boxen

What is boxen?

The boxen npm package is used to create boxes in the terminal for displaying messages. It is useful for CLI applications where you want to highlight information or separate it visually from other output.

What are boxen's main functionalities?

Creating a simple message box

This feature allows you to create a simple box around a message with padding inside the box. The padding option adds an empty space between the text and the box border.

const boxen = require('boxen');
console.log(boxen('Hello, world!', {padding: 1}));

Customizing box style

Boxen allows you to customize the style of the box with various options such as border style and color. This can help make the box stand out or fit a certain theme.

const boxen = require('boxen');
console.log(boxen('Custom box style', {borderStyle: 'double', borderColor: 'blue', padding: 1}));

Aligning text within the box

You can align the text inside the box to the left, right, or center. This feature is useful for formatting the message in a visually appealing way.

const boxen = require('boxen');
console.log(boxen('Centered text', {textAlignment: 'center', padding: 1}));

Other packages similar to boxen

cli-box

CLI-box is another package that lets you create boxes in the command line interface. It offers a different API and additional features like built-in text wrapping, but it might not be as straightforward to use as boxen for simple box creation.

terminal-kit

Terminal-kit is a full-featured terminal handling library that includes the ability to create boxes. It is more complex and offers a wider range of terminal manipulation features compared to boxen, which is more specialized and easier to use for just creating boxes.

README

Create boxes in the terminal

Install

$ npm install --save boxen

Usage

const boxen = require('boxen');

console.log(boxen('unicorn', {padding: 1}));
/*
┌─────────────┐
│             │
│   unicorn   │
│             │
└─────────────┘
*/

console.log(boxen('unicorn', {padding: 1, margin: 1, borderStyle: 'double'}));
/*

   ╔═════════════╗
   ║             ║
   ║   unicorn   ║
   ║             ║
   ╚═════════════╝

*/

API

boxen(input, [options])

input

Type: string

Text inside the box.

options

borderColor

Type: string
Values: black red green yellow blue magenta cyan white gray

Color of the box border.

borderStyle

Type: string object
Default: single
Values:

• single

┌───┐
│foo│
└───┘

• double

╔═══╗
║foo║
╚═══╝

• round (single sides with round corners)

╭───╮
│foo│
╰───╯

• single-double (single on top and bottom, double on right and left)

╓───╖
║foo║
╙───╜

• double-single (double on top and bottom, single on right and left)

╒═══╕
│foo│
╘═══╛

• classic

+---+
|foo|
+---+

Style of the box border.

Can be any of the above predefined styles or an object with the following keys:

{
	topLeft: '+',
	topRight: '+',
	bottomLeft: '+',
	bottomRight: '+',
	horizontal: '-',
	vertical: '|'
}

dimBorder

Type: boolean
Default: false

Reduce opacity of the border.

padding

Type: number object
Default: 0

Space between the text and box border.

Accepts a number or an object with any of the top, right, bottom, left properties. When a number is specified, the left/right padding is 3 times the top/bottom to make it look nice.

margin

Type: number object
Default: 0

Space around the box.

Accepts a number or an object with any of the top, right, bottom, left properties. When a number is specified, the left/right margin is 3 times the top/bottom to make it look nice.

backgroundColor

Type: string
Values: black red green yellow blue magenta cyan white

Color of the background.

align

Type: string
Default: left
Values: left center right

Align the text in the box based on the widest line.

Related

• boxen-cli - CLI for this module
• cli-boxes - Boxes for use in the terminal

License

MIT © Sindre Sorhus