Merge ConsoleUI to provide interactive menus

[MTyson]

I want to achieve an effect like so: https://www.npmjs.com/package/prompt-checkbox

But in Java. (C'mon Java, you can do it).

[mattirn]

Yes, you can do it also in java... See #592 and my old pull request Upgrade JLine to 3.19.0 awegmann/consoleui#24, which IMHO is working pretty well.

[MTyson]

Nice, thanks. Does this attempt things like https://www.npmjs.com/package/inquirer, meaning, arrow key navigable select/multi-select?
I've tried about half a dozen java libs and they all end up just being "menus" that select by means of typing in the option letter/num.

[MTyson]

It looks like it does indeed. What is the quickest path to take from a vanilla JLine app to an app that can offer interactive menu prompts?

[lutzseverino]

I'm pretty confused right now, can someone point me in the right direction on (preferably) an explanation on how to do these sorts of things? As I understand, JLine is capable of reading UP, DOWN, and such keystrokes, I just cannot for the life of me get it to work!

[MTyson]

My superficial understanding is that the JLine library does not handle single keystrokes but you can add a layer that will respond that way. I think the second comment above demonstrates how to do that in the links. Still looking.

[MTyson]

I'm actually writing a piece for InfoWorld on JLine, and I was hoping to include some fancy menu handling but I think I'll just go with entering text and hitting the enter key.

[MTyson]

I just got to look at ConsoleUI - it does exactly what we want. Thanks @mattirn @awegmann.

[lutzseverino]

So, to clear everything up: JLine doesn't provide this functionality on its own. Why did #24 never get merged?

[gnodet]

So, to clear everything up: JLine doesn't provide this functionality on its own. Why did #24 never get merged?

That's not for us to answer. I suppose the project is not maintained anymore... However, if there's a will and if @awegmann is ok, we could merge ConsoleUI into a new JLine module and shut down the ConsoleUI project.

[awegmann]

Hi everybody. Mea culpa. ConsoleUI is not really maintained anymore from my side. I would be pleased, if the project can live directly with JLine.
When I started ConsoleUI using JLine2 was the way to go, but the way I caught the keystrokes also felt a bit awkward. I knew, that JLine was not designed to allow this kind of usage.
Which jline3 this part of the code also had to be changed. If ConsoleUI were a part of JLine, the integration would benefit.
To answer your question, Guillaume: yes, I would like ConsoleUI to live its life in your project.

[gnodet]

Hi everybody. Mea culpa. ConsoleUI is not really maintained anymore from my side. I would be pleased, if the project can live directly with JLine. When I started ConsoleUI using JLine2 was the way to got, but the way I caught the keystrokes also felt a bit awkward. I knew, that JLine was not designed to allow this kind of usage. Which jline3 this part of the code also had to be changed. If ConsoleUI were a part of JLine, the integration would benefit. To answer your question, Guillaume: yes, I would like ConsoleUI to live its life in your project.

Ok, thx for the quick reply !

@mattirn @lutzseverino do you want to take a look at creating a PR to merge ConsoleUI into JLine in a new module ?

[mattirn]

Ok, I can do a PR.