spectreconsole/spectre.console

A .NET library that makes it easier to create beautiful console applications.

spectre.console's Issues

Add table overflow strategies

There should be an option to specify overflow strategies for tables when one or more columns can't be displayed.

• If the table can't be displayed at all (requested max-width <= 0), show an ellipsis.
• Truncate table if it exceeds the requested max-width.

Default

Do nothing to prevent bad rendering.

Yolo

Do nothing to prevent bad rendering.
Do not truncate the table or show ellipsis.

Drop

Start dropping columns until content fit.

Ellipsis

Display columns that won't fit with an ellipsis.

Column splitting

Split columns in half until all columns fit.

Row splitting

Split rows so all columns are grouped together even if not all fit.

---

Please upvote 👍 this issue if you are interested in it.

Support rendering columns

Support rendering arbitrary data into columns.

Grids/Table: Exception gets thrown when console width is very small

An Exception gets thrown when running the Grids or Table example on a very small console window:

Grid:

System.InvalidOperationException: Text folding failed since 'take' was zero.

Table:

System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Length cannot be less than zero. (Parameter 'length')

I don't expect pretty output but at least the program shouldn't crash.

Add way of creating styles from strings

Just as we do when we parse markup, it would be convenient if we could construct a style from a string.

var style = Style.Parse("bold magenta on green");

Perhaps we should add support for implicit conversion from String to Style as well?

Enable nullable reference types

Merge segments before writing them to the console

Sometimes consecutive segments use the same style which causes the same ANSI escape codes to be repeated. Consecutive segments with the same style should be merged before rendering.

Should be possible to adjust alignment of table columns

Handle fallback to ASCII borders when running in legacy console (cmd.exe)

We know whether or not we're running in a legacy console (cmd.exe) which doesn't support true type fonts. If we are, we should automatically downgrade borders that use true type fonts to something that can be properly rendered.

var isLegacyConsole = console.Capabilities.LegacyConsole;

Endless loop when table column widths can't be calculated

If not table column widths can be calculated, the measurement algorithm sometimes goes into an endless loop, which is not very good. This should be fixed.

If this happen, we could probably return a length of 1 for the column and not write anything at all into the cell.

Update:
This seem to have something to do with Segment.SplitLines if it gets a max width of 0

Add border support for panels

The Panel class should support using different borders just like Table does.

Support Figlet fonts

Figlet fonts allow folks to more easily design outputs in specialized ascii patterns.

Font: alligator
        :::   :::   ::::::::  :::::::: 
      :+:+: :+:+: :+:    :+::+:    :+: 
    +:+ +:+:+ +:++:+    +:++:+    +:+  
   +#+  +:+  +#++#+    +:++#+    +:+   
  +#+       +#++#+    +#++#+    +#+    
 #+#       #+##+#    #+##+#    #+#     
###       ### ########  ########       

• http://www.figlet.org/fontdb.cgi
• https://github.com/xero/figlet-fonts

Links with a link as the text fails

Trying to do this markup fails because it thinks it might be an emoji - Hello [link=http://example.com]http://example.com[/]

Failing test - phil-scott-78@1f5e00e

Exception

System.Collections.Generic.KeyNotFoundException
The given key '//example.com]http' was not present in the dictionary.
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.get_Item(TKey key)
   at Spectre.Console.Emoji.<Replace>g__ReplaceEmoji|1_0(Match match) in R:\Projects\spectre.console\src\Spectre.Console\Emoji.cs:line 19
   at System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(MatchEvaluator evaluator, Regex regex, String input, Int32 count, Int32 startat)
   at System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(String input, MatchEvaluator evaluator)
   at Spectre.Console.Emoji.Replace(String value) in R:\Projects\spectre.console\src\Spectre.Console\Emoji.cs:line 20
   at Spectre.Console.Internal.MarkupParser.Parse(String text, Style style) in R:\Projects\spectre.console\src\Spectre.Console\Internal\Text\Markup\MarkupParser.cs:line 16
   at Spectre.Console.Markup..ctor(String text, Style style) in R:\Projects\spectre.console\src\Spectre.Console\Widgets\Markup.cs:line 35
   at Spectre.Console.Tests.Unit.MarkupTests.Should_render_links_as_expected(String input, String output) in R:\Projects\spectre.console\src\Spectre.Console.Tests\Unit\MarkupTests.cs:line 33

Add markdown border

Would be nice to use markdown borders for tables.

