Crossterm | cross-platform terminal manipulating library.

Ever got disappointed when a terminal library for rust was only written for UNIX systems? Crossterm provides, clearing, input handling, styling, cursor movement, terminal actions for both Windows and UNIX systems.

Crossterm aims to be simple and easy to call in code. Through the simplicity of Crossterm, you do not have to worry about the platform you are working with.

This crate supports all UNIX and windows terminals down to windows 7 (not all terminals are tested see Tested Terminals for more info)

This crate is exists out of five modules who are behind feature flags so that you can define which features you'd like to have, by default all features are enabled.

• Crossterm Style
• Crossterm Input
• Crossterm Screen
• Crossterm Cursor
• Crossterm Terminal

Table of contents:

• Getting started
• Useful links
• Features
• Examples
  • Crossterm Wrapper
  • Styling
  • Cursor
  • Input
  • Terminal
• Tested Terminals
• Notice
• Todo
• Contributing
• Authors
• License

Getting Started

This documentation is only for Crossterm version 0.8 if you have an older version of Crossterm I suggest you check the Upgrade Manual. Also, check out the examples folders with detailed examples for all functionality of this crate.

Add the Crossterm package to your Cargo.toml file.

[dependencies]
crossterm = "0.8"

Useful Links

• Book
• Documentation
• Crates.io
• Program Examples
• Examples

Features

These are the features from this crate:

• Cross-platform
• Everything is multithreaded (Send, Sync)
• Detailed documentation on every item
• Very few dependenties.
• Cursor.
  • Moving n times Up, Down, Left, Right
  • Goto a certain position
  • Get cursor position
  • Storing the current cursor position and resetting to that stored cursor position later
  • Hiding an showing the cursor
  • Control over blinking of the terminal cursor (only some terminals are supporting this)
• Styled output
  • Foreground color (16 base colors)
  • Background color (16 base colors)
  • 256 color support (Windows 10 and UNIX only)
  • RGB support (Windows 10 and UNIX only)
  • Text Attributes like: bold, italic, underscore and crossed word ect (Windows 10 and UNIX only)
• Terminal
  • Clearing (all lines, current line, from cursor down and up, until new line)
  • Scrolling (Up, down)
  • Get the size of the terminal
  • Set the size of the terminal
  • Alternate screen
  • Raw screen
  • Exit the current process
• Input
  • Read character
  • Read line
  • Read key input events async / sync (ALT + Key, CTRL + Key, FN, Arrows, ESC, BackSpace, HOME, DELETE. INSERT, PAGEUP/DOWN, and more)
  • Read mouse input events (Press, Release, Position, Button)

Examples

These are some basic examples demonstrating how to use this crate. See examples for more.

Crossterm Type

This is a wrapper for all the modules crossterm provides like terminal, cursor, styling and input.

Good documentation could be found on the following places: docs, examples.

// screen whereon the `Crossterm` methods will be executed.
let crossterm = Crossterm::new();

// get instance of the modules, whereafter you can use the methods the particularly module provides. 
let color = crossterm.color();
let cursor = crossterm.cursor();
let terminal = crossterm.terminal();
let input = crossterm.input();

Styled Font

This module provides the functionalities to style the terminal.

Good documentation could be found on the following places: docs, book, examples

imports

use crossterm::{Colored, Color, Colorize, Styler, Attribute};

style font with attributes

// pass any `Attribute` value to the formatting braces.
println!("{} Underlined {} No Underline", Attribute::Underlined, Attribute::NoUnderline);

// you could also call different attribute methods on a `&str` and keep on chaining if needed.
let styled_text = "Bold Underlined".bold().underlined();
println!("{}", styled_text);

// old-way but still usable
let styled_text = style("Bold Underlined").bold().underlined();

style font with colors

println!("{} Red foreground color", Colored::Fg(Color::Red));
println!("{} Blue background color", Colored::Bg(Color::Blue));

// you can also call different coloring methods on a `&str`.
let styled_text = "Bold Underlined".red().on_blue();
println!("{}", styled_text);

// old-way but still usable
let styled_text = style("Bold Underlined").with(Color::Red).on(Color::Blue);

style font with RGB and ANSI Value

// custom rgb value (Windows 10 and UNIX systems)
println!("{} some colored text", Colored::Fg(Color::Rgb {
    r: 10,
    g: 10,
    b: 10
}));

// custom ansi color value (Windows 10 and UNIX systems)
println!("{} some colored text", Colored::Fg(Color::AnsiValue(10)));

Cursor

This module provides the functionalities to work with the terminal cursor.

