Console Framework

Console framework is cross-platform toolkit that allows to develop TUI applications using C# and based on WPF-like concepts.

Features

• Declarative markup (custom lightweight XAML implementation)
• Data binding (integrated with XAML markup)
• Retained mode rendering system
• WPF-compatible simple and flexible layout system
• A lot of controls available (including Grid, ScrollViewer, ListBox, ComboBox)
• Routed events system (compatible with WPF)
• Windows, Mac OS X and any Linux (32-bit or 64-bit) support

License

Copyright 2011-2014 I. Kostromin

License: MIT/X11

Build from source

To build a library with examples you can use NAnt:

nant build

It works in all platforms.

Native dependencies

In Windows there are no native dependencies. But in Linux and Mac OS X environments you should prepare some native dependencies to be able to execute examples. Dependencies are:

• libtermkey
• libc
• ncursesw

To build libtermkey go to its source code directory and simply run

make

After that you can copy binaries from ./libs into directory with examples. Or you can use binaries of libtermkey from zip in /native directory.

Libc and ncursesw are distributed in binaries in vast majority of Linux distros (in Mac OS X you may need to install them manually using MacPorts), so all you need is locate actual binaries and create a symlinks in local directory, for example, if you are Mac OS X user, you can create next symlinks

ln -s /usr/lib/libc.dylib libc.so.6
ln -s ./libncurses.5.4.dylib libncursesw.so.5
ln -s ./libtermkey.1.dylib libtermkey.so

Console Framework expects that libraries will be available strictly by this names. If your system already has symlinks libc.so.6 and libncursesw.so.5, you can skip this step.

Running examples

mono Example_HelloWorld.exe

Press Ctrl+D to exit application.

Terminal emulators in Mac OS X

Standard terminal emulator is not very good for console applications deals with mouse. My recommendation is to use ITerm2. ITerm2 provides a good emulation with mouse support. If you want to see how console framework renders in various Mac emulators, visit http://elwood.su/2014/02/console-framework-on-mac/