KernelTerminal 4.1.0

KernelTerminal

A lightweight C# library that uses native interop to manage a console window. It can be useful when you need a console in a non-console application - for anything: logging, manipulation, etc. It allows you to open the console whenever you want and use it however you want! <p align="center"> Opening and using the console </p>

<p align="center"> <img src="Media/openexample.gif" alt="Opening console"> </p>

You can also use it if you want to get around any wrappers (like Windows Terminal) or make the opened console a main application. You'll need to create a Console Project, then hop into the project properties → Output type and select Windows application instead of Console application. Then just call Terminal.Open() when needed.

API

Lifecycle

// Allocate a new console window.
bool success = Terminal.Open(WindowStyle style = WindowStyle.Default);

// Free the current console window and reset its internal state.
bool success = Terminal.Close();

// Re-open the terminal window. (no window style reset)
Terminal.New();

IO

There's Terminal.IO property to work with input and output. It's type is ITerminalIO which defines what Terminal.WriteLine, Terminal.ReadLine, and some other IO method do.

By default all of them are transferred to System.Console (by SystemConsoleIO class), but you may use your own logic.

class MyIO : ITerminalIO
{
    public void Write(string value)
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }
    public void WriteLine(string value)
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }
    public void Clear()
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }

    public ConsoleKeyInfo ReadKey(bool intercept = false)
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }

    public string ReadLine()
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }
}

Then you'll have to set the new IO

Terminal.IO = new MyIO();

Styles

KernelTerminal supports different window styles - you can hide the buttons and the tab of the console in the taskbar. <p align="center"> <img src="Media/styles.gif" alt="Styles" width="600"> </p>

There is WindowStyle enum to manage it:

Terminal.WindowStyle = WindowStyle.Default;
Terminal.WindowStyle = WindowStyle.ButtonsHidden; 
Terminal.WindowStyle = WindowStyle.TabHidden;
Terminal.WindowStyle = WindowStyle.ButtonsHidden | WindowStyle.TabHidden;

Method Exporting

Even though there's almost no profit for exporting methods, KernelTerminal exports some! There are they:

bool OpenTerminal(int style);
bool CloseTerminal();

void SetTerminalFontSize(short width, short height);
void SetTerminalVisible(int visible); //0 = false

int* GetWindowHandle();

You can import and use these in other languages than C#.

Known Issue

If you opened the console window as seconadry window of an application and the console is closed manually or its process is terminated (e.g., through Task Manager), the main application thread is also terminated (Media). This happens because the console process is linked to the main application thread, and closing it forces the entire application to stop. To avoid this, do not close the console manually — use Terminal.Close() instead.