Crate tui_skeleton 

Animated skeleton loading widgets for Ratatui.

Placeholder widgets that pulse, sweep, or shimmer while data loads. All widgets are stateless — pass elapsed_ms from your event loop and the animation state is computed purely from the timestamp.

Two orthogonal axes control appearance:

• Animation mode (AnimationMode) — Breathe, Sweep, Plasma, or Noise
• Fill variant (.braille(bool)) — solid █ or braille ⣿

Widgets

• SkeletonBlock — Filled rectangle (atomic unit)
• SkeletonTable — Rows with column separators, ragged cell widths, zebra striping
• SkeletonList — Short spaced items with ragged edges (menu/sidebar)
• SkeletonText — Paragraph simulation with varying line widths
• SkeletonStreamingText — Typewriter-style chat text filling over time
• SkeletonBarChart — Vertical bars of varying height
• SkeletonHBarChart — Horizontal bars of varying length
• SkeletonBrailleBar — Braille progress bars with rounded caps and peak marker
• SkeletonKvTable — Key-value pairs (properties/detail panel)
• SkeletonLineChart — Braille line chart with overlapping wave traces

Example

use tui_skeleton::{SkeletonBlock, AnimationMode, Color};

let elapsed_ms = 1000u64;

// Solid fill with sweep animation
let solid = SkeletonBlock::new(elapsed_ms)
    .mode(AnimationMode::Sweep)
    .base(Color::Rgb(30, 22, 58))
    .highlight(Color::Rgb(49, 40, 78));

// Braille fill with breathe animation
let braille = SkeletonBlock::new(elapsed_ms)
    .braille(true)
    .base(Color::Rgb(30, 22, 58))
    .highlight(Color::Rgb(49, 40, 78));

// TV noise — random braille glyphs changing every frame
let noise = SkeletonBlock::new(elapsed_ms)
    .mode(AnimationMode::Noise);

Adaptive Tick Rate

Skeleton animations look best at ~20 FPS (TICK_ANIMATED) but most TUI applications tick at ~5 FPS (TICK_IDLE) for static content. The recommended pattern:

1. Track whether any skeleton widget is currently visible
2. Use TICK_ANIMATED when skeletons are on screen
3. Revert to TICK_IDLE when all data has loaded

This keeps CPU usage low while delivering smooth animations during loading.

Re-exports

pub use bar_chart::SkeletonBarChart;

pub use block::SkeletonBlock;

pub use braille_bar::SkeletonBrailleBar;

pub use hbar_chart::SkeletonHBarChart;

pub use kv_table::SkeletonKvTable;

pub use line_chart::SkeletonLineChart;

pub use list::SkeletonList;

pub use streaming_text::SkeletonStreamingText;

pub use table::SkeletonTable;

pub use text::SkeletonText;

Modules

bar_chart

block

braille_bar

defaults

Default colors that work on both dark and light terminals.

hbar_chart

kv_table

line_chart

list

streaming_text

table

text

Structs

Block

A widget that renders borders, titles, and padding around other widgets.

Enums

AnimationMode

Animation style for skeleton loading widgets.

Color

ANSI Color

Constraint

A constraint that defines the size of a layout element.

Constants

TICK_ANIMATED

Recommended tick interval when skeleton widgets are visible (50ms / 20 FPS).

TICK_IDLE

Recommended tick interval for static content (200ms / 5 FPS).