simple-term-menu 0.2.1

A Python package which creates simple interactive menus on the command line.

Simple Terminal Menu

Overview

simple-term-menu creates simple menus for interactive command line programs. It can be used to offer a choice of different options to the user. Menu entries can be selected with the arrow or j/k keys. The module uses the terminfo database to detect terminal features automatically and disables styles that are not available. Currently, Linux and macOS are supported.

Installation

simple-term-menu is available on PyPI for Python 3.3+ and can be installed with pip:

python3 -m pip install simple-term-menu

Usage

Create a menu with the default style

Create an instance of the class TerminalMenu and pass the menu entries as a list of strings to the constructor. Call the show method to output the menu and wait for keyboard input:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

from simple_term_menu import TerminalMenu


def main():
    terminal_menu = TerminalMenu(["entry 1", "entry 2", "entry 3"])
    terminal_menu.show()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

You will get an output like:

You can now select a menu entry and accept your choice by hitting enter or cancel the menu with escape or <Ctrl>-C. show returns the selected menu entry index or None if the menu was canceled.

Styling

You can pass styling arguments to the TerminalMenu constructor. Each style is a tuple of keyword strings. Currently the following keywords are accepted:

• bg_black
• bg_blue
• bg_cyan
• bg_gray
• bg_green
• bg_purple
• bg_red
• bg_yellow
• fg_black
• fg_blue
• fg_cyan
• fg_gray
• fg_green
• fg_purple
• fg_red
• fg_yellow
• bold
• italics
• standout
• underline

You can alter the following styles:

• menu_cursor_style: The style of the shown cursor. The default style is ("fg_red", "bold").

• menu_highlight_style: The style of the selected menu entry. The default style is ("standout",)

By setting menu_cursor you can define another cursor or disable it (None). The default cursor is "> ".

Command line program

simple-term-menu can be used as a terminal program in shell scripts. The exit code of the script is the 1-based index of the selected menu entry. The exit code 0 reports the cancel action. The following command line arguments are supported:

usage: simple-term-menu [-h] [-c CURSOR] [-s CURSOR_STYLE]
                        [-m HIGHLIGHT_STYLE] [-C] [-V]
                        entries [entries ...]

simple-term-menu creates simple interactive menus in the terminal and returns the selected entry as exit code.

positional arguments:
  entries               the menu entries to show

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -c CURSOR, --cursor CURSOR
                        menu cursor (default: > )
  -s CURSOR_STYLE, --cursor_style CURSOR_STYLE
                        style for the menu cursor as comma separated list
                        (default: fg_red,bold)
  -m HIGHLIGHT_STYLE, --highlight_style HIGHLIGHT_STYLE
                        style for the selected menu entry as comma separated
                        list (default: standout)
  -C, --no-cycle        do not cycle the menu selection
  -V, --version         print the version number and exit