terminal.js

Terminal.js is a rendering engine for vt100-like terminals. It is written from scratch and supports most commonly used escape sequences.

Benefits

• it can be used both in nodejs and as a javascript library in the browser
• it avoids any dependencies like pty, html outputting etc so you can provide your own
• it does not use an html dom to store it's state, this makes it server state compatible
• clean separation of different escape codes
• has a test framework

Usage

TermWriter Usage

var TermWriter = require('terminal').TermWriter;
var TermBuffer = require('terminal').TermBuffer;

var buffer = new TermBuffer(80,24);
var terminal = new TermWriter(termBuffer);
terminal.write("first test\n");
// termWriter.buffer is accessible

TermBuffer Usage

var TermBuffer = require('terminal').TermBuffer;
var buffer = new TermBuffer(80,24);
buffer.inject("first test\n");

TermDiff Usage

var TermDiff = require('terminal').TermDiff;
var TermBuffer = require('terminal').TermBuffer;

var buffer1 = new TermBuffer(80,24);
var buffer2 = new TermBuffer(80,24);

var terminal1 = new TermWriter(buffer1);
var terminal2 = new TermWriter(buffer2);

terminal1.write("test me");
var diff = new TermDiff(terminal1.buffer,terminal2.buffer);

diff.apply(terminal1);

TermBuffer Functions

• createChar

• createLine

• getLine

• write

• escapeWrite

• inject

• lineFeed

• mvCur : moves to relative coordinates

• setCur : move to absolute coordinates

• mvTab

• tabSet

• tabClear

• saveCursor

• restoreCursor

• deleteCharacters

• eraseCharacters

• setScrollRegion

• eraseInDisplay

• eraseInLine

• deleteLines

• resetAttr

• chAttr

• insertBlanks

• resize

• insertLines

• toString

• setLed

• scroll

• eventToKey

TermBuffer Object structure

TermDiff structure

diff = {
  changes: [
    { l: 0, '.': { // On line0 replace the line
      str: 'test', // With string test
      attr{
      '0': { fg: null, bg:null, bold:false , underline: false, blink: false, inverse: false }, // Change Attributes on Pos0
      '2': { fg: null, bg:null, bold:false , underline: false, blink: false, inverse: true  }  // Change Attributes on Pos2
      }
    },
    { l: 1, '+': { // Online 1 add a line
      str: 'test', // With String test
      attr{
      '0': { fg: null, bg:null, bold:false , underline: false, blink: false, inverse: false }, // Change Attributes on Pos0
      '2': { fg: null, bg:null, bold:false , underline: false, blink: false, inverse: true  }  // Change Attributes on Pos2
      }
    },
    { l: 2, '-': 3 }, // On line2 remove 3 lines
  ],
  cursor: [ { from: { 'x': 0, 'y':10 }, to: { 'x': 0, 'y':12 } } ],
  savedcursor: [ { from: { 'x': 0, 'y':10 }, to: { 'x': 0, 'y':12 } } ],
  size: [ { from: { 'height': 80, 'width':24 }, to: { 'height': 30, 'width':12 } } ],
  scrollregion: [ {from: [ 0, 10 ], to: [ 0, 12 ] } ],
  modes: [ { 'graphic': true }, { 'insert': false } ],
  tabs: [ { from: [] , to: [ 1 ] }]
}

Alternatives & Related

Jquery/Server side:

• headless-terminal - https://github.com/dtinth/headless-terminal
• tty.js - https://github.com/chjj/tty.js/
• jquery terminal emulator - https://github.com/jcubic/jquery.terminal
• tty.js - https://github.com/jondistad/tty.js
• screen-buffer - https://github.com/dtinth/screen-buffer
• Terminal.js - https://github.com/chenxiaoqino/Terminal.js
• terminal.js - https://github.com/wayneashleyberry/terminal.js
• Terminal.js - https://github.com/Tehnix/Terminal.js
• Js-terminal - https://github.com/realslimkarthik/js-terminal

Expose local shell in a browser:

• ttycast.js - https://github.com/dtinth/ttycast
• js.terminal - https://github.com/svewag/js.terminal
• Node-terminal-shark - https://github.com/raadad/node-terminal-shark

Simulate a pseudo shell in browser:

• terminal.js is a dead simple JavaScript library for emulating a shell environment - https://github.com/eosterberg/terminaljs
• terminal.js - https://github.com/wayneashleyberry/terminal.js
• JUIx - http://www.masswerk.at/jsuix/
• Termlib - http://www.masswerk.at/termlib/

Reference docs for vt100, csi , ... codes

• http://www.vt100.net/docs/vt510-rm/contents
• http://www8.cs.umu.se/~isak/snippets/vt100.txt
• http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl4_console_codes.htm

Remarks

• we should clone the defaultBuffer instead of equalling it (see reset function)
• attrCommited? always after changr of attr?
• this.attr = this.defaultAttr (again it should copy it not equal the object)
• Termdiff.diff() - should it not be an array instead of a hash?