Library for creating terminal applications with text-based widgets

FINAL CUT is a C++ class library and widget toolkit that enables developers to create text-based user interfaces. FINAL CUT is a standalone library that interacts directly with the terminal without relying on external libraries such as ncurses or termbox.

FINAL CUT provides full mouse support, UTF-8 character encoding, full-width character support, and the ability to display combined Unicode characters. The library helps the programmer to create a text console application. It allows handling multiple text windows on the screen.

The design of the C++ class structure of FINAL CUT was inspired by the Qt framework. It provides a variety of common controls, including dialog boxes, push buttons, check boxes, radio buttons, input lines, list boxes, and status bars. With FINAL CUT, developers can create text-based user interfaces that are both functional and visually appealing.

Building and code analysis

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Installation

Before installing FINAL CUT, check if your computer meets the requirements. You can find these in the FAQ section under "What do I need to build this library?".

> git clone https://github.com/gansm/finalcut.git
> cd finalcut
> autoreconf --install --force
> ./configure --prefix=/usr
> make
> su -c "make install"

Supported platforms

If your platform is not listed here, it may still be compatible with FINAL CUT. I welcome any help to make this software available on more platforms.

FINAL CUT currently works on the following platforms:

Linux
FreeBSD
NetBSD
OpenBSD
macOS
Cygwin
GNU Hurd
Solaris

Documentation

See the first steps documentation for information on how to use the library.

Frequently Asked Questions

For general questions about FINAL CUT, likely the answer is already included in the FAQ.

Screenshots

The FFileDialog widget with incremental file name search:

The FINAL CUT FProgressbar widget:

Scrollable text in the FTextView widget:

The Mandelbrot set example:

FINAL CUT newfont

A graphical text font for X11 and the Linux console.

Newfont drive symbols:

The calculator example in newfont mode:

Benchmark

Here you can find a test for measuring the character speed in the terminal.

Virtual terminal

FINAL CUT uses a virtual terminal to print character via an update method on the screen. It provides (as an overlying layer) virtual windows for the realization of window movements. The update methods only transfer differences to the virtual terminal or physical screen.

 print(...)
printf(...)
  │
  │          ╔════════════════════════[ vterm ]════════════════════════╗
  │          ║createVTerm()                                            ║
  │          ║                               ┌ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ┐ ║
  │          ║                                                         ║
  │          ║                               │ restoreVTerm(x,y,w,h) │ ║
  │  ┌───────╨────[ vwin ]────────────┐                                ║
  │  │createArea(area)                │      └ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ┘ ║
  │  │                                │                                ║
  │  │                                │                                ║
  └──┼────────►                  putArea(area) ────►                   ║
     │                                │                                ║
     │                         putArea(x,y,area) ────►                 ║
     │                                │                                ║
     │                   ◄──── getArea(x,y,area)                       ║
     │                                │                                ║
     │                                │                                ║
     │                                │                                ║
     │                resizeArea(area)│                                ║
     └───────╥────────────────────────┘                                ║
             ║                                                         ║
             ║       │                                    resizeVTerm()║
             ╚═══════▼═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
                     │
                     │   putVTerm()
                     └──────────────────► updateTerminalLine(y)
                       updateTerminal()            │
                                                   ▼
                                           ┌───────────────┐
                                           │ output_buffer │
                                           └───────────────┘
                                                   │
                                                   │ flushOutputBuffer()
                                                   │ and putchar(char)
                                                   ▼
                                           ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄
                                           ▌               ▐
                                           ▌    screen     ▐
                                           ▌ ───────────── ▐
                                           ▌ real terminal ▐
                                           ▌               ▐
                                           ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀███▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
                                                  ███
                                               ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

