cTUI

A high-performance TUI framework for Rust with React-style declarative components

cTUI Website · Docs · Examples · Changelog · Contributing · Report a Bug · Request a Feature

cTUI (see-too-eye) is a Rust crate for building terminal user interfaces with a declarative, component-based approach. It brings modern frontend paradigms to the terminal, making it easy to create responsive, animated, and performant TUIs.

Features

• Layer System - Z-index based layering for proper render ordering. Widgets can specify z_index() to control which elements appear on top.
• Event Batching - Efficiently batch and process terminal events. Reduces overhead by coalescing rapid input sequences.
• Component Pooling - Reuse component instances to minimize allocations and improve performance in frequently updated UIs.
• WASM Backend - Compile to WebAssembly for browser-based terminals. Run your TUI in the browser with full feature parity.
• Float Colors - Color32 type for high-precision color manipulation (0.0-1.0 range). Enable with the float-colors feature.
• React-style Components - Declarative components with hooks (use_state, use_effect) for familiar state management.

Quickstart

Add cTUI to your project:

```shell cargo add ctui ```

Here's a minimal counter application:

```rust use ctui::{component, App, Component, Terminal}; use ctui::hooks::{use_state, use_effect};

#[component] fn Counter() -> impl Component { let (count, set_count) = use_state(0);

use_effect(move || {
    println!("Count: {}", count);
}, [count]);

Column::new()
    .child(Text::new(&format!("Count: {}", count)))
    .child(
        Row::new()
            .child(Button::new("-").on_click(move || set_count(count - 1)))
            .child(Button::new("+").on_click(move || set_count(count + 1)))
    )

}

#[tokio::main] async fn main() -> Result<(), Box> { let mut terminal = Terminal::new()?; let app = App::new(Counter {}); terminal.run(app).await } ```

Documentation

• Docs - Full API documentation on docs.rs
• ARCHITECTURE.md - Crate organization and design decisions
• CHANGELOG.md - Version history and release notes
• Examples - Complete example applications

Templates

Get started quickly with project templates:

```shell cargo install ctui-cli ctui new my-app --template counter ```

Available templates:

• `basic` - Minimal hello world application
• `counter` - Counter app with state management
• `todo-app` - Full CRUD todo application

Built with cTUI

Building something with cTUI? Add a badge to your README:

```md ```

Alternatives

If cTUI doesn't fit your needs, consider these alternatives:

• ratatui - Imperative TUI library with excellent widget ecosystem
• cursive - ncurses-based TUI library
• iocraft - Declarative TUI library with React-like API

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Whether you're fixing a bug, adding a feature, or improving documentation, your help makes cTUI better.

Please read the Contributing Guidelines before submitting a pull request. Key points:

• Follow the Code of Conduct
• Use Conventional Commits
• Run cargo test --all before pushing
• AI-generated content must follow our AI Content Policy

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT License (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Acknowledgments

cTUI draws inspiration from several projects:

• ratatui for pushing the Rust TUI ecosystem forward
• React for pioneering the declarative component model
• The Rust community for creating amazing tools and libraries

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Built with care by the CortexLM team.