XenoAtom.Terminal.UI 3.5.4

XenoAtom.Terminal.UI

<img align="right" width="256px" height="256px" src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/XenoAtom/XenoAtom.Terminal.UI/main/img/XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.png">

XenoAtom.Terminal.UI is a modern, reactive retained-mode terminal UI framework for .NET, built on top of XenoAtom.Terminal. It provides a rich set of controls (TextBox, TextArea, lists, tables, dialogs…), a consistent layout system, a styling/theming model, and a binding system designed for smooth live UIs.

✨ Features

• Two hosting models:
  • Inline widgets via Terminal.Write(...) and Terminal.Live(...)
  • Fullscreen apps via Terminal.Run(...) (alternate screen + input loop)
• Modern control library (60+ built-in controls):
  • Buttons, toggles, lists, tables, closable/scrollable/reorderable tabs, menus, dialogs/popups, toasts, charts, progress, spinners, tooltips…
  • Text editing: TextBox, TextArea, CodeEditor, PromptEditor, MaskedInput, NumberBox (undo/redo: Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+R, clipboard paste interception, auto-expanding editor height via TextEditorAutoSizeMode.Height, CodeEditor Find/Replace: Ctrl+F / Ctrl+H, Go To Line: Ctrl+G, configurable spaces/tabs indentation, PromptEditor Shift+Enter new-line shortcut with Ctrl+N fallback, and completion gestures that can be rebound to preserve Tab focus traversal)
  • Advanced widgets: LogControl, CommandPalette, BreakdownChart, ColorPicker
  • Mockup/empty-state widget: Placeholder (text + background surfaces, gradients)
  • Companion extension package: XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.Extensions.Markdown (MarkdownControl, MarkdownMarkupConverter with source-preserving highlight mode)
  • Companion extension package: XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.Extensions.CodeEditor.TextMateSharp (TextMateSharp-backed syntax highlighting for CodeEditor and fenced Markdown code blocks)
  • Companion extension package: XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.Extensions.Screenshot (SkiaSharp-powered PNG/JPEG/WebP export, clipboard screenshot commands, and an embedded Nerd Font-capable default font)
  • Companion extension package: XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.Graphics (Image control with Kitty, Sixel, and iTerm2 presenters, encoded image caching, and Sixel palette/dither options)
• Binding-first UI:
  • Bindable properties, State<T>, automatic dependency tracking, minimal boilerplate
• Layout system: consistent measure/arrange protocol (integer cell UI), panels and containers
• Styling, themes, and color schemes:
  • Theme + per-control styles, ColorScheme palettes (terminal-native and RGB themes)
  • Brush gradients for controls such as TextBlock, TextBox, and TextFiglet
  • RootLoops-powered color scheme generator (https://rootloops.sh) with many built-in schemes
• Input:
  • Keyboard, mouse, resize events; focus navigation with configurable tab stops; routed events where appropriate
• Commands & key hints:
  • Context-aware commands with optional typed names, single-stroke gestures, and multi-stroke sequences
  • CommandBar control for discoverable shortcuts
  • App-defined shortcuts can activate controls such as MenuBar.OpenMenu() without built-in global menu bindings
• Rendering:
  • Cell-buffer renderer + diffing, efficient batched output, synchronized output (DEC 2026)
  • Alpha-aware colors (RGBA) with blending support for modern UI effects
• Generated glyph helpers:
  • NerdFont exposes the official Nerd Fonts catalog as Rune properties, plus lookup by original glyph name, for easy use in TextBlock, Markup, and string interpolation
• Debug overlay:
  • Built-in performance overlay (toggle with F12) to inspect frame timings, invalidation, diff output, and graphics/image presentation metrics
• Cross-platform + AOT-friendly: net10.0 and NativeAOT-oriented design (built on XenoAtom.Terminal)

Requirements (.NET 10 / C# 14)

XenoAtom.Terminal.UI targets net10.0 and requires the .NET 10 SDK (C# 14).

Rationale: the library integrates into XenoAtom.Terminal using C# 14 extension members, so you can write Terminal.Write(...), Terminal.Live(...), and Terminal.Run(...) even though Terminal is defined in the separate XenoAtom.Terminal package.

