prettier_console

Interactive, colorized command-line UI toolkit for Python — arrow-key menus, ASCII-art banners, colored text, and simple file/folder pickers.

Installation

pip install prettier-console

Requirements: Python 3.8+, and the keyboard package (used for arrow-key navigation and safe_input, will be installed with the package). On Linux, reading keyboard events usually requires running with sudo or granting input-group permissions.

Quickstart

import prettier_console as pc

def say_hello():
    print("Hello, world!")

def say_hello_to(name):
    print(f"Hello, {name}!")

options = [
    {
        "text": "hello world",
        "color": "green",
        "id": "hello",
        "func": {"body": say_hello},  # plain callable, no arguments
    },
    {
        "text": "hello, Ada",
        "color": "cyan",
        "id": "hello_ada",
        "func": {"body": say_hello_to, "param": ["Ada"]},   # positional argument(s)
    },
]

pc.home_menu("HOME", "Welcome!", options)

██╗  ██╗  ██████╗  ███╗   ███╗ ███████╗
██║  ██║ ██╔═══██╗ ████╗ ████║ ██╔════╝
███████║ ██║   ██║ ██╔████╔██║ █████╗  
██╔══██║ ██║   ██║ ██║╚██╔╝██║ ██╔══╝  
██║  ██║ ╚██████╔╝ ██║ ╚═╝ ██║ ███████╗
╚═╝  ╚═╝  ╚═════╝  ╚═╝     ╚═╝ ╚══════╝
=======================================
Welcome!

Choose from the following 3 options:
    >·1.hello world····<
      2.hello, Ada
      3.quit program

Pressing Enter on "hello world" calls hello_world() with no arguments; pressing Enter on "hello, Ada" calls hello_name("Ada"). Either way, once the handler returns, you're back at this menu — selecting "quit program" is what actually exits (via quit_program()). The options return and quit program is built into the menu(quit program for home_menu(), and return for menu()), so do not add them in the customized choice.

Usage

Colored output

from prettier_console import default_colored_output, colored_output

default_colored_output.print("Build succeeded", color="green")
default_colored_output.print("Warning: low disk space", color="yellow", background="black")

# Or make your own instance (e.g. bright variant)
bright = colored_output(bright=True)
bright.print("Critical error", color="red")

# Get a colored string without printing it (e.g. to embed in another message)
tag = default_colored_output.get_print_string_text("[OK]", color="green")
print(f"{tag} All tests passed")

Banners and headers (ASCII art)

pc.print_banner("prettier_console")
pc.print_header("v1.0 released", color="cyan")

Multi-line input is supported — \n starts a new row of large text:

pc.print_banner("quick brown fox\njumps over the\nlazy dog")

Yes/no and custom menus

answer = pc.print_yesorno("Delete this file?")   # returns 'y' or 'n'

choice = pc.print_selections(
    "Pick an environment:",
    [
        {"text": "Development", "color": "green", "id": "dev"},
        {"text": "Staging",     "color": "yellow", "id": "staging"},
        {"text": "Production",  "color": "red",    "id": "prod"},
    ],
)  # returns the chosen id, navigable with the up/down arrow keys

Full navigable menus

menu() builds a single screen; home_menu() is the entry point of your app (it adds a "quit" option instead of "back", and calls quit_program() when chosen).

def say_hello():
    return pc.menu(name="hello world", prompt="hello!", options=None)

def say_hello_to(name):
    print(f"Hello, {name}!")

options = [
    {
        "text": "Say hello",
        "color": "red",
        "id": "hello",
        "func": {"body": say_hello},
    },
    {
        "text": "Say hello to someone",
        "color": "blue",
        "id": "hello_name",
        "func": {"body": say_hello_to, "param": ["Ada"]},
    },
]

pc.home_menu(name="HOME", prompt="Welcome!", options=options)

Each option's func is called when selected — either a plain callable, or a {"body": fn, "param": [...]} dict for passing positional arguments. Returning "quit" from a handler exits the whole menu stack.

In order to build dynamic prompt that refreshes when the menu is redrawn, pass a function callback that returns a string.

hw_counter = 0

def say_hello():
    return pc.menu(name="hello world", prompt="hello!", options=None)

def prompt_builder():
    global hw_counter
    hw_counter += 1
    return f"hello world for {hw_counter} times!"

options = [
    {
        "text": "Say hello",
        "color": "red",
        "id": "hello",
        "func": {"body": say_hello},
    },
]

pc.home_menu(name="HOME", prompt=prompt_builder, options=options)

Safe input

name = pc.safe_input("What's your name? ")

A drop-in replacement for input() that guards against stray keypresses left over in the input buffer (falls back to normal input() if the keyboard backend isn't available, e.g. on some restricted environments).

File and folder pickers

files = pc.select_files(prompt="Select an image", filetypes=["jpg", "png"])   # opens a native file dialog, returns a tuple of paths or None
folder = pc.select_folder(prompt="Select a folder")               # prompt is provided by default. Opens a native folder dialog, returns a path or None

files = pc.select_files_window(["jpg", "png"])  # opens purely the file selection dialog, no prompt, echo or reselections, same return as select_files()
folder = pc.select_folder_window()  # opens purely the folder selection dialog, same return as select_folder()

Misc utilities

pc.clear_screen()                 # cross-platform 'cls'/'clear'
width = pc.display_width("你好 world")   # display width accounting for full-width CJK characters
pc.quit_program(0)                # clears the screen, prints a goodbye message, exits

CLI: adding custom ASCII-art fonts

The banner/header glyphs are stored as JSON under prettier_console/ascii_art_font/font/. You can add or replace a style from a plain-text font file (one row per line, glyph segments for A-Z + space separated by /):

python -m prettier_console.manage updatefont my_font.txt --style retro
python -m prettier_console.manage updatefont my_font.txt --banner   # overwrite the default banner style
python -m prettier_console.manage updatefont my_font.txt --header   # overwrite the default header style

The previous version of a style is automatically zipped into font/legacy_fonts/ before being overwritten.

API reference

Instances comes with the module

Worth noticing

When running, do not resize the window of powershell. Otherwise the formatting would break.

Avoid having wrapped text. The line_counter does not work well with wrapped text.