nmenu - ncurses menu system

A 'plug and play' menu system for ncurses with automatic sizing and centering. Do it all with one function!

Getting started
- Prerequisites
- Installing and compiling
Running the test
Including nmenu in projects
Using nmenu

Getting started

The following instructions will allow you to install nmenu locally for testing and development

Prerequisites

The following dependencies are required to be able to compile/run nmenu:

ncurses
gcc

Installing and compiling

Run the following command to clone nmenu and compile it for use in your projects:

git clone https://github.com/hollystandring/nmenu
cd nmenu
make

The files 'test' and 'nmenu.o' will be created.

Running the tests

Once you have compiled nmenu, you can test to see if it is working by running 'test':

./test

You should then be shown 4 menus in succession which (hopefully) look like this: After the last number, the values of the selected options will be output to the terminal:

./test
Choice 1: 2
Choice 2: 3
Choice 3: 1
Choice 4: 4

If these tests do not show as expected, recompile and try again. If this does not fix it, please help by reporting the bug via the Issues tab.

Including nmenu in projects

In order to use nmenu in your ncurses project, first copy nmenu.h and nmenu.o to your project directory:

cp nmenu.h ~/path/to/myproject/
cp nmenu.o ~/path/to/myproject/

At the start of your .c file, be sure to include nmenu and ncurses:

#include"nmenu.h"
#include<ncurses.h>

When compiling your .c file with gcc, be sure to reference nmenu.o and ncurses:

gcc -o myproject main.c nmenu.o -lncurses

Using nmenu

Parameters

menu() takes 6 parameters:

title - The text displayed at the top of the window. This should be short, probabaly one or two words
description - The text displayed inside the window
choices - An array of strings containing the choices to be displayed
choicesSize - The number of elements in the choices array. Unfortunatley sizeof() does not work in a parameter so this must be done manually.
vertical - If set to true, choices will be displayed vertically
centered - If set to true, choices will be centered in the middle of the window. This might not look as good if you're not careful with the length of your choices

Examples

char *choices[2] = {"Yes", "No"};

menu("Confirm", "Are you sure you want to exit?", choices, 2, true, true);

char *choices[5] = {"1 ", "2 ", "3 ", "4 ", "5 "};

menu("Amount", "Select the number of pages you want to print:", choices, 5, false, true);

Interacting with the menu

To navigate choices, the up, left, right, and down arrow keys can be used. The currently highlighted choice will have a white background To select a choice, the enter and space keys can be used. This will return the value of the selected choice To close the menu without selecting anything, the 'c' or escape key can be used. Using escape will be slower

hollystandring/nmenu