NAME

    Tickit - Terminal Interface Construction KIT

SYNOPSIS

     use Tickit;
     use Tickit::Widget::Box;
     use Tickit::Widget::Static;
    
     my $box = Tickit::Widget::Box->new(
        h_border => 4,
        v_border => 2,
        bg       => "green",
        child    => Tickit::Widget::Static->new(
           text     => "Hello, world!",
           bg       => "black",
           align    => "centre",
           valign   => "middle",
        ),
     );
    
     Tickit->new( root => $box )->run;

DESCRIPTION

    Tickit is a high-level toolkit for creating full-screen terminal-based
    interactive programs. It allows programs to be written in an abstracted
    way, working with a tree of widget objects, to represent the layout of
    the interface and implement its behaviours.

    Its supported terminal features includes a rich set of rendering
    attributes (bold, underline, italic, 256-colours, etc), support for
    mouse including wheel and position events above the 224th column and
    arbitrary modified key input via libtermkey (all of these will require
    a supporting terminal as well). It also supports having multiple
    instances and non-blocking or asynchronous control.

    At the current version, this is a Perl distribution which contains and
    XS and C implementation of the lower levels (Tickit::Term and
    Tickit::Pen), and implements the higher levels (Tickit::Window and
    Tickit::Widget) in pure perl. The XS parts are supported by libtickit,
    either from the installed library, or using a bundled copy compiled at
    build time. It is intended that eventually the Window layer will be
    rewritten in XS and C instead.

CONSTRUCTOR

 new

       $tickit = Tickit->new( %args )

    Constructs a new Tickit framework container object.

    Takes the following named arguments at construction time:

    term_in => IO

      IO handle for terminal input. Will default to STDIN.

    term_out => IO

      IO handle for terminal output. Will default to STDOUT.

    UTF8 => BOOL

      If defined, overrides locale detection to enable or disable UTF-8
      mode. If not defined then this will be detected from the locale by
      using Perl's ${^UTF8LOCALE} variable.

    root => Tickit::Widget

      If defined, sets the root widget using set_root_widget to the one
      specified.

    use_altscreen => BOOL

      If defined but false, disables the use of altscreen, even if
      supported by the terminal. This will mean that the screen contents
      are stll available after the program has finished.

METHODS

 later

       $tickit->later( $code )

    Runs the given CODE reference at some time soon in the future. It will
    not be invoked yet, but will be invoked at some point before the next
    round of input events are processed.

 timer

     $tickit->timer( at => $epoch, $code )
    
     $tickit->timer( after => $delay, $code )

    Runs the given CODE reference at some fixed point in time in the
    future. The first argmuent must be either the string at, or after; and
    specifies that second argument gives either the absolute epoch time
    ($epoch), or the delay relative to now ($delay), respectively.
    Fractions are supported to a resolution of microseconds.

 term

       $term = $tickit->term

    Returns the underlying Tickit::Term object.

 cols

 lines

       $cols = $tickit->cols
    
       $lines = $tickit->lines

    Query the current size of the terminal. Will be cached and updated on
    receipt of SIGWINCH signals.

 bind_key

       $tickit->bind_key( $key, $code )

    Installs a callback to invoke if the given key is pressed, overwriting
    any previous callback for the same key. The code block is invoked as

     $code->( $tickit, $key )

    If $code is missing or undef, any existing callback is removed.

    As a convenience for the common application use case, the Ctrl-C key is
    bound to the stop method.

    To remove this binding, simply bind another callback, or remove the
    binding entirely by setting undef.

 rootwin

       $tickit->rootwin

    Returns the root Tickit::Window.

 set_root_widget

       $tickit->set_root_widget( $widget )

    Sets the root widget for the application's display. This must be a
    subclass of Tickit::Widget.

 setup_term

       $tickit->setup_term

    Set up the screen and generally prepare to start running

 teardown_term

       $tickit->teardown_term

    Shut down the screen after running

 tick

       $tickit->tick

    Run a single round of IO events. Does not call setup_term or
    teardown_term.

 run

       $tickit->run

    Calls the setup_term method, then processes IO events until stopped, by
    the stop method, SIGINT, SIGTERM or the Ctrl-C key. Then runs the
    teardown_term method, and returns.

 stop

       $tickit->stop

    Causes a currently-running run method to stop processing events and
    return.

AUTHOR

    Paul Evans <leonerd@leonerd.org.uk>

