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40 lines
2.1 KiB
Markdown
40 lines
2.1 KiB
Markdown
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# textui/console renderer example
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## Inroduction
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This renderer example utilizes ncurses and a mostly implemented library which converts the clay draw commands into ncurses commands.
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A console rendering is very limited, and all coordinates are simply rounded via integer division to the coordinate system of a terminal.
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## What works
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- Rectangles draw approximately correctly with the right color
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- Text wraps, and is well placed
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- Clicking a location on a scroll bar moves the scrolled area
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- Debug mode highlights on click
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- Window resize and layout reaction
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## What doesn't work
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- Image rendering
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- Sub character rectangles
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- Text fonts and colors
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- Clay extensions
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- Clay scissor mode
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## Reasonable expectations
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This renderer is intended to allow for a nearly dependency free implementation of Clay, and nearly all linux distributions have ncurses installed.
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This renderer will allow for quick visualization of layouts. There is no graphics acceleration though this example is quite responsive.
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The unit of a terminal is a character, not a pixel, so there is only so much detail that can be rendered. The default character size defined in the renderer is 5x8 pixels.
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## What could work
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- More precise rendering of borders and rectangles, this could be implemented with box-drawing characters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box-drawing_characters
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- The mouse wheel on some terminals
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- Images with an additional dependency on something like kitty: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/graphics-protocol/
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- Better text coloring by matching the background
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## Setup
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You'll have to setup an event loop using getch(), and pay attention to the various init functions in main.c
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Then it's the regular Clay layout definition and calls to the renderer function.
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## Conclusion
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The truth is that if you're willing to learn ncurses and how it handles windows you can get a better terminal experience without Clay.
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This example shows that for quick terminal apps, Clay could be extremely effective for organizing a user interface in the terminal.
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I hope that this renderer helps many people build fun and cool projects by lowering the barrier to a framwork.
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