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

boxen

Create boxes in the terminal

Install

npm install boxen

Usage

import boxen from 'boxen';

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

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

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

*/

console.log(boxen('unicorns love rainbows', {title: 'magical', titleAlignment: 'center'}));
/*
┌────── magical ───────┐
│unicorns love rainbows│
└──────────────────────┘
*/

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:

• 'single'

┌───┐
│foo│
└───┘

• 'double'

╔═══╗
║foo║
╚═══╝

• 'round' ('single' sides with round corners)

╭───╮
│foo│
╰───╯

• 'bold'

┏━━━┓
┃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│
╘═══╛

• 'classic'

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

• 'arrow'

↘↓↓↓↙
→foo←
↗↑↑↑↖

• 'none'

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: '+',
	top: '-',
	bottom: '-',
	left: '|',
	right: '|'
}

dimBorder

Type: boolean
Default: false

Reduce opacity of the border.

title

Type: string

Display a title at the top of the box. If needed, the box will horizontally expand to fit the title.

Example:

console.log(boxen('foo bar', {title: 'example'}));
/*
┌ example ┐
│foo bar  │
└─────────┘
*/

titleAlignment

Type: string
Default: 'left'

Align the title in the top bar.

Values:

• 'left'

/*
┌ example ──────┐
│foo bar foo bar│
└───────────────┘
*/

• 'center'

/*
┌─── example ───┐
│foo bar foo bar│
└───────────────┘
*/

• 'right'

/*
┌────── example ┐
│foo bar foo bar│
└───────────────┘
*/

width

Type: number

Set a fixed width for the box.

Note: This disables terminal overflow handling and may cause the box to look broken if the user's terminal is not wide enough.

import boxen from 'boxen';

console.log(boxen('foo bar', {width: 15}));
// ┌─────────────┐
// │foo bar      │
// └─────────────┘

height

Type: number

Set a fixed height for the box.

Note: This option will crop overflowing content.

import boxen from 'boxen';

console.log(boxen('foo bar', {height: 5}));
// ┌───────┐
// │foo bar│
// │       │
// │       │
// └───────┘

fullscreen

Type: boolean | (width: number, height: number) => [width: number, height: number]

Whether or not to fit all available space within the terminal.

Pass a callback function to control box dimensions:

import boxen from 'boxen';

console.log(boxen('foo bar', {
	fullscreen: (width, height) => [width, height - 1],
}));

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.

textAlignment

Type: string
Default: 'left'
Values: 'left' 'center' 'right'

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

Maintainer

• Sindre Sorhus
• Caesarovich

Related

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