unicode-animations 0.2.2

Pre-built Unicode braille spinner animations as raw frame data

unicode-animations

Python port of gunnargray-dev/unicode-animations.

18 pre-built Unicode braille spinner animations, a ready-to-use live_spinner context manager for CLI apps, and grid utilities for building custom spinners. Zero dependencies — stdlib only.

Install

uv add unicode-animations

Quick start

from unicode_animations import live_spinner
import time

with live_spinner("helix", text="Loading...", color="cyan"):
    time.sleep(3)

Usage

Live spinner for CLI apps

LiveSpinner runs animation in a background thread and cleans up automatically:

from unicode_animations import live_spinner

# As a context manager
with live_spinner("dna", text="Downloading...", color="green"):
    do_work()

# Manual control
from unicode_animations import LiveSpinner

sp = LiveSpinner("helix", text="Processing...", color="cyan")
sp.start()
# ... do work ...
sp.stop(symbol="✓")  # stop with a final symbol

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
name_or_spinner	str | Spinner	required	A spinner name or a Spinner instance
text	str	""	Status text shown next to the spinner
color	str | None	None	ANSI color: red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white
stream	IO[str] | None	stderr	Output stream (non-TTY streams get a text-only fallback)
scale	int	1	Scale factor (2 or 3) for bigger rendering

Raw frame data

from unicode_animations import spinners

spinner = spinners["helix"]
print(spinner.frames)    # tuple of animation frames
print(spinner.interval)  # ms between frames

Custom spinners with the grid API

from unicode_animations import make_grid, grid_to_braille, braille_to_grid

grid = make_grid(4, 2)   # 4 rows x 2 cols (one braille char)
grid[0][0] = True
grid[3][1] = True
print(grid_to_braille(grid))  # ⡁

# Decode back to grid
grid = braille_to_grid("⡁")
print(grid[0][0])  # True

Scaling spinners

from unicode_animations import spinners, scale_spinner

big = scale_spinner(spinners["helix"], factor=2)  # 2x bigger
print(big.frames[0])  # multi-line braille output

Using in TUI frameworks

LiveSpinner is designed for simple CLI scripts. For TUI frameworks that manage the full screen (Textual, Rich, curses), use the raw frame data instead — it's just tuples of strings and an interval, so it plugs into any rendering system:

Textual:

from textual.app import App, ComposeResult
from textual.widgets import Static
from unicode_animations import spinners

class SpinnerWidget(Static):
    def on_mount(self) -> None:
        self.spinner = spinners["helix"]
        self.frame_idx = 0
        self.set_interval(self.spinner.interval / 1000, self.next_frame)

    def next_frame(self) -> None:
        self.update(self.spinner.frames[self.frame_idx % len(self.spinner.frames)])
        self.frame_idx += 1

class MyApp(App):
    def compose(self) -> ComposeResult:
        yield SpinnerWidget()

MyApp().run()

Rich:

from rich.live import Live
import time
from unicode_animations import spinners

spinner = spinners["dna"]
with Live("", refresh_per_second=1000 / spinner.interval) as live:
    for i in range(100):
        live.update(spinner.frames[i % len(spinner.frames)])
        time.sleep(spinner.interval / 1000)

curses:

import curses
import time
from unicode_animations import spinners

def main(stdscr):
    curses.curs_set(0)
    spinner = spinners["orbit"]
    for i in range(100):
        stdscr.addstr(0, 0, spinner.frames[i % len(spinner.frames)])
        stdscr.refresh()
        time.sleep(spinner.interval / 1000)

curses.wrapper(main)

CLI demo

python -m unicode_animations                          # cycle through all
python -m unicode_animations helix                    # preview one
python -m unicode_animations helix --color cyan       # with color
python -m unicode_animations helix --scale 2          # bigger
python -m unicode_animations --list                   # list all names
python -m unicode_animations --list --scale 2         # list with scaled samples
python -m unicode_animations --duration 5             # set preview duration

Available spinners

braille · braillewave · dna · scan · rain · scanline · pulse · snake · sparkle · cascade · columns · orbit · breathe · waverows · checkerboard · helix · fillsweep · diagswipe

License

MIT