🚀 Quick start

using XenoAtom.Terminal;
using XenoAtom.Terminal.UI;
using XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.Controls;

Terminal.Write(new Group("Welcome")
    .Content(new VStack("Hello", "from", "Terminal.UI").Spacing(1))
);

Inline “live” widget (updates without clearing your output):

using XenoAtom.Terminal;
using XenoAtom.Terminal.UI;
using XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.Controls;

var work = new ProgressTask("Work");

Terminal.Live(
    new ProgressTaskGroup().Tasks([work]),
    onUpdate: () =>
    {
        work.Value = Math.Min(1, work.Value + 0.01);
        return work.Value < 1
            ? TerminalLoopResult.Continue
            : TerminalLoopResult.StopAndKeepVisual;
    });

Fullscreen app:

using XenoAtom.Terminal;
using XenoAtom.Terminal.UI;
using XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.Controls;

State<string?> text = new("Type here");
State<bool> exit = new(false);

Terminal.Run(
    new VStack(
        new TextBox(text),
        new TextBlock(() => $"The text typed is: {text.Value}"),
        new Button("Exit").Click(() => exit.Value = true)
    ),
    onUpdate: () => exit.Value
        ? TerminalLoopResult.StopAndKeepVisual 
        : TerminalLoopResult.Continue
    );

Brush gradient example:

using XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.Styling;

var brush = Brush.LinearGradient(
    new GradientPoint(0f, 0f),
    new GradientPoint(1f, 0f),
    [new GradientStop(0f, Colors.DeepSkyBlue), new GradientStop(1f, Colors.White)]);

Terminal.Write(
    new TextBlock("Gradient title")
        .Style(TextBlockStyle.Default with { ForegroundBrush = brush })
);

Nerd Font glyph example:

Terminal.Write(
    new Markup($"[accent]{NerdFont.MdHome}[/] Home  [primary]{NerdFont.PlBranch}[/] main  [success]{NerdFont.WeatherDaySunny}[/] Ready")
);

if (NerdFont.TryGetRune("cod-account", out var accountIcon))
{
    Terminal.Write(new TextBlock($"{accountIcon} Account"));
}

foreach (var name in NerdFont.Names)
{
    // Original Nerd Fonts glyph names such as "cod-account".
}

If your terminal/font combination renders Nerd Font glyphs as double-width, set WideRuneResolver = TerminalWideRuneResolvers.NerdFontDoubleWidth on TerminalRunOptions, TerminalLiveOptions, or TerminalAppOptions.

🧩 Controls included

The library ships with a large set of built-in controls. See Controls Reference for the full reference.

Highlights:

• Text input: TextBox, TextArea, CodeEditor, PromptEditor, MaskedInput, NumberBox, ValidationPresenter
• Lists: ListBox, OptionList, SelectionList, Select<T>, TreeView
• Data: Table, DataGridControl (sorting, filtering, search, resizing, inline editing, direct cell activation)
• Layout: VStack, HStack, Grid, DockLayout, Splitters, Border, Group, Padder
• Overlays: Popup, resizable Dialog, TooltipHost, Backdrop
• Toasts: Toast, ToastHost (overlay notifications)
• Visualization: BarChart, LineChart, Sparkline, Canvas, BreakdownChart, TextFiglet, Placeholder
• Progress: ProgressBar, ProgressTaskGroup, Spinner
• Optional terminal graphics: XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.Graphics.Image with TerminalImageGraphicsPresenter for fullscreen/inline/static flow output (Terminal.Write(new Image(...))) and real-time frame sources.

📖 User guide

For details, see the dedicated website.

🧪 Samples

• samples/ControlsDemo: catalog-style demo of controls and styles, including the Images & Graphics page for snow_photo.jpg and live SkiaSharp image frames via XenoAtom.Terminal.UI.Graphics.
• samples/FullscreenDemo: fullscreen UI showcase.
• samples/InlineLiveDemo: inline/live demo (interactive), including one-shot terminal image output.

🪪 License

This software is released under the BSD-2-Clause license.

🤗 Author

Alexandre Mutel aka xoofx.