SYNOPSIS

use POE::Component::Curses;
use Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Window;
use Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Button;

# spawn a root window
my $root = POE::Component::Curses->spawn();
  # adds some widget
  $root->add_window(
      my $window = Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Window
        ->new()
        ->set_name('main_window')
        ->add_widget(
          my $button = Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Button
            ->new_with_label('Click Me to quit')
            ->set_name('my_button')
            ->signal_connect(clicked => sub { exit(0); })
        )
        ->set_coordinates( x1 => '20%',   y1 => '20%',
                           x2 => '80%',   y2 => '80%', )
  );

DESCRIPTION

This module tries to be a modern curses toolkit, based on the Curses module, to build "semi-graphical" user interfaces easily.

WARNING : This is still in "beta" version, not all the features are implemented, and the API may change. However, most of the components are there, and things should not change that much in the future... Still, don't use it in production, and don't consider it stable.

Curses::Toolkit is meant to be used with a mainloop, which is not part of this module. I recommend you POE::Component::Curses, which is probably what you want. POE::Component::Curses uses Curses::Toolkit, but provides a mainloop and handles keyboard, mouse, timer and other events, whereas Curses::Toolkit is just the drawing library. See the example above. the spawn method returns a Curses::Toolkit object, which you can call methods on.

If you already have a mainloop or if you don't need it, you might want to use Curses::Toolkit directly. But again, it's probably not what you want to use. In this case you would do something like :

use Curses::Toolkit;

# using Curses::Toolkit without any event loop
my $root = Curses::Toolkit->init_root_window();
my $window = Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Window->new();
$root->add($window);
...
$root->render

TUTORIAL

If you are new with Curses::Toolkit, I suggest you go through the tutorial. You can find it here:

Curses::Toolkit::Tutorial (not yet done!)

WIDGETS

Curses::Toolkit is based on a widget model, inspired by Gtk. I suggest you read the POD of the following widgets :

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Window

Use this widget to create a window. It's the first thing to do once you have a root_window

Curses::Toolkit::Widget

Useful to read, it contains the common methods of all the widgets

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Label

To display simple text, with text colors and attributes

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Button

Simple text button widget to interact with the user

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::GenericButton

A button widget that can contain anything, not just a label

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Entry

To input text from the user

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::VBox

To pack widgets vertically, thus building complex layouts

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::HBox

To pack widgets horizontally, thus building complex layouts

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Border

Add a simple border around any widget

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::HPaned

To pack 2 widgets horizontally with a flexible gutter

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::VPaned

To pack 2 widgets vertically with a flexible gutter

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::HScrollBar

Not yet implemented

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::VScrollBar.pm

Not yet implemented

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::HProgressBar

An horizontal progress bar widget

Curses::Toolkit::Widget::VProgressBar

A vertical progress bar widget

For reference, here are the various hierarchy of the objects/concepts of the toolkit you might have to use :

WIDGETS HIERARCHY

This is the inheritance hierarchy of the widgets of the toolkit :

Curses::Toolkit::Widget
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Window
|   |
|   +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Window::Dialog
|       |
|       + Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Window::Dialog::About
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Label
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Entry
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Scrollbar
|   |
|   +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::HScrollbar
|   |
|   +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::VScrollbar
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Container
    |
    +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::HBox
    |
    +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::VBox
    |
    +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Paned
    |   |
    |   +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::HPaned
    |   |
    |   +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::VPaned
    |
    +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Bin
        |
        +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Border
            |
            +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::Button
            |
            +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::GenericButton
            |
            +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::ProgressBar
                |
                +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::HProgressBar
                |
                +-- Curses::Toolkit::Widget::VProgressBar

SIGNALS HIERARCHY

This is the inheritance hierarchy of the signals :

Curses::Toolkit::Signal
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Signal::Clicked
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Signal::Content
|   |
|   +-- Curses::Toolkit::Signal::Content::Changed
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Signal::Focused
    |
    +-- Curses::Toolkit::Signal::Focused::In
    |
    +-- Curses::Toolkit::Signal::Focused::Out

THEMES HIERARCHY

This is the inheritance hierarchy of the themes :

Curses::Toolkit::Theme
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Theme::Default
    |
    +-- Curses::Toolkit::Theme::Default::Color
    |
    +-- Curses::Toolkit::Theme::Default::Color::Pink
    |
    +-- Curses::Toolkit::Theme::Default::Color::Yellow

OBJECTS HIERARCHY

This is the list of objects of the toolkit :

Curses::Toolkit::Object
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Object::Coordinates
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Object::MarkupString
|
+-- Curses::Toolkit::Object::Shape