cli-view

A Node.js module, a utility supporting cli menu and table creation to assist in creating simple cli games and apps...

cli-view wraps the popular node packages prompt and cli-table to provide a simple interface for quickly creating cli menus and tables.

Installtion

From the command-line, execute:

$ npm install --save cli-view

Usage:

Menus

Make quick menus on the fly: Here we're wrapping the prompt package:

makeMenu

var view = require('cli-view');
 
mainMenu = view.makeMenu('(s) Start game, (q) quit', /^[sq]$/);
mainMenu.on('input', onMainMenuInput);
mainMenu.show();
 
function onMainMenuInput(input) {
    switch (input) {
        case 'q':
            console.log('Thanks for playing Operation Spark\'s awesome game! Bye bye!');
            process.exit(0);
            break; // IDE might complain without break //
        case 's':
            start();
            break;
    }
}

The above menu could also be configured like so:

var view = require('cli-view');
 
var mainMenu = view
        .makeMenu('(s) Start game, (q) quit', /^[sq]$/)
        .onInput('input', function (input) {
            switch (input) {
                case 'q':
                    console.log('Thanks for playing Operation Spark\'s awesome game! Bye bye!');
                    process.exit(0);
                    break;
                case 's':
                    start();
                    break;
            }
        })
        .show();

makeMultiInputMenu

The makeMultiInputMenu() method takes an Array of configuration objects for a multi-step input. Note the chained configuration:

var 
    view = require('cli-view'),
    onlyAlphabet = /^[A-Za-z\s\'\"\.]+$/,
    model = require('./model'),
    people = [];
 
view.makeMultiInputMenu([
    {
        name: 'nameFirst', 
        validator: onlyAlphabet,
        message: 'Enter your first name',
        required: true
    },
    {
        name: 'nameLast', 
        validator: onlyAlphabet,
        message: 'Enter your last name',
        required: true
    },
    {
        name: 'username', 
        validator: onlyAlphabet,
        message: 'Enter your username',
        required: true
    }
])
.onInput(function (input) {
    person = model.makePerson(input.nameFirst, input.nameLast, input.username);
    people.push(person);
})
.show();

Tables

makeTable

Here, we're wrapping the cli-table package. The show() takes an Array of Array forming columns of data. The number of columns in the data must match the number of headers passed to the makeTable() method:

var
    view = require('cli-view'),
    formattedUsers = [
    ['1', 'userOne'],
    ['2', 'userTwo']];
 
var table = view.makeTable(['no.:', 'username']);
 
/*
 * The show method takes an Array of Array forming the columns 
 * of data as string values, like the formattedUsers Array.
 */
table.show(formattedUsers);