Fancy Print

An aesthetic replacement to print()

Development Status: Early Development/Usable

About

FancyPrint is a python package, making it easier for developers to get beautiful CLI with responsiveness in regards to terminal size.

Usage

Installing FancyPrint

To install fancyprint use the following command:

pip install fancyprint

This will install all dependencies needed as well.

Getting Started

To start using Fancy Print, first import it.

import fancyprint

This will import all the necessary functions required.

Basics

Printing

The pretty_print() function is for printing text to the terminal. Here is an example:

pretty_print("This is some text", align=Align.LEFT)

It is using the default preset, which can be changed by using presets or changing argument values. There are two ways one customize and use it, and they can be used interchangeably:

• Using presets (recommended)
• Using keyword arguments

Using Presets

Presets allow you to customize the printer and the separator, and they can be local presets or global presets. Presets are local when they are created for one part only(i.e Printer) and are global when they can be used anywhere (both in the Separator and the Printer).

Using Local Presets

There are two types of local presets you can use:

• PrinterPreset
• SeparatorPreset

PrinterPreset

The PrinterPreset is used to customize the pretty_print() function. To use it, you need to import it first. Here is an example of declaring a PrinterPreset:

from fancyprint.ftypes import PrinterPreset
from fancyprint.ftypes import Color

my_custom_printer_preset = PrinterPreset(
    delimiter_left="<",
    delimiter_left_color=Color.RED,
    
    delimiter_right=">",
    delimiter_right_color=Color.RED,
    
    delimiter_space_amount=10,
    delimiter_space_symbol=" ",
    
    hyphenation=False
)

Here's the preset in action:

[...]
pretty_print("Hi this is some text", preset=my_custom_printer_preset)

This will print the following: That looks awful right now. That is because we have a custom printer preset, but the separator is using the default preset. Let's make it more good-looking by using a custom separator preset!

SeparatorPreset

The SeperatorPreset is used to customize the separator, whether it is used alone or with the printer. To use it, it needs to be imported first. Here is an example of declaring one:

from fancyprint.ftypes import SeparatorPreset, Color

my_custom_separator_preset = SeparatorPreset(
    delimiter_left="<",
    delimiter_left_color=Color.RED,
    
    delimiter_right=">",
    delimiter_right_color=Color.RED,
    
    delimiter_space_symbol=" ",
    delimiter_space_amount=10,
    
    separator_symbol="-",
    separator_color=Color.BLUE,
)

Now let's use this preset, in the previous example:

[...]
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", preset=my_custom_printer_preset, separator_preset=my_custom_separator_preset)

The above will print the following: It's starting to look good now, but since we are going to use one preset everywhere, in this example, we should create a global preset.

Using the Global Preset

The Preset class is used to create a global preset, and can be given to both the separator and the printer, which makes it useful if the whole program is to follow a simple theme. To use it you need to import the Preset, along with the local presets, which make it easy to declare a global Preset. Here's an example of declaring a global preset, using our previously declared local presets:

[...]
from fancyprint.ftypes import Preset

global_preset = Preset(
    printer_preset=my_custom_printer_preset,
    separator_preset=my_custom_separator_preset,
)

The previous example, but with a global preset would like:

[...]
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", preset=global_preset, separator_preset=global_preset)

This will print:

Using Keyword Arguments

If you want to have different customizations, you could use presets, but if you only want to change some aspects of the printer, you might want to use the function's keyword arguments instead. Here's a list of available customizations you can do with arguments:

