itbXLib 2.0.0

itbXLib

A .NET helper library for console applications used in educational projects at ITecBCN.

Features 🌟

• Terminal color helpers with RGB and HEX to ANSI conversion
• Text styles (bold, italic/cursive, underline, and combined styles)
• Emoji helpers for UTF-8 output and Unicode code point conversion
• Runtime terminal capability detection with safe fallback to plain output
• Generic validated input helper for reusable parsing and validation

Installation 📥

.NET CLI

dotnet add package itbXLib

Package Manager Console

Install-Package itbXLib

PackageReference

<PackageReference Include="itbXLib" Version="*" />

Usage 💠

All public utilities are under:

using itbXLib.TerminalUtils;

Colors

string red = Colors.RgbToAnsi("#FF0000");
Console.WriteLine($"{red}Error message{Colors.Reset}");

string custom = Colors.RgbToAnsi(30, 144, 255);
Console.WriteLine($"{custom}Info message{Colors.Reset}");

Styled text and emoji

Styles.EnableEmojiSupport();

Console.WriteLine(Styles.Bold("Bold text"));
Console.WriteLine(Styles.Italic("Italic text"));
Console.WriteLine(Styles.Underline("Underlined text"));
Console.WriteLine(Styles.BoldItalicUnderline("Strong emphasis"));

string rocket = Styles.FromCodePoint(0x1F680);
Console.WriteLine(Styles.WithEmoji(rocket, "Launch ready"));

ConsoleHelper output

ConsoleHelper.ColorWriteLine("Success", ConsoleColor.Green);
ConsoleHelper.ColorWriteLine("HEX message", "#22C55E");
ConsoleHelper.HeaderSeparator("My App");

Generic input validation

int age = GenericInputs<int>.Read(
    "Enter age: ",
    "Please enter a valid non-negative integer.",
    input =>
    {
        bool ok = int.TryParse(input, out int value) && value >= 0;
        return (ok, value);
    },
    ConsoleColor.Cyan
);

Terminal compatibility behavior

TerminalCapabilities is used internally by color/style helpers:

• It auto-detects ANSI/styling support the first time styling is used
• If unsupported, it prints a one-time warning to Console.Error
• Styling is disabled for that runtime and output falls back to plain text
• You can override detection manually with TerminalCapabilities.ForceSet(bool)

Example:

TerminalCapabilities.Detect();
if (!TerminalCapabilities.StylingEnabled)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Running in plain output mode.");
}

API reference (current)

• itbXLib.TerminalUtils.Colors
  • RgbToAnsi(int r, int g, int b)
  • RgbToAnsi(string hex)
  • Reset
• itbXLib.TerminalUtils.Styles
  • Bold(string)
  • Italic(string)
  • Underline(string)
  • BoldItalicUnderline(string)
  • EnableEmojiSupport()
  • FromCodePoint(int)
  • WithEmoji(string emoji, string label)
• itbXLib.TerminalUtils.ConsoleHelper
  • ColorWrite(...), ColorWriteLine(...), HeaderSeparator(string)
• itbXLib.TerminalUtils.GenericInputs<T>
  • Read(string message, string errorMessage, Func<string, (bool isValid, T value)> validator, ConsoleColor? color = null)
• itbXLib.TerminalUtils.TerminalCapabilities
  • StylingEnabled
  • Detect()
  • ForceSet(bool)

Notes on deprecated APIs

Deprecated members are intentionally omitted from this README. For new code, use GenericInputs<T> for input workflows and the itbXLib.TerminalUtils namespace for all terminal helpers.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/x341dev/itbXLib.git
cd itbXLib
dotnet build

Contributing

Contributions are widely appreciated! If you want to help out, please follow these steps:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a branch (git checkout -b feature/my-change)
3. Commit using conventional commits
4. Push and open a pull request

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for release history.

Made with ❤️ from Barcelona. x341dev - GitHub