Console

Simple Windows & Ncurses Console wrapper with easy-to-use APIs and drawing functionality. The project is focused on sweet syntax, without ugly types and pointers nonsense.

!Still very early in development!

Description

The original implementation was used in Simple TCP chatroom Client. And as I was developing that project, I found out that just wrapping up the native Win32 console APIs is far from enough. Therefore I make it as a new project.

How to use

Compile time polymorphism is given higher priority. But I tried to make it easy to use.

console is a global object that is guaranteed to initialized first before you use, so no need to construct it anymore if you only use one console window

In the future, runtime polymorphism will be considered.

An example of using Console class.

void TestConsole()
{

    /*Setting text color using familiar syntax */
    console << Color::RED << "This is a red text on black background\n";
    /*Or use traditional member function*/
    console.set(Color::MAGENTA).writeln("This is magenta text");

    /*Setting background color using the same syntax */
    console << BackgroundColor::WHITE << "This is a magenta text on white background\n";
    console.set(BackgroundColor::DEFAULT, false).set(Color::WHITE);

    /*Moving cursor using relative or absolute position */
    console.moveCursor(4, Direction::RIGHT);
    console << "Indent text\n";
    console.moveCursorTo({ 20,10 });
    console << "Text start at [20,10]\n";
    console.moveCursorTo(MIDDLE{});

    /*Erase one line or clear the whole window */
    console << "Press enter to delete this line: ";
    std::cin.get();
    console.eraseLine();
    std::cin.get();
    console.clear();
}

#include "Console.h"        //For simple Windows console wrapper
#include "ConsoleEngine.h"  //For Console drawing engine
int main()
{
    ConsoleEngine eng{console}; //create a console engine, bind with the just-created window

    auto canvas=eng.add<RectangleArea>();   //create a rectangleArea, returns a handle to the area

    canvas.setBorder('U', 'D', 'L', 'R');   //set the border line characters in the order of: up, down, left, right

    /*Divide a area into 2 (with an optional [position] parameter), returning a pair of handles*/
    //if [position] is set to 0, then automatically divide in the middle
    auto [chatArea, userArea]=canvas.divide(RectangleArea::Divisor::Vertical, 30);

    /*Use of TextBox class */
    auto chatView=chatArea.add<TextBox>();
    chatView.setText("Hello World");
}

Modules

Console

Windows ConsoleAPI & ncurses wrapper. ./include/Console.h

ConsoleEngine

Take ownership of the console and draw stuff. ./include/ConsoleEngine.h

GUI Elements

All GUI elements are inherited from RectangleArea.

• TextBox
• ScrollArea
• ProgressBar

GUI library is written with code reusability in mind. They work great not only with ConsoleEngine, but also with your ordinary std::cout or std::wcout, meaning that you can reuse them without engaging with ConsoleEngine in your own project, freeing you from re-implementing basic GUI elements in the Console.

#include "Shape.h"
ProgressBar bar{20, 1};
bar.setPercentage(30);
std::cout << bar << '\n';

VideoEngine

#include <ConsoleEngine.h>
#include <VideoEngine.h>
void VideoTest()
{
    ConsoleEngine engine{console};
    /*Play a single video*/
    {
        auto video = engine.add<Video>();
        video.load("SomeFile.mp4");
        video.play(30);//play at 30 fps
    }
    /*Or use multithreading to play multiple videos at once*/
    {
        auto [videoFrameLeft, videoFrameRight]=engine.divide(RectangleArea::Vertical);
        auto videoLeft = videoFrameLeft.add<Video>(engine);
        auto videoRight = videoDrameRight.add<Video>(engine);
        videoLeft.load("SomeFile.mp4");
        videoRight.load("AnotherFile.mp4");
        VideoEngine{ {videoLeft, videoRight} };//play 2 videos
    }
}

• A single-video-single-window demo

  • GrayScale Video Demo China Non China
  • Colored Video Demo China Non China

• A multi-video-single-window demo

  PictureEngine

Plan To-Do

• One console (std handle) √
• Colors √
• Able to create multiple console windows~~(so change originally static functions to non-static)~~
• Drawing functionality
  • borders √
  • Text region
  • Scroll View (automatic scrolling text region)
  • Progress bar
  • Forms
• Keyboard events √×(partially)