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.
boxen
Create boxes in the terminal
![](https://github.com/sindresorhus/boxen/raw/HEAD/screenshot.png)
Install
$ npm install boxen
Usage
const boxen = require('boxen');
console.log(boxen('unicorn', {padding: 1}));
console.log(boxen('unicorn', {padding: 1, margin: 1, borderStyle: 'double'}));
API
boxen(text, options?)
text
Type: string
Text inside the box.
options
Type: object
borderColor
Type: string
Values: 'black'
'red'
'green'
'yellow'
'blue'
'magenta'
'cyan'
'white'
'gray'
or a hex value like '#ff0000'
Color of the box border.
borderStyle
Type: string | object
Default: 'single'
Values:
┌───┐
│foo│
└───┘
╔═══╗
║foo║
╚═══╝
'round'
('single'
sides with round corners)
╭───╮
│foo│
╰───╯
┏━━━┓
┃foo┃
┗━━━┛
'singleDouble'
('single'
on top and bottom, 'double'
on right and left)
╓───╖
║foo║
╙───╜
'doubleSingle'
('double'
on top and bottom, 'single'
on right and left)
╒═══╕
│foo│
╘═══╛
+---+
|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.
float
Type: string
Default: 'left'
Values: 'right'
'center'
'left'
Float the box on the available terminal screen space.
backgroundColor
Type: string
Values: 'black'
'red'
'green'
'yellow'
'blue'
'magenta'
'cyan'
'white'
'gray'
or a hex value like '#ff0000'
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
- ink-box - Box component for Ink that uses this package