• https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet#tables
• https://www.markdownguide.org/extended-syntax/#tables

Allow using "\[" to escape "[" in markup

Right now we can escape [ characters with [[ but @agc93 suggested that it might be a good idea to support \[ since this probably is the first thing a user tries when trying to escape something.

Command type or command settings must have a public constructor

Treat trailing commands as extra remaining arguments

If the user provides a command to a leaf command and strict parsing is turned off, the trailing command should be treated as an extra remaining argument instead of showing an error.

Support rendering rows

Support rendering arbitrary data into rows.

Don't show command examples at root

Only examples specified on the root should show at the root. If examples are specified for commands it should not show up at the root since this is a bit confusing.

Support text overflow

If text overflows, we should support different ways of mitigating this

• Fold, just resume on the next line
• Crop, just crop the remaining characters
• Ellipsis, Append …

Add better algorithm for calculating column widths in table

Right now we calculate the widths of all the columns and rows in the table in one pass. This means that unless columns take up their maximum width, not all the available width is used.

Add column overflow for tables and grids

Would be nice to specify a default column overflow for tables and grids.

Should be able to adjust padding for grids, panels and tables

Do not include cell separators in grid

"Hello" in French is misspelled

Hi,
https://github.com/spectresystems/spectre.console/blob/8a01b93acad83118d090f4da8a8d9e66ed0f476e/examples/Table/Program.cs#L62

"Bounjour" should be replaced by "Bonjour"

Support ANSI Hyperlinks in output

It would be handy if there were support in spectre.console to output ANSI hyperlinks (clickable links) in the terminals that support this feature.

While there are currently only a handful of terminals that currently support this.
Current state of support (per 2020-05-31) can be seen here: https://gist.github.com/egmontkob/eb114294efbcd5adb1944c9f3cb5feda

From my own testing, I have found that GNOME Terminal supports these links, and partially Windows Terminal (mainly only that it won't choke when ANSI hyperlinks are used).

Instructions to get emojis to work (on Windows)

I am using Emojis for a project and everything worked perfectly fine on my machine.
After distributing the self executable to the customer he reported me that the emojis didn't get printed out and instead two question marks (??) are displayed.
This was quite surprising because in the documentation there exists no section of when emojis get printed and when not.

So this is an effort of collecting solutions on how to get emojis to work on Windows.

• Set the OutputEncoding manually:
  This is an easy fix to do, just add System.Console.OutputEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8 as the first line of the main function.
  Altough this is a quick fix I don't think it is the best solution because basically you override the Encoding settings of the parent console.

• Set the Encoding of the PowerShell (Core) console on a per session basis:
  You can set the input and output encoding of the console by executing the following line
  [console]::InputEncoding = [console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8
  This commaand can be put in the profile file so the command gets executed automatically.
  There exists also an issue to set UTF-8 as the default encoding on PowerShell Core: PowerShell/PowerShell#7233

• Set the UTF-8 worldwide language support:

  • Execute intl.cpl
  • Go to [Administrative], then [Change system locale...]
    
  • Set the checkbox
    

In fact this was the setting I had set on my development machine which caused to render the emojis correctly.

I hope this helps troubleshooting the issues I had with the output encoding (and emojis) and maybe some explanation could be added to the documentation.

Add better sample

The sample should show the features of the library in a way that's simple and easy to understand.

