retroglyph

The one dependency you add for retroglyph: the double-buffered Terminal/App game loop, styled cells, text and layout helpers, and input events -- app, color, event, frames, grid, layout, surface, terminal, text, tile, symbols -- plus a prelude with the handful of names a program can't avoid, and one feature-gated module per backend (crossterm, software, gl, wgpu, ui). Writing a new backend instead of a game? Depend on retroglyph-core directly for its lower-level backend, dev, and math modules.

Quick start

cargo add retroglyph

use retroglyph::crossterm::Crossterm;
use retroglyph::prelude::*;

struct Game;

impl App<Crossterm> for Game {
    fn update(&mut self, term: &mut Terminal<Crossterm>, _frame: &Frame) -> Flow {
        term.surface().put((5, 5), '@', Style::new().fg(Color::GREEN));

        if let Some(Event::Key(k)) = term.poll(std::time::Duration::from_secs(1)) {
            if k.code == KeyCode::Char('q') {
                return Flow::Exit;
            }
        }
        Flow::Continue
    }
}

fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
    retroglyph::app::run(Crossterm::new()?, Game)
}

Want a native window or a browser tab instead of a real terminal? Enable the software, gl, or wgpu feature instead of (or alongside) crossterm: same Terminal/App contract, a different Backend type.

Features

crossterm

🟢 Enabled by default.

Re-exports retroglyph-crossterm as crossterm: a real-terminal Backend via crossterm.

default-font

⚪ Optional.

Forwards each enabled backend's own default-font feature (an embedded Unscii 16 bitmap font), so a caller doesn't need to know which backend crate actually owns it.

gl

⚪ Optional.

Re-exports retroglyph-gl as gl: a GPU Backend via glow (OpenGL 3.3 native, WebGL2 wasm). Also pulls in the curated windowed re-exports (WindowConfig, PresenterBuilder, Windowed, WindowedLaunchError, run_app, run_app_on).

serde

⚪ Optional.

Adds Serialize/Deserialize impls to the curated types that support them (Color, Style, geometry, ..., plus ui::theme::Theme/Density when ui is also enabled). Forwards to retroglyph-core's and retroglyph-ui's own serde features; neither backend crate has one.

software

⚪ Optional.

Re-exports retroglyph-software as software: a CPU pixel Backend via softbuffer. Also pulls in the curated windowed re-exports (WindowConfig, PresenterBuilder, Windowed, WindowedLaunchError, run_app, run_app_on).

terminal-wasm

⚪ Optional.

Re-exports retroglyph-terminal-wasm as terminal_wasm: a browser Backend driven by pushed/pulled ANSI I/O (e.g. xterm.js). Its #[wasm_bindgen] FFI module only compiles for target_arch = "wasm32", but the crate (and this re-export) build portably otherwise.

testing

⚪ Optional.

Enables TestHarness and its error, the published headless App driver for testing your own App. Forwards to retroglyph-core's own testing feature.

tilesets

⚪ Optional.

Forwards each enabled backend's own tilesets feature (PNG sprite/tileset loading), so a caller doesn't need to know which backend crate actually owns it. Mirrors default-font above; see retroglyph_window::tileset for the TilesetOptions/ Codepage config types that feature adds -- reach for retroglyph-window directly for those, same as any other finer-grained windowed control this facade doesn't curate.

tracing

⚪ Optional.

Forwards to retroglyph-crossterm's tracing feature: instruments draw/flush/poll_event with tracing spans for profiling render/input time.

ui

🟢 Enabled by default.

Re-exports retroglyph-ui as ui: the immediate-mode widget/layout toolkit.

wgpu

⚪ Optional.

Re-exports retroglyph-wgpu as wgpu: a GPU Backend via wgpu (Vulkan, Metal, D3D12, WebGPU). Also pulls in the curated windowed re-exports (WindowConfig, PresenterBuilder, Windowed, WindowedLaunchError, run_app, run_app_on).

See docs.rs for the full API, or the workspace README for the crate list and more examples.