TUIkit

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Important

This project is currently a WORK IN PROGRESS! I strongly advise against using it in a production environment because APIs are subject to change at any time.

A SwiftUI-like framework for building Terminal User Interfaces in Swift: no ncurses, no C dependencies, just pure Swift.

What is this?

TUIkit lets you build TUI apps using the same declarative syntax you already know from SwiftUI. Define your UI with View, compose views with VStack, HStack, and ZStack, style text with modifiers like .bold() and .foregroundColor(.red), and run it all in your terminal.

import TUIkit

@main
struct MyApp: App {
    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            ContentView()
        }
    }
}

struct ContentView: View {
    @State var count = 0
    
    var body: some View {
        VStack(spacing: 1) {
            Text("Hello, TUIkit!")
                .bold()
                .foregroundColor(.cyan)
            
            Text("Count: \(count)")
            
            Button("Increment") {
                count += 1
            }
        }
        .statusBarItems {
            StatusBarItem(shortcut: "q", label: "quit")
        }
    }
}

Features

Core

• View protocol: the core building block, mirroring SwiftUI's View
• @ViewBuilder: result builder for declarative view composition
• @State: reactive state management with automatic re-rendering
• @Environment: dependency injection for theme, focus manager, status bar
• App protocol: app lifecycle with signal handling and run loop

Views & Components

• Primitive views: Text, EmptyView, Spacer, Divider
• Layout containers: VStack, HStack, ZStack with alignment and spacing
• Interactive: Button, Toggle, Menu with keyboard navigation
• Data views: List, Table, Section, ForEach
• Containers: Alert, Dialog, Panel, Box, Card
• Feedback: ProgressView (5 bar styles), Spinner (animated)
• StatusBar: context-sensitive keyboard shortcuts

Styling

• Text styling: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, dim, blink, inverted
• Full color support: ANSI colors, 256-color palette, 24-bit RGB, hex values, HSL
• Theming: 6 predefined palettes (Green, Amber, Red, Violet, Blue, White)
• Border styles: rounded, line, double, thick, ASCII, and more
• List styles: PlainListStyle, InsetGroupedListStyle with alternating rows
• Badges: .badge() modifier for counts and labels on list rows

Advanced

• Lifecycle modifiers: .onAppear(), .onDisappear(), .task()
• Storage: @AppStorage, @SceneStorage with JSON backend
• Preferences: bottom-up data flow with PreferenceKey
• Focus system: Tab/Shift+Tab navigation, .focusSection() for grouped areas
• Render caching: .equatable() for subtree memoization

Run the Example App

swift run TUIkitExample

Press q or ESC to exit.

Installation

Quick Start with CLI

Install the tuikit command and create a new project:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/phranck/TUIkit/main/project-template/install.sh | bash
tuikit init MyApp
cd MyApp && swift run

See project-template/README.md for more options (SQLite, Swift Testing).

Manual Setup

Add TUIkit to your Package.swift:

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/phranck/TUIkit.git", branch: "main")
]

Then add it to your target:

.target(
    name: "YourApp",
    dependencies: ["TUIkit"]
)

Theming

TUIkit includes predefined palettes inspired by classic terminals:

@main
struct MyApp: App {
    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            ContentView()
        }
        .palette(SystemPalette(.green))  // Classic green terminal
    }
}

Available palettes (all via SystemPalette):

• .green: Classic P1 phosphor CRT (default)
• .amber: P3 phosphor monochrome
• .red: IBM 3279 plasma
• .violet: Retro sci-fi terminal
• .blue: VFD/LCD displays
• .white: DEC VT100/VT220 (P4 phosphor)

Architecture

• No singletons for state: All state flows through the Environment system
• Pure ANSI rendering: No ncurses or other C dependencies
• Linux compatible: Works on macOS and Linux (XDG paths supported)
• Value types: Views are structs, just like SwiftUI

Project Structure

Sources/
├── TUIkit/
│   ├── App/              App, Scene, WindowGroup
│   ├── Core/             View, ViewBuilder, State, Environment, Color, Theme
│   ├── Modifiers/        Border, Frame, Padding, Overlay, Lifecycle
│   ├── Rendering/        Terminal, ANSIRenderer, ViewRenderer, FrameBuffer
│   └── Views/            Text, Stacks, Button, Menu, Alert, StatusBar, ...
└── TUIkitExample/        Example app (executable target)

Tests/
└── TUIkitTests/          998 tests across 140 test suites

Requirements

• Swift 6.0+
• macOS 10.15+ or Linux

Developer Notes

• Tests use Swift Testing (@Test, #expect): run with swift test
• All 998 tests run in parallel
• The Terminal class handles raw mode and cursor control via POSIX termios

Contribution

License

This repository has been published under the MIT license.