Davicro.ConsoleView 0.0.1-alpha

About

ConsoleView is a utility library created for personal use in my console applications.

Features:

• Displaying colored text.
• Hiding and showing text.
• Grouping view elements into panels and switching between different panels.
• Handling user prompts as part of a panel.
• Menus with selectable options through number and letter keys.
• Input handling with support for keybinds.

Limitations:

• Text is static and cannot be modified beyond hiding/showing.
• Text that has been pushed outside of the buffer (by the console scrolling down) cannot be hidden.
• Window resizing is not handled.
• No way to make specific layouts (such as text in the middle, top right, top left, etc.), everything is just printed top to bottom.
• Menus can only display a set amount of options.

Installation

If you want to use this library in your project (for some reason), you can add it as a nuget dependency:

dotnet add package Davicro.ConsoleView

Basic usage

You can find a sample app here.

Basic text

ConsoleText text = new ConsoleText("Hello world!");
text.Show();

Basic panel

ConsolePanel panel = new ConsolePanel(
    new ConsoleText("Hello, world!"),
    new ConsoleText("Goodbye, world!")
);
panel.Show();

Stacking panels

ViewStack viewStack = new ViewStack();
ConsolePanel panel1 = new ConsolePanel(
    new ConsoleText("This is panel 1!"),
    new ConsoleText("Cool!")
);
ConsolePanel panel2 = new ConsolePanel(
    new ConsoleText("This is panel 2!"),
    new ConsoleText("Also cool?")
);
viewStack.Push(panel1); // Panel 1 is now visible
viewStack.Push(panel2); // Panel 2 is now visible
viewStack.Pop(); // Panel 1 is now visible

Panel with prompt

ConsolePanel panel = new ConsolePanel(
    new ConsoleText("Press enter to hide...")
);
ConsoleKeyPrompt prompt = ConsoleKeyPrompt.UntilKeyPressed(ConsoleKey.Enter, panel.Hide);
panel.AddElement(prompt);
panel.Show();
while(panel.CanHandleInput())
    panel.OnInput(Console.ReadKey());

Global input handling

Input is better handled globally in a dedicated loop rather than for every element individually.

ViewStack viewStack = new ViewStack();
// ...
while(viewStack.Count > 0)
{
    if(viewStack.CurrentView is IInputListener<ConsoleKeyInfo> listener 
    && listener.CanHandleInput())
    {
        listener.OnInput(Console.ReadKey());
    }
}

Basic Menu

ConsolePanel panel = new ConsolePanel();
ConsoleMenu<string> menu = new ConsoleMenu<string>(["yes!", "no"], (self, index, option) => {
    panel.RemoveElement(self);
    panel.AddElement(new ConsoleText("You picked:"+option));
});
panel.AddElement(menu);
panel.Show();
// [Input handling excluded]