NAME `Tickit' - Terminal Interface Construction KIT SYNOPSIS use Tickit; use Tickit::Widget::Box; use Tickit::Widget::Static; my $box = Tickit::Widget::Box->new( h_border => 4, v_border => 2, bg => "green", child => Tickit::Widget::Static->new( text => "Hello, world!", bg => "black", align => "centre", valign => "middle", ), ); Tickit->new( root => $box )->run; DESCRIPTION `Tickit' is a high-level toolkit for creating full-screen terminal-based interactive programs. It allows programs to be written in an abstracted way, working with a tree of widget objects, to represent the layout of the interface and implement its behaviours. Its supported terminal features includes a rich set of rendering attributes (bold, underline, italic, 256-colours, etc), support for mouse including wheel and position events above the 224th column and arbitrary modified key input via libtermkey (all of these will require a supporting terminal as well). It also supports having multiple instances and non-blocking or asynchronous control. At the current version, this is a Perl distribution which contains and XS and C implementation of the lower levels (Tickit::Term and Tickit::Pen), and implements the higher levels (Tickit::Window and Tickit::Widget) in pure perl. The XS parts are supported by libtickit, either from the installed library, or using a bundled copy compiled at build time. It is intended that eventually the Window layer will be rewritten in XS and C instead. CONSTRUCTOR $tickit = Tickit->new( %args ) Constructs a new `Tickit' framework container object. Takes the following named arguments at construction time: term_in => IO IO handle for terminal input. Will default to `STDIN'. term_out => IO IO handle for terminal output. Will default to `STDOUT'. UTF8 => BOOL If defined, overrides locale detection to enable or disable UTF-8 mode. If not defined then this will be detected from the locale by using Perl's `${^UTF8LOCALE}' variable. root => Tickit::Widget If defined, sets the root widget using `set_root_widget' to the one specified. METHODS $tickit->later( $code ) Runs the given CODE reference at some time soon in the future. It will not be invoked yet, but will be invoked at some point before the next round of input events are processed. $tickit->timer( $mode, $amount, $code ) Runs the given CODE reference at some fixed point in time in the future. `$mode' must be either the string `at', or `after'; and specifies that `$amount' gives either the absolute epoch time, or the delay relative to now, respectively. Fractions are supported to a resolution of microseconds. $tickit->timer( at => $epoch, $code ) $tickit->timer( after => $delay, $code ) $term = $tickit->term Returns the underlying Tickit::Term object. $cols = $tickit->cols $lines = $tickit->lines Query the current size of the terminal. Will be cached and updated on receipt of `SIGWINCH' signals. $tickit->bind_key( $key, $code ) Installs a callback to invoke if the given key is pressed, overwriting any previous callback for the same key. The code block is invoked as $code->( $tickit, $key ) If `$code' is missing or `undef', any existing callback is removed. As a convenience for the common application use case, the `Ctrl-C' key is bound to the `stop' method. To remove this binding, simply bind another callback, or remove the binding entirely by setting `undef'. $tickit->rootwin Returns the root Tickit::Window. $tickit->set_root_widget( $widget ) Sets the root widget for the application's display. This must be a subclass of Tickit::Widget. $tickit->setup_term Set up the screen and generally prepare to start running $tickit->teardown_term Shut down the screen after running $tickit->tick Run a single round of IO events. Does not call `setup_term' or `teardown_term'. $tickit->run Calls the `setup_term' method, then processes IO events until stopped, by the `stop' method, `SIGINT', `SIGTERM' or the `Ctrl-C' key. Then runs the `teardown_term' method, and returns. $tickit->stop Causes a currently-running `run' method to stop processing events and return. AUTHOR Paul Evans