py_cui VS python-prompt-toolkit

py_cui - Another curses wrapper

It's great to see some more competitors on the TUI front of the Python ecosystem! I recently tried multiple existing frameworks and was not particularly happy with the state.

Here are the main contenders for libraries that provide higher-level API than urwid/ncurses:

* Picotui, https://github.com/pfalcon/picotui

* Npyscreen, https://github.com/npcole/npyscreen

* py_cui, https://github.com/jwlodek/py_cui

Both Picotui and Npyscreen are relatively unmaintained / considered feature-full. py_cui seems to be in the best shape.

Fingers crossed for this project making it through, building on top of Rich gives it quite a bit of headstart. You can also sponsor @willmcgugan on Github [0].

[0]: https://github.com/sponsors/willmcgugan

You're probably going to want to do this in a TUI. If I was going to attempt this project, I think I'd try py_cui which was written by a fellow Redditor u/QbaPolak17. Another possible (buy maybe less pretty) option is picotui. I've not implemented either of these, but py_cui looks fun.

So, when I found the different commands to get back my file and recover it, I wanted to create a clear UI to do it. Searching for a CUI library, I've stumbled upon py_cui, based on curses, it has a really easy learning curve. Easy to get it running.

I dit it with py_cui, it's based on curses library but really easier to work with.

Ref. https://github.com/prompt-toolkit/python-prompt-toolkit and https://github.com/c-bata/go-prompt ?

> The purpose is not to do this however, the goal for a repl cli is usually to invoke a set of particular, already implemented commands, not on the fly python input and output. The implementation will be predefined and packaged, repl are only used to run a list of specific commands with arguments that implementation has already defined.

That's a very strange definition for a REPL, I would just call that an (interactive) CLI. Maybe that's why you couldn't find anything when you were doing your search? I used python-prompt-toolkit [0] when building such interfaces. pgcli [1] is an example of such an interface built with prompt-toolkit.

It has a lot of nice autocomplete and readline emulation options. Maybe it's something you can integrate with your project.

[0] https://github.com/prompt-toolkit/python-prompt-toolkit

[1] https://www.pgcli.com/

Euporie uses prompt_toolkit as its TUI library. prompt_toolkit does not specifically support terminal graphics, but I've written various of custom components and modifications to enable images to be displayed using terminal graphics.

That bothered me too, the default function for Ctrl-W in ipython is unix-word-rubout from python-prompt-toolkit [1], which uses spaces for word boundaries. You can rebind it to backward-kill-word so it uses "not a letter nor a digit" as a word boundary.

Here's a gist with my config (also binds shift-left/right arrow to move to previous space instead of visual select): https://gist.github.com/fratajczak/64e32421a43d3b8194d0409ce...

[1]: https://github.com/prompt-toolkit/python-prompt-toolkit/blob...

When coding in python I've used ptpython repl based on prompt-toolkit which has been used in numerous CLI programs https://github.com/prompt-toolkit/python-prompt-toolkit/blob/master/PROJECTS.rst. I've also used mycli from that page. I've really enjoyed the UX of these. In addition to the syntax highlighting, auto/tab completions, (and maybe other enjoyable features) the vi-mode is amazingly helpful (for us vi folks) (it's probably got emacs bindings too). I would love to have all of this in a repl for lua.

That's an interesting approach. I was also thinking of using a more sophisticated framework than whiptail, maybe the PromptToolkit. I guess it then would be more similar to the idea of using a text editor. I certainly do think a TUI may be overkill yet it was also a good excuse to practice some bash scripting for me.

Try prompt_toolkit which is a Python library used by IPython among others: https://github.com/prompt-toolkit/python-prompt-toolkit