0.3.2 release announcement

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Kevin Lamonte 2019-08-27 17:24:16 -05:00
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Jexer 0.3.2 Release
===================
I am pleased to announce the release of Jexer 0.3.2. This release
completes nearly every feature I set out to make, and is the last
major milestone before 1.0.0.
Jexer is not an application itself, but rather an advanced text
windowing system framework to help new applications take full
advantage of the terminal. Its major features are:
* MIT licensed.
* Direct support for xterm-like terminals: mouse, keyboard, 24-bit
RGB color, UTF-8, fullwidth characters (CJK and emoji), and sixel
images.
* A Swing-based GUI window that ships with a good-looking Terminus
font.
* Sixel image support, for both input in its terminal window and
output to the host terminal. Jexer is (to my knowledge) the first
and only system capable of managing multiple terminal windows
displaying properly overlapping images.
* Draggable / resizable windows, menu bar, and system-modal dialogs
(message/input boxes and filename picker).
* A full complement of widgets: button, text field, checkbox,
combobox, list, radio button, scrollbars, data table, calendar
picker, progress bar, text display, and simple text editor. Plus
layout manager support for resizable widgets and windows.
* A terminal window capable of passing "vttest" (including VT100
double-width / double-height), and supporting all of Jexer's
features. Jexer can run inside itself, with full keyboard, mouse,
and image support.
* Extensively documented in the code (Javadoc), a wiki, and ships
with a demonstration application showing off all of its available
widgets.
Find out more at the Jexer Sourceforge or GitLab project pages:
* https://jexer.sourceforge.io/
* https://gitlab.com/klamonte/jexer
Download
--------
GitLab: git clone https://gitlab.com/klamonte/jexer.git
Binary downloads: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2829121
On Maven:
group: com.gitlab.klamonte
artifact: jexer
version: 0.3.2
Ugh, Java Sucks!
----------------
(Thor squint) But does it though?
More seriously, I initially picked D because it was sexy. But D circa
2013 brought too many headaches for me, so I switched to Java because
I wanted a cross-platform standard library that would be stable over
many years. And Java is OK, it is a solid workhorse that gets the job
done.
Yet in porting my initial work to Java I stumbled upon an unexpected
benefit: I found ways to accomplish all of what Jexer does _without
calling C directly_. No termios, no ncurses, no forkpty(), and thus
no serious hurdles porting it to anything that can spawn programs and
read their output. On Linux, BSD, or OSX, all you need is 'stty' and
'script' to make things work. (And if you want resizable terminal
windows, add 'ptypipe'.)
So for those who want something like Jexer but in your own favorite
language, I encourage you to check out the [Porting
Jexer](https://gitlab.com/klamonte/jexer/wikis/porting) page on the
wiki: it has pointers to where the key features are, and a potential
roadmap if you wanted to take part or all of it into your own hands.
I licensed Jexer as MIT, stuck with simple Java 1.6, and thoroughly
documented it in the hope that fans of other languages could more
easily create or enhance their own text user interfaces.