G

5

118

I would like to write a Java terminal application that does screen manipulation. Are there any good libraries out there that allow you to manipulate the screen like curses in the *nix/C world?

Minimal features I'm looking for are windowing and user input support.

In feature-speak, I'd like to have a region of the terminal where some data is regularly updated while (at the same time) the user can enter commands/text in some other part of the screen.

Gesundheit answered 13/1, 2009 at 16:56 Comment(0)

L

37

There is Charva, which links to native code but has an api based on Swing. The screenshots show lots of text windows, so that looks useful.

Liman answered 13/1, 2009 at 17:6 Comment(4)

Nice one, too bad though that it requires native libraries. I'll give this a shot and see how far I get. – Gesundheit 16/1, 2009 at 12:3

Last release: 2006. – Xylophagous 25/1, 2011 at 12:10

@GrzegorzOledzki Just updating...Last release: 2013. – Gav 7/3, 2014 at 7:34

@BartSchuller The link is dead. – Wellfavored 11/3, 2017 at 16:21

N

65

Lanterna

I found the Lanterna library recently. Haven't had the opportunity to use it yet but it looks like a more up-to-date alternative to the others.

Negrito answered 15/10, 2012 at 13:21 Comment(3)

Thanks! I was looking for one that uses no native code. – Hereunto 20/9, 2013 at 20:57

Last update was 4 months ago. Seems like the most recently maintained solution here. – Bettis 16/2, 2022 at 1:30

Griffon is an application framework that supports 4 different UI toolkits: Swing, JavaFX, Apache Pivot, and Lanterna. – Isometrics 2/5, 2022 at 19:0

L

37

There is Charva, which links to native code but has an api based on Swing. The screenshots show lots of text windows, so that looks useful.

Liman answered 13/1, 2009 at 17:6 Comment(4)

Nice one, too bad though that it requires native libraries. I'll give this a shot and see how far I get. – Gesundheit 16/1, 2009 at 12:3

Last release: 2006. – Xylophagous 25/1, 2011 at 12:10

@GrzegorzOledzki Just updating...Last release: 2013. – Gav 7/3, 2014 at 7:34

@BartSchuller The link is dead. – Wellfavored 11/3, 2017 at 16:21

T

26

Haven't used it myself, but Java Curses Library sounds like what you want.

Teel answered 13/1, 2009 at 16:58 Comment(5)

Sounds good, but I think I'll go with Charva, since that'll provide a more OO experience. Thanks for the suggestion. – Gesundheit 16/1, 2009 at 12:2

Java Curses last release: 2002. – Raimondo 3/12, 2009 at 23:34

Java Curses has now gotten some recent attention, and a new release in 2012. – Unattended 17/4, 2012 at 19:44

Java Curses last release: 2012-12-07 – Gothenburg 17/2, 2016 at 15:47

Last Update: 2015-08-07. Note that this uses native code. – Cohosh 31/3, 2018 at 17:33

L

10

Here is a way to call the ncurses lib using JNI. I tested this and it works.

Lamella answered 13/1, 2009 at 17:12 Comment(0)

H

8

As of 2013, the closest I can find is Blacken.

Blacken is not a curses library per-se. It moves away from the terminal, and instead, renders it's own "console window." This has the disadvantage of not looking "console-like." Instead, you get full (arbitrary) colour support, and a curses-like API (in addition to their main API).

You can also set the font to Mono for fixed-width characters.

Heterothallic answered 20/11, 2013 at 17:52 Comment(3)

Perfect for what I was wanting to do. Thank you. – Gav 7/3, 2014 at 6:6

@jdersen there are some bugs in Blacken, but overall, it's quite good, and the owner responds quite quickly to opened issues. – Heterothallic 7/3, 2014 at 14:9

Last release: Sep 27, 2012 – Gothenburg 17/2, 2016 at 15:49

Lanterna

Recommended topics

Hot tags