Class digramm

    ┌────────────┐1
    │ FTermLinux ├------┐
    └────────────┘      :
  ┌──────────────┐1     :
  │ FTermFreeBSD ├------┐
  └──────────────┘      :
  ┌──────────────┐1     :
  │ FTermOpenBSD ├------┐
  └──────────────┘      :
┌────────────────┐1     :
│ FTermDetection ├------┐
└────────────────┘      :
┌────────────────┐1     :
│ FTermcapQuirks ├------┐
└────────────────┘      :            ┌───────────┐
┌────────────────┐1     :       ┌────┤ FKeyEvent │
│ FTermXTerminal ├------┐       │    └───────────┘
└────────────────┘      :       │    ┌─────────────┐
      ┌──────────┐1     :       ├────┤ FMouseEvent │
      │ FTermcap ├------┐       │    └─────────────┘
      └──────────┘      :       │    ┌─────────────┐
      ┌──────────┐1     :       ├────┤ FWheelEvent │
      │ FTermios ├------┐       │    └─────────────┘
      └──────────┘      :       │    ┌─────────────┐
 ┌───────────────┐1     :       ├────┤ FFocusEvent │
 │ FColorPalette ├------┐       │    └─────────────┘
 └───────────────┘      :       │    ┌─────────────┐
     ┌───────────┐1     :       ├────┤ FAccelEvent │
     │ FOptiMove ├------┐       │    └─────────────┘
     └───────────┘      :       │    ┌──────────────┐
     ┌───────────┐1     :       ├────┤ FResizeEvent │
     │ FOptiAttr ├------┐       │    └──────────────┘
     └───────────┘      :       │    ┌────────────┐
     ┌───────────┐1     :       ├────┤ FShowEvent │
     │ FKeyboard ├------┐       │    └────────────┘
     └───────────┘      :       │    ┌────────────┐
 ┌───────────────┐1     :       ├────┤ FHideEvent │
 │ FMouseControl ├------┐       │    └────────────┘
 └───────────────┘      :       │    ┌─────────────┐
       ┌─────────┐1     :       ├────┤ FCloseEvent │
       │ FSystem ├------┐       │    └─────────────┘
       └─────────┘      :       │    ┌─────────────┐
       ┌─────────┐*     :       ├────┤ FTimerEvent │
       │ FString ├---┐  :       │    └─────────────┘
       └─────────┘   :  :       │    ┌────────────┐1    1┌───────┐
 ┌───────────────┐*  :  :       ├────┤ FUserEvent ├------┤ FData │
 │ FStringStream ├---┐  :       │    └────────────┘      └───────┘
 └───────────────┘   :  :       │        ┌──────┐   ┌─────────┐
        ┌────────┐*  :  :       │        │ FLog │◄──┤ FLogger │
        │ FPoint ├---┐  :       │        └──┬───┘   └─────────┘
        └────────┘   :  :       │           :1
         ┌───────┐*  :  :       │        ┌──┴───────────┐
         │ FRect ├---┐  :       │   ┌────┤ FApplication │
         └───────┘   :  :       │   │    └──────────────┘
         ┌───────┐*  :  :       │   │    ┌────────┐
         │ FSize ├---┐  :       │   ├────┤ FLabel │
         └───────┘   :  :       │   │    └────────┘
                     :1 :1      │   │    ┌───────────┐
                 ┌───┴──┴┐      │   ├────┤ FLineEdit │
                 │ FTerm │      │   │    └───────────┘
                 └───┬───┘      │   │    ┌──────────┐
                     :1         │   ├────┤ FSpinBox │
┌─────────┐   ┌──────┴──────┐   │   │    └──────────┘
│ FOutput │◄──┤ FTermOutput │   │   │    ┌─────────┐
└────┬────┘   └─────────────┘   │   ├────┤ FButton │
     :             ┌────────┐   │   │    └─────────┘
     :1            │ FEvent │◄──┘   │    ┌──────────────┐      ┌──────────────┐
 ┌───┴────┐        └────┬───┘       ├────┤ FButtonGroup │   ┌──┤ FRadioButton │
 │ FVTerm │◄──┐         :1          │    └──────────────┘   │  └──────────────┘
 └────────┘   │    ┌────┴────┐      │    ┌───────────────┐  │  ┌───────────┐
              ├────┤ FWidget │◄─────┼────┤ FToggleButton │◄─┼──┤ FCheckBox │
┌─────────┐   │    └────┬────┘      │    └───────────────┘  │  └───────────┘
│ FObject │◄──┘         :1          │    ┌──────────────┐   │  ┌─────────┐
└────┬────┘      ┌──────┴────────┐  ├────┤ FProgressbar │   └──┤ FSwitch │
     ▼           │ FWidgetColors │  │    └──────────────┘      └─────────┘
 ┌───┴────┐      └───────────────┘  │    ┌────────────┐
 │ FTimer │                         ├────┤ FScrollbar │
 └────────┘                         │    └────────────┘
                                    │    ┌───────────┐
                                    ├────┤ FTextView │
                                    │    └───────────┘
                                    │    ┌───────────┐1    1┌──────────────────┐
                                    ├────┤ FComboBox ├------┤ FDropDownListBox │
                                    │    └───────────┘      └──────────────────┘
 ┌──────────────┐1                  │    ┌──────────┐1     *┌──────────────┐1
 │ FVTermBuffer ├-------------------├────┤ FListBox ├-------┤ FListBoxItem ├--┐
 └──────────────┘                   │    └──────────┘       └──────────────┘  :
                                    │   1┌───────────┐1    *┌───────────────┐ :
                                    ├────┤ FListView ├------┤ FListViewItem │ :
                                    │    └───────────┘      └────────┬──────┘ :
                                    │    ┌─────────────┐             :1       :
                                    ├────┤ FScrollView │         ┌───┴───┐1   :
                                    │    └─────────────┘         │ FData ├----┘
                                    │                            └───────┘
                                    │    ┌────────────┐1   *┌────────────┐
                                    │ ┌──┤ FStatusBar ├-----┤ FStatusKey │
                                    │ │  └────────────┘     └────────────┘
                                    │ │
                                    │ ▼                       ┌─────────────┐
                                ┌───┴─┴───┐  ┌─────────┐   ┌──┤ FFileDialog │
                                │ FWindow │◄─┤ FDialog │◄──┤  └─────────────┘
                                └──┬──┬───┘  └─────────┘   │  ┌─────────────┐
                                   ▲  ▲                    └──┤ FMessageBox │
                                   │  │                       └─────────────┘
                                   │  │      ┌──────────┐  ┌────────────────┐
                                   │  └──────┤ FToolTip │◄─┤ FBusyIndicator │
                                   │         └──────────┘  └────────────────┘
                                   └───────────────┐          ┌──────────┐
                                                   │      ┌───┤ FMenuBar │
                                  ┌───────────┐    └──────┤   └──────────┘
                                  │ FMenuList │◄──────────┤   ┌───────┐
                                  └────┬──────┘           └───┤ FMenu │◄──┐
                                       :1                     └───────┘   │
                                       :            ┌─────────────────┐   │
                                       :            │ FDialogListMenu ├───┘
                                       :            └─────────────────┘
                                       └--------------------------------┐
                                       :*          ┌────────────────┐*  :
                                  ┌────┴─────┐  ┌──┤ FCheckMenuItem ├---┘
                                  │FMenuItem │◄─┤  └────────────────┘   :
                                  └──────────┘  │  ┌────────────────┐*  :
                                                └──┤ FRadioMenuItem ├---┘
                                                   └────────────────┘

Please send bug reports to

https://github.com/gansm/finalcut/issues

License

Licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 3.0

gansm/finalcut

gansm

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