4.5 KiB
ANSI
Arduino library with basic ANSI display codes for terminal applications.
Description
ANSI codes are special codes that are send to a terminal e.g. VT100 to add attributes to displayed characters. Typical examples are bold, blink or colour. ANSI codes are also known as escape codes. The set of codes is large, however not all terminal types do support all codes.
Sending these ANSI codes to a simple ASCII only terminal like the one in the Arduino IDE might result in garbage. So use with care.
Breaking change 0.2.0
The gotoXY(x, y) has changed as the X and Y coordinates were swapped.
The code has been updated to explicitly mention which is row and which is column.
- gotoXY(uint8_t column, uint8_t row)
Related
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code
Terminals tested
Tests are done with
- TeraTerm 4.102 + 4.106 (VT100, VT202, VT525 mode)
- Putty 0.71
Other terminal program's exist so please let me know if yours is working too. If not, please open an issue.
Operation
See examples
Interface
#include "ansi.h"
Constructor
- ANSI(Stream * stream = &Serial) wrapper around Serial. Can be a software serial too.
Stream interface
- int available() to check if chars are available on the stream.
- int read() read a byte from the stream.
- int peek() preview the byte in the stream without fetching.
- void flush()
Stream interface also includes print(), println(), write().
Character modi
- void normal() normal intensity.
- void bold() bold or high intensity.
- void low() low intensity.
- void underline() idem.
- void blink() idem.
- void reverse() idem.
Colour
- void foreground(uint8_t fgcolor)
- void background(uint8_t bgcolor)
- void color(uint8_t fgcolor, uint8_t bgcolor)
Three helpers to map to the nearest colour.
- uint8_t gray2color(uint8_t gray)
- uint8_t grey2color(uint8_t grey) idem
- uint8_t rgb2color(uint8_t r, uint8_t g, uint8_t b)
To do colour table
Positioning
- void clearScreen() clears screen and sets cursor to 0,0.
- void clearLine(uint8_t clear = toEnd) toEnd = 0, toStart = 1, entireLine = 2,
- void home() set cursor to 0, 0
- void gotoXY(uint8_t column, uint8_t row) set cursor to position. Note X == row and Y == column. See #13.
- void cursorUp(uint8_t x) idem.
- void cursorDown(uint8_t x) idem.
- void cursorForward(uint8_t x) idem.
- void cursorBack(uint8_t x) idem.
Experimental
look into ansi.h for experimental functions and notes.
Version 0.1.6 added a number of experimental function that need more testing. Some are working with Teraterm, others are unclear of fail. The user can uncomment these and verify if these work with their terminal.
Also added is the int deviceType() function which also need more testing.
As always, constructive feedback is welcome.
Performance
Since 0.1.5 there is some focus on performance. Using ansi.print() and ansi.println() for printing text and numbers is improved a bit since 0.1.4 by adding the private write(array, length).
Since 0.2.0 the print() statements are replaced by write(). Although it are small improvements these add up.
Future
Must
- improve documentation
- elaborate interface
- colour info
Should
- test experimental functions
- test more terminal programs (Linux mac)
- add examples
- DOS emulator?
- experimental section
- evaluate experimental code
- move code from .h to .cpp
Could
- increase functionality
- which codes are generic / useful ?
- investigate performance.
- add line buffer in write(c) to improve throughput?
- need for flush() with line buffer?
Wont
- move static strings to PROGMEM? as defines? roughly ~20 bytes progmem for 4 bytes RAM...