Are you writing a workhorse shell script in python? Why not curses?

This class, using curses, lets a user select from a simple list of options. The return is a simple list of selected options, or False (for cancel). And, for the OCD in all of us, it preserves terminal window contents after exiting. Compatible and tested with python 2.7 and 3.5.

Keys: arrow up / arrow down to navigate, page up / page down, a to toggle all entries, enter to accept, q to cancel.

Usage example:

from picker import *
    
opts = Picker(
    title = 'Select files to delete',
    options = [
        ".autofsck", ".autorelabel", "bin/", "boot/", 
        "cgroup/", "dev/", "etc/", "home/", "installimage.conf",
        "installimage.debug", "lib/", "lib64/", "lost+found/",
        "media/", "mnt/", "opt/", "proc/", "root/",
        "sbin/", "selinux/", "srv/", "sys/",
        "tmp/", "usr/", "var/"
    ]
).getSelected()

if opts == False:
    print( "Aborted!" )
else:
    print( opts )

If the user hits cancel, the routine returns a False - otherwise, you get a simple list:

['.autofsck', '.autorelabel', 'bin/', 'boot/', 'cgroup/']

The return, being a simple list, allows for a fairly readable logic:

if "cgroup/" in opts:
	print "cgroup is done for!"

What's missing:

Pretty much everything, so feel free to contribute so long as you don't break backward compatibility or majorly change the program's behavior. So far I can think of the following items:

• Bug: resizing window glitches sometimes and doesn't redraw the screen exactly right.
• Home / End keys might help.
• ESC key to quit might help (for me the escape key and escape sequence fighting each other in curses confuses me and I'd rather pick other battles).
• Event hooks for extending class easily (ex: autocomplete or hotkey)

License / Usage Rights:

This code is available for use under CC0 (Creative Commons 0 - universal). You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. For more information, see LICENSE.md or https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/