VT100

• Supports colors and attributes.
• Supports platforms with VT100 support and a /dev/tty device.
• Can detect the terminal size.
• Can get key-presses, including arrow keys (252, 253, 254, 255).
• Has a Canvas struct, for drawing only the updated lines to the terminal.
• Uses the a reference document directly, but memoizes the commands sent to the terminal, for performance.
• Could be used for making an alternative to the dialog or whiptail utilities.

Editor

For an editor that uses this module, take a look at orbiton.

Images

Screen recording of the shooter example, where you can control a small character with the arrow keys and shoot with space.

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Screen recording of the menu example, which uses VT100 terminal codes and demonstrates a working menu.

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A physical VT100 terminal. Photo by Jason Scott, CC BY 2.0

Requirements

• Go 1.17 or later.

Features and limitations

• Can detect letters, arrow keys and space. F12 and similar keys are not supported (they are supported by VT220 but not VT100).
• Resizing the terminal when using the Canvas struct may cause artifacts, for a brief moment.
• Holding down a key may trigger key repetition which may speed up the main loop.

Simple use

Output "hi" in blue:

vt100.Blue.Output("hi")

Erase the current line:

vt100.Do("Erase Line")

Move the cursor 3 steps up (it's a bit verbose, but it is memoized for better performance):

vt100.Set("Cursor Up", map[string]string{"{COUNT}": "3"})

The full overview of possible commands are at the top of vt100.go.

Another example

See cmd/move for a more advanced example, where a character can be moved around with the arrow keys.

A small editor using vt100

The Orbiton editor that uses vt100 can be used for editing Go, Bash or for example C++ code.

Quick installation:

go install github.com/xyproto/o/v2@latest

General info

• Version: 1.14.4
• Licence: BSD-3
• Author: Alexander F. Rødseth <[email protected]>