ex_ncurses

Ncurses NIF for Elixir

What It Does

ExNcurses is a NIF that let's you create text-based user interfaces and games. It connects Elixir to the ncurses library. Not all of ncurses is available, but quite a bit is including the ability to receive key presses as they happen.

Usage

For usage, you can look at the code in the examples directory or check out the QuickieSynth sample project (@elixirsips) where we show a version using ExNcurses.

Installation

The package is available on hex.pm and can be installed by adding ex_ncurses to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:ex_ncurses, "~> 0.1"}
  ]
end

Compiling

You will need to install the ncurses library and C header files first. Do this however is appropriate for your system.

Then the project can be compiled with

mix deps.get
mix compile

Run the examples

To run any of the examples, start them by invoking the run_example.sh script:

./run_example.sh demo

FAQ

Why isn't anything being drawn to the screen

Try calling ExNcurses.refresh/0 or ExNcurses.wrefresh/1 if you're working in a window.

Hold up, x and y are swapped everywhere

That's the ncurses way. Everything is row and then column, so y comes first. The upper left is (0, 0).

What happened to the Elixir console

It's still there. It won't receive any input between calls to ExNcurses.initscr/0 and ExNcurses.endwin/0. I'm still on the fence with what to do with the console. It could be redirected, output could be thrown away, etc. At the moment, you'll likely want to turn on the Elixir console logger so that it doesn't interfere with the display.