Add support for rounded borders

Is this layout possible

I recently started using your project. I was wondering if it is possible to create a layout like this:

With a Column and two Panels, I can divide the console into two equal boxes.
I tried using two columns and nested Columns but it didn't work

Thanks for your great project.

Don't limit tables and grids to markup text

It should be no problem to render other stuff in tables since all columns and rows are of the type IRenderable, but at some point, when the API is "done", we should add explicit support for adding arbitrary renderable objects to a table.

Add aliases for styles

• [underline]Foo[/] == [u]Foo[/]
• [bold]Foo[/] == [b]Foo[/]
• [italic]Foo[/] == [i]Foo[/]

Add panel header support

Support word wrapping for text

Right now, text rendered via the Text class does not take word boundaries into account. We should support proper word wrapping.

Cell Width issues when rendering emojis in table cells

Hello, first of all, thanks for this amazing project. It enable us to build cool dotnet tools :)

I'm trying to render a table that contains emojis, and depending on the emoji (I suppose because of their length), the table renders ok with some emojis and it has an extra spacing with others.

Here is some sample code:

            var hcTable = new Table().SetBorder(Border.Rounded);
            hcTable.AddColumn(new TableColumn("Name ") { Padding = new Padding(10, 10), Alignment = Justify.Center });
            hcTable.AddColumn(new TableColumn(new Markup($"Status ✔️")) { Padding = new Padding(10, 10), Alignment = Justify.Center });
            hcTable.AddColumn(new TableColumn("Description ℹ") { Padding = new Padding(10, 10), Alignment = Justify.Center });
            hcTable.AddColumn(new TableColumn("Duration 🕐 ") { Padding = new Padding(10, 10), Alignment = Justify.Center });
            hcTable.AddRow(new Text("name"), new Markup($"💚 some text"), new Text("some text"), new Text("Some text"));
            hcTable.AddRow(new Text("name"), new Markup($"❌ some text"), new Text("some text"), new Text("Some text"));
            hcTable.AddRow(new Text("name"), new Markup($"💚 some text"), new Text("some text"), new Text("Some text"));
            AnsiConsole.Render(hcTable);

As you can see it does not happen with the 💚 but happens with the ❌ and also in table headers. They report lengths of 2 and 1 (4 and 3 bytes).

I see you are considering this extra spacing in the unit tests, but is there any chance to correctly calculate cell length and width when having emojis?

https://github.com/spectresystems/spectre.console/blob/main/src/Spectre.Console.Tests/Unit/PanelTests.cs#L158

Thanks

Support options before arguments

Especially for Unix/Linux platforms, the convention is usually to provide options before arguments:

Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]...
Usage: tar [OPTION...] [FILE]...
systemctl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} ...

Using boolean options before arguments currently gets incorrectly interpreted as assigning a value to the option flag. Would be good to support this ordering (preferably alongside existing behaviour).

Add Spectre.Console logo

Box Logo With Text

Horizontal Logo With Black Text

Horizontal Logo with Gray Text

Plain Logo / Sticker

Support RGB colors in markup

Would be nice to use RGN colors in markup.

AnsiConsole.Markup("[bold rgb(92,92,92) on rgb(255,0,0)]Hello World[/]");

Make styles composable

NuGet badge points to the wrong NuGet package

😅

Previously set colors is used after the current text is written

When the background (also assuming the foreground, but can't be verified) gets changed multiple times (by setting AnsiConsole.Background), then after the text has been printed, the previous background color is being used for the rest of the line.

Examples from different shells:

PowerShell

CMD

Windows Terminal

GNOME Terminal

Konsole Terminal

I tried to look into why this happens, but I was unable to find the reason.

Support hex colors in markup

Would be nice to use hex colors in markup.

AnsiConsole.Markup("[bold #121212 on #FF0000]Hello World[/]");

Add support for setting table and panel border color

Add support for table headings and footnotes

Make assembly CLS compliant

Add ability to remap or add additional emojis

It would be a nice to have feature if it would be possible to either remap or add additional emojis to the already supported emoji list supported by Spectre.Console.

