On 11/01/2025 14:28, Chris Green via Python-list wrote: > I'm looking for Python packages that can help with text mode input,
The standard package for this is curses which comes as part of the standard library on *nix distros. > What I'm specifically after is a way to provide a default value that > can be accepted or changed easily and also a way to provide a number > of different values to choose from. The default value is easy. The list of values sounds like a pop-up menu. Ofr you can just offer a prompt with a list in it that the user picks(maybe by number?) Its really a programmers choice, curses provides the tools to display it however you choose. (Yu might also find the dialog third party package useful for displaying text mode dialog boxes) > I.e. for the default sort of input one might see:- > > Colour? red > > Hitting return would return 'red' to the program but you could also > backspace over the 'red' and enter something else. Maybe even better > would be that the 'red' disappears as soon as you hit any key other > than return. All of that is possible in curses, you just have to code it. > For the select a value type of input I want something like the above > but hitting (say) arrow up and arrow down would change the value > displayed by the 'Colour?' prompt and hitting return would accept the > chosen value. Again that's easy enough to do. Or you could pop up a menu and allow the user to cursor up/dowmn (or use the mouse) to select an option. > In addition I want the ability to narrow down the list > by entering one or more initial characters, so if you enter 'b' at the > Colour? prompt the list of values presented would only include colours > starting with 'b' (beige, blue, black, etc.) Again that's more about the programmer's use of the tools. curses allows you to display the characters wherever/however you want on screen. > Are there any packages that offer this sort of thing? I'd prefer ones > from the Debian repositories but that's not absolutely necessary. > It might also be possible/useful to use the mouse for this. curses dores all you want but you need to do all the logic, its not as simple as using a GUI toolkit. dialog sits on top of curses and provides a more GUI like experiece. urwin is another toolkit for text mode but it is more of a pseudo GUI environment with a menu-bar, dialogs, forms etc etc. Curses is about mapping areas of the screen(windows) and displaying text within those areas. You can control colour and strength etc, move things around, hide/show areas, position the cursor anywhere on screen. You can even create huge virtual screens and use the visible screen as a viewport into that(think like a big spreadsheet) There are a couple of Howto type documents online Shameless Plug: --------- I wrote a short kindle book on curses with python: https://kdp.amazon.com/amazon-dp-action/us/dualbookshelf.marketplacelink/B091B85B77 ------------- HTH -- Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.alan-g.me.uk/ http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld Follow my photo-blog on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