Good documentation could be found on the following places: docs, examples

use crossterm::cursor;

let mut cursor = cursor();

/// Moving the cursor
// Set the cursor to position X: 10, Y: 5 in the terminal
cursor.goto(10,5);

// Move the cursor up,right,down,left 3 cells.
cursor.move_up(3);
cursor.move_right(3);
cursor.move_down(3);
cursor.move_left(3);

/// Safe the current cursor position to recall later
// Goto X: 5 Y: 5
cursor.goto(5,5);
// Safe cursor position: X: 5 Y: 5
cursor.save_position();
// Goto X: 5 Y: 20
cursor.goto(5,20);
// Print at X: 5 Y: 20.
print!("Yea!");
// Reset back to X: 5 Y: 5.
cursor.reset_position();
// Print 'Back' at X: 5 Y: 5.
print!("Back");

// hide cursor
cursor.hide();
// show cursor
cursor.show();
// blink or not blinking of the cursor (not widely supported)
cursor.blink(true)

Terminal

This module provides the functionalities to work with the terminal in general.

Good documentation could be found on the following places: docs, examples.

use crossterm::{terminal,ClearType};

let mut terminal = terminal();

// Clear all lines in terminal;
terminal.clear(ClearType::All);
// Clear all cells from current cursor position down.
terminal.clear(ClearType::FromCursorDown);
// Clear all cells from current cursor position down.
terminal.clear(ClearType::FromCursorUp);
// Clear current line cells.
terminal.clear(ClearType::CurrentLine);
// Clear all the cells until next line.
terminal.clear(ClearType::UntilNewLine);

// Get terminal size
let (width, height) = terminal.terminal_size();
print!("X: {}, y: {}", width, height);

// Scroll down, up 10 lines.
terminal.scroll_down(10);
terminal.scroll_up(10);

// Set terminal size (width, height)
terminal.set_size(10,10);

// exit the current process.
terminal.exit();

// write to the terminal whether you are on the main screen or alternate screen.
terminal.write("Some text\n Some text on new line");

Input Reading

This module provides the functionalities to read user input events.

Good documentation could be found on the following places: docs, book, examples

available imports

use crossterm_input::{
    input, InputEvent, KeyEvent, MouseButton, MouseEvent, TerminalInput, AsyncReader, SyncReader, Screen
};

Simple Readings

let mut input = input();

 match input.read_char() {
    Ok(s) => println!("char typed: {}", s),
    Err(e) => println!("char error : {}", e),
 }
 
 match input.read_line() {
     Ok(s) => println!("string typed: {}", s),
     Err(e) => println!("error: {}", e),
 }

Read input events synchronously or asynchronously.

// make sure to enable raw mode, this will make sure key events won't be handled by the terminal it's self and allows crossterm to read the input and pass it back to you.
let screen = Screen::new(true);
    
let mut input = input();

// either read the input synchronously 
let stdin = input.read_sync();
 
// or asynchronously
let stdin = input.read_async();

if let Some(key_event) = stdin.next() {
     match key_event {
         InputEvent::Keyboard(event: KeyEvent) => match event { /* check key event */ }
         InputEvent::Mouse(event: MouseEvent) => match event { /* check mouse event */ }
     }
 }

Enable mouse input events.

let input = input();

// enable mouse events to be captured.
input.enable_mouse_mode().unwrap();

// disable mouse events to be captured.
input.disable_mouse_mode().unwrap();

Alternate and Raw Screen

These concepts are a little more complex and would take over the README, please checkout the docs, book, and examples.

Tested terminals

• Windows Powershell
  • Windows 10 (pro)
• Windows CMD
  • Windows 10 (pro)
  • Windows 8.1 (N)
• Ubuntu Desktop Terminal
  • Ubuntu 17.10
• (Arch, Manjaro) KDE Konsole
• Linux Mint

This crate supports all Unix terminals and windows terminals down to Windows 7 but not all of them have been tested. If you have used this library for a terminal other than the above list without issues feel free to add it to the above list, I really would appreciate it.

Notice

This library is average stable now but I don't expect it to not to change that much. If there are any changes that will affect previous versions I will describe what to change to upgrade.

Todo

• Tests Find a way to test: color, alternate screen, rawscreen

Contributing

I highly appreciate it when you are contributing to this crate. Also Since my native language is not English my grammar and sentence order will not be perfect. So improving this by correcting these mistakes will help both me and the reader of the docs.

Check Contributing for more info about branches and code architecture.

Authors

• Timon Post - Project Owner & creator

License

This project, crossterm and all it's sub-modules: crossterm_screen, crossterm_cursor, crossterm_style, crossterm_input, crossterm_terminal, crossterm_winapi, crossterm_utils are licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details