For instance, in my use case, I would like to have the ability to map the GitHub emoji icon names to something that would be equivalent to the ones already in the Spectre.Console emoji list.

ie:
Remapping :smile (:smile:) to :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: and so on.

I do not think it would worthwhile in the long run for Spectre.Console to know about them (mostly due to the number of icons), so having the option of adding/remapping them ourself would be great.

Add bar graph support

Here is an initial draft of the API. Feedback and thoughts are welcome.

new BarGraph<FruitCount>(title: "Favorite Fruit")
    // Y-axis should be numeric
    .Data(new[]
    {
        new FruitCount { Fruit = "Apple", NumberOfPeople  = 35 },
        new FruitCount { Fruit = "Orange", NumberOfPeople = 30 },
        new FruitCount { Fruit = "Banana", NumberOfPeople = 10 }
    })
    .X(x => x.Fruit)
    .Y(y => y.NumberOfPeople, "# of People");
    // Other formatting extensions

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56139993/c-sharp-how-to-make-a-horizontal-bar-graph-in-the-console-app

Allow a single row or header to span multiple columns in tables

In some cases, it would be useful to have the ability to have a single header or row span multiple columns in a table.

For instance, if the header of the table is used as a title instead of the value name of each column, or if a row has the same value for multiple columns next to each other or even if the row is more used as a separator.

---

Please upvote 👍 this issue if you are interested in it.

Support Markdown rendering

Allow folks to take a markdown file and render it to the console.

https://github.com/charmbracelet/glow

Support A Month-View Calendar Renderable

Support the ability to print out pretty looking calendar months, with the ability to highlight dates.

            var calendar = new Calendar(
                currentMonth: 1,
                2020,
                CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
                new List<CalendarEvent> {
                    new CalendarEvent("New Years Day", new DateTime(2020, 1, 1))
                });

            AnsiConsole.Render(calendar);

With a resulting output of the following:

Sun  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri  Sat
               1*   2    3    4  
5    6    7    8    9    10   11 
12   13   14   15   16   17   18 
19   20   21   22   23   24   25 
26   27   28   29   30   31      

I have an initial implementation here, but the surface API and the configurable options can be changed and enhanced. I used Grid, but maybe I should have used Table?

** adapted from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40912268/c-sharp-write-a-program-that-displays-the-calendar-asking-just-for-the-year-a

    public class Calendar : IRenderable
    {
        private Grid grid;

        public Calendar(
            int currentMonth, 
            int currentYear, 
            CultureInfo cultureInfo = null,
            List<CalendarEvent> events = null)
        {
            CurrentMonth = currentMonth;
            CurrentYear = currentYear;
            CultureInfo = cultureInfo ?? CultureInfo;
            CalendarEvents = events ?? CalendarEvents;
            grid = new Grid();
        }

        public CultureInfo CultureInfo { get; }
            = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture;
        public int CurrentMonth { get; } 
            = 1;
        public int CurrentYear { get; } 
            = DateTime.UtcNow.Year;
        public List<CalendarEvent> CalendarEvents { get; set; }
            = new List<CalendarEvent>();

        public Measurement Measure(RenderContext context, int maxWidth)
        {
            return ((IRenderable) grid).Measure(context, maxWidth);
        }

        public IEnumerable<Segment> Render(RenderContext context, int maxWidth)
        {
            var names = CultureInfo.DateTimeFormat.AbbreviatedDayNames;
            var calendar = new int[6, 7];
            var days = DateTime.DaysInMonth(CurrentYear, CurrentMonth);
            var currentDay = 1;
            var date = new DateTime(CurrentYear, CurrentMonth, currentDay);
            var dayOfWeek = (int) date.DayOfWeek;
            
            foreach (var day in names)
            {
                grid.AddColumn(new GridColumn());
            }
            
