cliui

What is cliui?

The cliui npm package is a library for creating complex command-line interfaces with various layout controls such as word-wrapping, alignment, padding, and more. It allows developers to build structured and formatted output for command-line applications.

What are cliui's main functionalities?

Text alignment and wrapping

This feature allows for aligning text within a specified width and automatically wraps text that exceeds the width. Padding can be added around the text.

const cliui = require('cliui')({ width: 80 });

cliui.div(
  { text: 'Some long text that needs to be wrapped', align: 'left', padding: [1, 2, 1, 2] },
  { text: 'Aligned right', align: 'right' }
);

console.log(cliui.toString());

Column-based layout

This feature allows developers to create a layout based on columns, specifying the width of each column for structured output.

const cliui = require('cliui')({ width: 80 });

cliui.div(
  { text: 'Column 1', width: 30 },
  { text: 'Column 2', width: 30 },
  { text: 'Column 3', width: 20 }
);

console.log(cliui.toString());

Complex nested layouts

This feature supports creating nested layouts, allowing for complex and hierarchical interface designs.

const cliui = require('cliui')({ width: 80 });

cliui.div(
  {
    text: 'Top level',
    padding: [1, 0, 1, 0],
    border: true
  },
  {
    text: cliui.div(
      { text: 'Nested level 1', align: 'center' },
      { text: cliui.div(
        { text: 'Nested level 2', align: 'center' }
      )}
    )
  }
);

console.log(cliui.toString());

Other packages similar to cliui

chalk

Chalk is a popular npm package for styling terminal strings with colors and styles but does not provide layout controls like cliui.

boxen

Boxen allows you to create boxes in the terminal to highlight content. It is similar to cliui in that it helps format CLI output but does not offer the same level of layout control.

inquirer

Inquirer.js is a comprehensive library for creating interactive command-line user interfaces. It includes features for prompting users but is more focused on user input than output formatting like cliui.

blessed

Blessed is a high-level terminal interface library that is more complex and feature-rich than cliui, offering a full-fledged terminal interface API, including screen widgets and mouse events.

README

cliui

easily create complex multi-column command-line-interfaces.

var ui = require('cliui')({
  width: 80
})

ui.row('Usage: $0 [command] [options]')

ui.row({
  text: 'Options:',
  padding: [2, 0, 2, 0]
})

ui.row(
  {
    text: "-f, --file",
    width: 40,
    padding: [0, 4, 0, 4]
  },
  {
    text: "the file to load",
    width: 25
  },
  {
    text: "[required]",
    align: 'right'
  }
)

console.log(ui.toString())