curses_components

A reusable Python terminal UI library built on curses. Provides a grid viewer for tabular data and a vi-like text editor popup. Both components focus purely on the user interface and accept data in a canonical format.

Components

GridComponent Displays tabular data (e.g. CSV, database result sets) in a scrollable, interactive grid. Supports filtering, sorting, searching, column navigation, and CSV export.

EditorPopup A vi-like modal text editor shown as a popup window. Suitable for editing small text files such as SQL scripts. Supports insert mode, normal mode commands, search, substitute, and sort.

ScrollablePopup Base class for bordered, scrollable popup windows. Subclass to build custom help screens or information panels.

Installation

Install as an editable local package (recommended for development):

pip install -e /path/to/curses_component

Or add as a git submodule in another project:

git submodule add <repo-url> libs/curses_component
pip install -e libs/curses_component

Usage

GridComponent:

import curses
from curses_components import GridComponent

data = [
    {'name': 'Alice', 'age': 30},
    {'name': 'Bob',   'age': 25},
]

def main(stdscr):
    grid = GridComponent(data, fg_color='green', bg_color='black')
    grid.display(stdscr)

curses.wrapper(main)

EditorPopup:

import curses
from curses_components import EditorPopup

def main(stdscr):
    editor = EditorPopup(stdscr, title='Edit', fg_color='green',
                         bg_color='black', bold=True)
    result = editor.edit(text='', filename='script.sql')
    if result is not None:
        print(result)

curses.wrapper(main)

See examples/ for runnable demos:

python examples/grid_editor.py
python examples/text_editor.py
python examples/text_editor.py <file>
python examples/text_editor.py --size 120x40 <file>

GridComponent key bindings

Grid extensions can display reusable popups through show_popup:

grid.show_popup('Messages', lines=['first line', 'second line'])
grid.show_popup('Results', rows=[('Name', 'Alice'), ('State', 'Active')])

The popup inherits the grid's configured colors.

Commands can be added with a handler that receives the grid and parsed arguments:

def show_current_column(grid, args):
    column = grid.columns[grid.col_idx]
    grid.show_popup(column, lines=[str(row.get(column, ''))
                                   for row in grid.data])

grid.register_command('values', show_current_column)

Navigation: j/k/h/l or arrow keys, Home/End, Page Up/Down, ^/$ Search: / (substring), r/

EditorPopup key bindings

Normal mode: h/j/k/l or arrow keys, w/b (word), 0/$ (line), gg/G (file) Editing: i/a (insert), o/O (new line), x (delete char), dw (delete word), dd (delete line), yy (yank), p (paste), u (undo) Search: / (enter), n/N (next/previous) Command mode: :w [file], :q, :q!, :wq, :x, : (jump to line) Substitute: :s/pat/rep[/g], :%s/pat/rep[/g] Sort: :sort[!][ u] Help: :help

Color options (both components)

Both GridComponent and EditorPopup accept fg_color, bg_color, and border_color as constructor arguments. Valid color names:

black  blue  cyan  green  magenta  red  white  yellow

EditorPopup also accepts bold=True (bright text) and bold_background=True.

Dependencies

• Python 3.8+
• pyperclip (for copy/copyrow commands in GridComponent)

License

MIT