            // add day names
            grid.AddRow(names);

            // calendar rows
            for (var i = 0; i < calendar.GetLength(0); i++)
            {
                var row = new List<string>();
                // days
                for (var j = 0; j < calendar.GetLength(1) && currentDay - dayOfWeek + 1 <= days; j++)
                {
                    if (i == 0 && CurrentMonth > j)
                    {
                        row.Add(string.Empty);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        var day = (currentDay - dayOfWeek + 1);
                        var display = string.Empty;
                        
                        if (day > 0) {
                            
                            var isEvent = CalendarEvents.Any(@event => 
                                @event.DateTime.Day == day && 
                                @event.DateTime.Month == CurrentMonth && 
                                @event.DateTime.Year == CurrentYear);
                            
                            display = isEvent ? $"[blue]{day}*[/]" : day.ToString();
                        }

                        row.Add(display);
                        currentDay++;
                    }
                }

                grid.AddRow(row.ToArray());
            }

            return ((IRenderable) grid).Render(context, maxWidth);
        }
    }

    public record CalendarEvent(string Name, DateTime DateTime);

Here is the table implementation.

    public class Calendar : IRenderable
    {
        private Table table;

        public Calendar(
            int currentMonth, 
            int currentYear, 
            CultureInfo cultureInfo = null,
            List<CalendarEvent> events = null)
        {
            CurrentMonth = currentMonth;
            CurrentYear = currentYear;
            CultureInfo = cultureInfo ?? CultureInfo;
            CalendarEvents = events ?? CalendarEvents;
            table = new Table
            {
                Border = TableBorder.Rounded,
                ShowHeaders = true
            };
        }

        public CultureInfo CultureInfo { get; }
            = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture;
        public int CurrentMonth { get; } 
            = 1;
        public int CurrentYear { get; } 
            = DateTime.UtcNow.Year;
        public List<CalendarEvent> CalendarEvents { get; set; }
            = new List<CalendarEvent>();

        public Measurement Measure(RenderContext context, int maxWidth)
        {
            return ((IRenderable) table).Measure(context, maxWidth);
        }

        public IEnumerable<Segment> Render(RenderContext context, int maxWidth)
        {
            var names = CultureInfo.DateTimeFormat.AbbreviatedDayNames;
            var calendar = new int[6, 7];
            var days = DateTime.DaysInMonth(CurrentYear, CurrentMonth);
            var currentDay = 1;
            var date = new DateTime(CurrentYear, CurrentMonth, currentDay);
            var dayOfWeek = (int) date.DayOfWeek;
            
            foreach (var day in names)
            {
                table.AddColumn(new TableColumn(day));
            }

            // calendar rows
            for (var i = 0; i < calendar.GetLength(0); i++)
            {
                var row = new List<string>();
                // days
                for (var j = 0; j < calendar.GetLength(1) && currentDay - dayOfWeek + 1 <= days; j++)
                {
                    if (i == 0 && CurrentMonth > j)
                    {
                        row.Add(string.Empty);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        var day = (currentDay - dayOfWeek + 1);
                        var display = string.Empty;
                        
                        if (day > 0) {
                            
                            var isEvent = CalendarEvents.Any(@event => 
                                @event.DateTime.Day == day && 
                                @event.DateTime.Month == CurrentMonth && 
                                @event.DateTime.Year == CurrentYear);
                            
                            display = isEvent ? $"[blue]{day}*[/]" : day.ToString();
                        }

                        row.Add(display);
                        currentDay++;
                    }
                }

                table.AddRow(row.ToArray());
            }

            return ((IRenderable) table).Render(context, maxWidth);
        }
    }

With the following output.

Support badges and badge styling

https://twitter.com/ThePracticalDev/status/1297551421903077377?s=20

Saw this npm package and thought it's concept would be a great addition to this library. Is it doable? Appropriate? In scope?