figlet.js VS oclif

Commander.js provides a lot of features that allow you to succinctly build command-line interfaces. Furthermore, the Node.js community provides libraries such as Chalk and Figlet that complement Commander.js CLIs to make them look visually appealing.

I have a popular web based ascii text generator (patorjk.com/software/taag), it uses FIGlet driver that I wrote (https://github.com/patorjk/figlet.js/). Many of the other ones out there also use their own drivers (I've seen some written in php and python). There are also different types of ASCII text fonts out there other than FIGlet (ex: my app compiles fonts that were made in the AOL days in the Arial font - which is interesting because it's a non-monospaced font).

FIGlet is the most popular spec for these types of fonts though (it's an app and a spec). The mailing list hasn't been active in a decade, but people used to submit fonts there. It was cool to see what people made.

The oldami tool uses chalk to colorize the output and figlet for the banner.

oclif is a library that helps create CLI applications using Node.js. If you are using a different programming language, search for a suitable library.

It is possible, oclif is a full featured framework produced by Salesforce and is used for the Salesforce and Heroku CLI applications. I have used oclif and pkg to bundle a standalone, though I was focused on MacOS not Windows. Any node application should work with pkg, though.

oClif.io

Check out https://oclif.io/

Interesting. TIL about the Open CLI framework that they all seem to be moving to: https://oclif.io/

https://oclif.io is a tool that helps you build command line tools with node. You can use it to help you create an executable for Linux, max, or windows that you can invoke from the command line.

Oclif to quickly click together CLI tools for kicking off and monitoring crawls, generating reports, etc.

During the second Ably Innovation Days, I started working on specifications for an Ably CLI. After the first day Phil and I started with a prototype based on oclif. We managed to create a working prototype in a day that lists Ably apps, and creates a new Ably app. This project is still Work In Progress. Once the CLI is in a releasable state, I'll create some content around this.

A command-line interface, often referred to as a CLI, is a program that allows users to type instructions and interact with a script that processes the input and produces an output. Node.js has a lot of packages that allows you to build CLIs, like args, minimist, and oclif.