True)

    # Tickboxes
    c.relmoveto(0,2)
    c.boolean(True, "I'm true")

    c.relmoveto(11,0)
    c.boolean(False, "I'm false")

    # Progress bars
    c.moveto(0,3)
    c.vsep(2)
    c.moveto(2,3)
    c.absolutebar(7, 10, "kg", 
                  label = "Weight", 
                  maxlength = 20, 
                  autocolor = True, 
                  highishot = True)

    c.moveto(2,4)
    c.absolutebar(0.7, 1, 
                  "rad.s^-1", 
                  label = " Angle")

    # Separators and labels
    c.moveto(0,5)
    c.hsep(78, fg="green")

    c.moveto(30,6)
    c.vsep(5, double=True)

    c.relmoveto(-20,1)
    c.label("I'm a label!")

    c.relmoveto(25,2)
    c.label("I'm another label!")

    # A box
    c.relmoveto(20,-2)
    c.box(8,4,border_fg="yellow",border_bg="orange",bg="violet")

    c.relmoveto(1,1)
    c.label("In the",bg="violet")
    c.relmoveto(0,1)
    c.label("box!",bg="violet")

    # ...and more of it...!
    c.moveto(78,1)
    c.vsep(10)

    c.moveto(80,1)
    c.label("Press a key... (esc to quit)")

    console.relmoveto(1,5)
    console.box(20,6,"blue","base00",bg="base02",double=True)

Initialization

Simply create a canvas with:

import consoletk

with ConsoleTK(height=20) as console:
    #...

Obviously, change the height to your liking. The width of the area is the current width of the terminal. Note that ConsoleTK does not perform any form of reflow if you change the geometry of your interface.

Note that the cursor is initially at position (1,1) (and not (0,0)) to leave a small margin. You can still move to (0,0) with console.moveto(0,0).

Colours

Many widgets can take as parameter foreground (fg) and background (bg) colours.

In its current version, ConsoleTK uses a system of colour palettes, and as such, colours must be one of:

• yellow
• orange
• red
  
• magenta
• violet
• blue
• cyan
• green
• base03 (black)
• base02 (almost black)
• base01 (darker grey)
• base00 (dark grey)
• base0 (grey)
• base1 (light grey)
• base2 (very light)
• base3 (white)

Besides, you can also often specify bold=True and blink=True to enable the corresponding effects (effective rendering depends on your terminal).

Motions

You can move your cursor with moveto(x,y) or relmoveto(x,y). You can also save and restore a previous position with savepos() and restorepose().

Widgets

See each methods' documentation inside consoletk for the details

• Labels: label(text, fg, bg, bold, blink)
• Lines: vsep(height), hsep(width)
• Boxes: box(width,height)
• Tickboxes: boolean(state,label)
• Horizontal progressbars: bar(...) and absolutebar(...)

Note that drawing a widget does not move the cursor: the cursor remains where it was before you issued the drawing call.

Others

• clear() clears the entire interface.
• clear(width, height) clears a rectangle below the cursor.
• get_keypress() returns the last key pressed (or ConsoleTK.ARROW_LEFT|RIGHT|UP|DOWN for the arrows).