SharpTerm.Core 1.0.3

SharpTerm

A modern, cross-platform Terminal User Interface (TUI) library for .NET 9.

Overview

SharpTerm provides a comprehensive framework for building interactive terminal applications with a rich widget system, event-driven architecture, and optimized rendering engine. The library leverages .NET 9 features and ANSI escape sequences to deliver high-performance, cross-platform terminal user interfaces.

Features

Core Capabilities

• True 24-bit RGB color support
• Widget-based component architecture
• Event-driven application framework
• Flicker-free rendering with dirty tracking
• Terminal resize detection and responsive layouts
• Transparent widget backgrounds

Widget Library

• Label - Text display with alignment options
• Button - Interactive buttons with keyboard and mouse support
• Border - Decorative boxes with multiple styles
• ProgressBar - Visual progress indicators
• TextBox - Full-featured text input with editing
• List - Scrollable item selection with keyboard and mouse navigation

Input Handling

• Complete keyboard event processing
• Mouse support including clicks, double-clicks, and scroll wheel
• Windows Console API integration via ReadConsoleInput
• Tab-based focus navigation
• Configurable keyboard shortcuts

Performance Optimizations

• Per-widget dirty tracking eliminates unnecessary redraws
• Buffered output operations
• Smart rendering updates only changed regions
• Alternate screen buffer support

Installation

See QUICK_START.md for installation instructions and code examples.

Documentation

• QUICK_START.md - Installation and code examples
• IMPLEMENTATION_GUIDE.md - Architecture and implementation details

Sample Applications

The library includes five demonstration applications in src/SharpTerm.Samples:

1. Hello World - Basic terminal output with color support
2. Widget Showcase - Interactive demonstration of all widgets with resize support
3. TODO App - Task management with scrollable list, item activation, and detail view
4. Progress Bar Demo - Multiple animated progress indicators
5. Form Input Demo - Multi-field form with validation and keyboard navigation

Run samples:

dotnet run --project src/SharpTerm.Samples

Platform Support

Requirements

• .NET 9.0 SDK or later
• Windows 10+ with Windows Terminal or ConHost
• Linux with modern terminal emulator supporting ANSI sequences
• macOS with Terminal.app or iTerm2

Tested Environments

• Windows 11 with Windows Terminal
• Windows Console Host (conhost.exe)
• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with gnome-terminal
• macOS Monterey with iTerm2

Architecture

Terminal Abstraction

The library provides a clean abstraction over terminal operations through the ITerminalDriver interface, with AnsiTerminalDriver implementing ANSI escape sequence rendering and Windows Console API input handling.

Application Framework

The Application class provides an event loop architecture with:

• Input event processing (keyboard and mouse)
• Widget lifecycle management
• Focus navigation and state management
• Render orchestration with dirty tracking
• Terminal resize event handling

Widget System

All widgets inherit from the base Widget class and implement the Render method. Widgets raise a Changed event when their state updates, triggering efficient re-renders of only modified components.

Building from Source

Clone and build:

git clone https://github.com/Memetic0/SharpTerm.git
cd SharpTerm
dotnet build

Run tests:

dotnet test

Current Status

Completed Features

• Core terminal driver with ANSI support
• Six fully-featured widgets
• Application framework with event loop
• Windows Console API integration for input
• Per-widget dirty tracking rendering
• Mouse support (click, double-click, scroll wheel)
• Terminal resize detection
• Five sample applications
• Comprehensive test suite

Planned Enhancements

• Additional widgets (CheckBox, RadioButton, Panel, Menu, ScrollView)
• Layout management system (Flex, Grid)
• Theme and styling engine
• Data binding framework
• Cross-platform input handling improvements
• Async operation support
• Accessibility features

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please submit pull requests with:

• Clear description of changes
• Unit tests for new functionality
• Documentation updates
• Code following existing style conventions

License

MIT License - See LICENSE file for details

Acknowledgments

Inspired by Terminal.Gui, Spectre.Console, and Blessed. Built with .NET 9 and C# 13.