• align | Align(Enum): Changes the alignment of the text
• delimiter_left | str: Symbol for the left delimiter
• delimiter_left_color | Color: Color for the left delimiter
• enable_left_delimiter | bool: Whether to print the left delimiter or not
• delimiter_right | str: Symbol for the right delimiter
• delimiter_right_color | Color: Color to be used for the right delimiter
• enable_right_delimiter | bool: Whether to print the right delimiter
• delimiter_space_amount | int: Amount of space to print after/before the delimiters
• delimiter_space_symbol | str: Symbol to be used for the delimiter space (" " is the default and is useful for most cases)
• separator_left_delimiter | str: Symbol for the left delimiter of the separators
• separator_left_delimiter_color | Color: Color for the left delimiters of the separators
• enable_left_separator_delimiter | bool: Whether to print the left delimiter in the separators
• separator_right_delimiter | str: Symbol for the right delimiter of the separators
• separator_right_delimiter_color | Color: Color for the right separator delimiters
• enable_right_separator_delimiter | bool: Whether to print the right delimiter in the separators
• separator_symbol | str: Symbol for the separator
• separator_color | Color: Color for the separator symbol
• enable_separator_symbol | bool: Whether to print the separator symbol, if false then " " will be printed
• separator_delimiter_space_amount | int: Amount of delimiter space in the separator
• separator_delimiter_space_symbol | str: Symbol for the delimiter space in the separator
• enable_back_separator | bool: Whether to print the back separator
• enable_front_separator | bool: Whether to print the front separator
• test_mode | bool: If you want to mess with the alignment calculations
• testing_terminal_width | int: Artificial terminal width to use, for testing or for making something beautiful ;)

Alignment

There are three alignment options available at the moment. They are left, right and center. To use alignments, you need to import the Align enum from the ftypes subpackage. Here are examples of using the different alignments:

[...]
from fancyprint.ftypes import Align

pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.LEFT)
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.CENTER)
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.RIGHT)

The above gives the following results: Doesn't look too nice, let's remove some separators:

[...]

pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.LEFT)
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.CENTER, enable_back_separator=False)
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.RIGHT, enable_back_separator=False)

Much better. You might also want some "padding", which is called "delimiter space" in the function. Let's add some delimiter space to the print statements!

[...]

pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.LEFT, delimiter_space_amount=10)
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.CENTER, enable_back_separator=False, delimiter_space_amount=10)
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.RIGHT, enable_back_separator=False, delimiter_space_amount=10)

Everything looks good to this point. But you might want to see where the spaces are. You might do something like this:

[...]
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.LEFT, delimiter_space_amount=10, delimiter_space_symbol="=")
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.CENTER, enable_back_separator=False, delimiter_space_amount=10, delimiter_space_symbol="=")
pretty_print("Hi, this is some text!", align=Align.RIGHT, enable_back_separator=False, delimiter_space_amount=10, delimiter_space_symbol="=")

Separation

Other than being used in the print function, you can also use the separater_line() function to print a separator line. As in like in printing, you can also use the separator with both a preset or keyword arguments. We already covered the separator preset in Using Local Presets, so it will not be in this section. The following keyword arguments are available for customizations:

• preset | Preset, SeparatorPreset: If you want to use a preset
• delimiter_left | str: Symbol for the left delimiter
• delimiter_left_color | Color: Color for the left delimiter
• enable_left_delimiter | bool: Whether to print the left delimiter
• delimiter_right | str: Symbol for the right delimiter
• delimiter_right_color | Color: Color for the right delimiter
• enable_delimiter_right | bool: Whether to print the right delimiter
• delimiter_space_amount | int: Amount of delimiter space to print
• delimiter_space_symbol | str: Symbol for the delimiter space
• separator_symbol | str: Symbol for the seperator
• separator_color | Color: Color for the separator
• enable_separator | bool: Whether to print the separator symbol, else " " will be used
• test_mode | bool: Whether to use test mode
• testing_terminal_width | int: Artificial terminal width for testing or for making separator more customized ;)

Here's an example of using the separate_line() function:

from fancyprint.printer import separate_line

separate_line(delimiter_left="(", separator_symbol="*")

This will print: It looks pretty bad, but remember making a preset is recommended for most cases.

Contributing

Thanks for considering contributing to Fancy Print. You can read Contributing.md for further information!