/simple-terminal-menu

A menu that is easier to use on the terminal than terminal-menu

Primary LanguageJavaScriptMIT LicenseMIT

simple-terminal-menu

terminal-menu does a good job for starting a menu but it is a bit tedious to set-up reliably for process.stdin / process.stdout and also for the use with double width characters.

For simply taking charge of the power this terminal menu offers a few things:

Automatically connects to process.stdin/stdout

You don't have to do that, it will just work :)

You can manually trigger start if you like using the .autoStart: false option and start it by hand:

const menu = new TerminalMenu({
  autoStart: false
})
// Then start it manually
menu.start(process) // Optionally you can pass in a custom process here for testing.

Markers

.add gets an new signature

const label = 'hello' // will be aligned left
const marker = '(tm)' // (optional) will be aligned right
const handler = (label, marker) => {
  // (optional) will be called in case the item is chosen
}
menu.add(label, marker, handler)

With this you can add entries that have a right-aligned marker text shown.

Menu Items

You can also use .addItem to use objects to add menu items.

menu.addItem({
  label: 'hello', // will be aligned left
  marker: '(tm)', // (optional) will be aligned right
  handler: (label, index, item) => {
    // (optional) will be called in case the item is chosen
  }
})

Separators

Just use .writeSeparator() to create a separator line.

Automatic truncating of entries

If an entry exceeds the width of the menu it will be truncated with opts.truncator or ...

Writing of text

Similar like .add it supports .writeLine that allows you to write a text that is both left & right aligned.

.writeLine(<left>[, <right>])

tty Tests

If the terminal doesn't support TTY new TerminalMenu will just null!

const TerminalMenu = require('simple-terminal-menu')
const menu = new TerminalMenu()
if (menu === null) {
  console.log('interactive menu not supported')
  process.exit(1)
}

Comfort functions

To write a nice title and subtitle the comfort functions .writeTitle and .writeSubtitle exist.

Factory

If you have several menus that need to look alike, you can use the factory. It is available via require('simple-terminal-menu/factory').

Installation & Usage

Install it using npm

npm install simple-terminal-menu --save

And then create a menu it in your code using

const TerminalMenu = require('../simple-terminal-menu')

function showSelection(label, index, item) {
  console.log("label: " + label + "; marker: " + item.marker + ";")
}

function mainMenu() {
  const menu = new TerminalMenu({ // settings passed through to terminal-menu
    width: 80,   // menu width in columns
    x: 1,        // top-left corner x offset, default: 1
    y: 1,        // top-left corner y offset, default: 1
    fg: 'white', // foreground color, default: 'white'
    bg: 'blue',  // background color, default: 'blue'
    padding: {
      left: 0    // left padding in columns
      right: 0   // right padding in columns
      top: 0     // top padding in rows
      bottom: 0  // bottom padding in rows
    },
    selected: 0  // set the selected element by its index
  })

  if (menu === null) {
    // In case the terminal is not interactive the result is null
    console.log('terminal is not interactive')
    return
  }
  menu.writeLine("My Menu", "(tm)")
  menu.writeSeparator()
  menu.add("A", "[selected]", showSelection)
  menu.add("B", showSelection)
  menu.writeSeparator()
  menu.add("open submenu", subMenu)
  menu.add("exit", menu.close)
}

function subMenu() {
  const menu = new TerminalMenu()
  menu.writeLine("SubMenu")
  menu.writeSeparator()
  menu.add("C", "[selected]", showSelection)
  menu.add("D", showSelection)
  menu.writeSeparator()
  menu.add("cancel", mainMenu)
  menu.add("niceTitle", nicelyTitledMenu)
  menu.add("exit", menu.close)
}

function nicelyTitledMenu() {
  const menu = new TerminalMenu();
  menu.writeTitle("Awesome window")
  menu.writeSubtitle("A little more colorful")
  menu.writeSeparator()
  menu.add("cancel", subMenu)
  menu.add("factoryA", factoryMenuA)
  menu.add("exit", menu.close)
}


// Options for the menu when created through the factory
var factoryMenuOptions = {} // Can be empty! the factory uses some sensible defaults!

// Defaults for creating menu with the factory
var defaultFactoryOptions = {
  title: "Factory Title",
  // you could also specify `subtitle:`, menu & extras are not available.
}
var factory = require('simple-terminal-menu/factory')(factoryMenuOptions, defaultFactoryOptions);

function factoryMenuA() {
  factory.create({
    subtitle: "factory-a",
    before: (menu) => {
      // Do anything you like before menu/extras are added
    }
    menu: [{
      label: "E",
      handler: showSelection
    }, {
      label: "F",
      handler: showSelection
    }],
    extras: [{
        label: "factoryB",
        handler: factoryMenuB
      },{
        label: "cancel",
        handler: nicelyTitledMenu
      }],
    after: (menu) => {
      // Do anything you like after menu/extras are added
    }
  })
}

function factoryMenuB() {
  factory.create({
    subtitle: "factory-b",
    menu: [{
        label: "G",
        handler: showSelection
      }],
    extras: [{
        label: "factoryA",
        handler: factoryMenuA
      },{
        label: "cancel",
        handler: nicelyTitledMenu
      }]
  });
}


mainMenu()

License

MIT