NAME

       "Tickit" - Terminal Interface Construction KIT

SYNOPSIS

        use Tickit;
        use Tickit::Widget::Box;
        use Tickit::Widget::Static;

        my $box = Tickit::Widget::Box->new(
           h_border => 4,
           v_border => 2,
           bg       => "green",
           child    => Tickit::Widget::Static->new(
              text     => "Hello, world!",
              bg       => "black",
              align    => "centre",
              valign   => "middle",
           ),
        );

        Tickit->new( root => $box )->run;

DESCRIPTION

       "Tickit" is a high-level toolkit for creating full-screen terminal-based interactive
       programs. It allows programs to be written in an abstracted way, working with a tree of
       widget objects, to represent the layout of the interface and implement its behaviours.

       Its supported terminal features includes a rich set of rendering attributes (bold,
       underline, italic, 256-colours, etc), support for mouse including wheel and position
       events above the 224th column and arbitrary modified key input via libtermkey (all of
       these will require a supporting terminal as well).  It also supports having multiple
       instances and non-blocking or asynchronous control.

       At the current version, this is a Perl distribution which contains and XS and C
       implementation of the lower levels (Tickit::Term and Tickit::Pen), and implements the
       higher levels (Tickit::Window and Tickit::Widget) in pure perl. The XS parts are supported
       by libtickit, either from the installed library, or using a bundled copy compiled at build
       time. It is intended that eventually the Window layer will be rewritten in XS and C
       instead.

CONSTRUCTOR

   new
          $tickit = Tickit->new( %args )

       Constructs a new "Tickit" framework container object.

       Takes the following named arguments at construction time:

       term_in => IO
               IO handle for terminal input. Will default to "STDIN".

       term_out => IO
               IO handle for terminal output. Will default to "STDOUT".

       UTF8 => BOOL
               If defined, overrides locale detection to enable or disable UTF-8 mode. If not
               defined then this will be detected from the locale by using Perl's
               "${^UTF8LOCALE}" variable.

       root => Tickit::Widget
               If defined, sets the root widget using "set_root_widget" to the one specified.

       use_altscreen => BOOL
               If defined but false, disables the use of altscreen, even if supported by the
               terminal. This will mean that the screen contents are stll available after the
               program has finished.

METHODS

   later
          $tickit->later( $code )

       Runs the given CODE reference at some time soon in the future. It will not be invoked yet,
       but will be invoked at some point before the next round of input events are processed.

   timer
        $id = $tickit->timer( at => $epoch, $code )

        $id = $tickit->timer( after => $delay, $code )

       Runs the given CODE reference at some fixed point in time in the future.  The first
       argmuent must be either the string "at", or "after"; and specifies that second argument
       gives either the absolute epoch time ($epoch), or the delay relative to now ($delay),
       respectively. Fractions are supported to a resolution of microseconds.

       Returns an opaque integer value that may be passed to "cancel_timer". This value is safe
       to ignore if not required.

   cancel_timer
        $tickit->cancel_timer( $id )

       Removes a timer previously installed by "timer". After doing so the code will no longer be
       invoked.

   term
          $term = $tickit->term

       Returns the underlying Tickit::Term object.

   cols
   lines
          $cols = $tickit->cols

          $lines = $tickit->lines

       Query the current size of the terminal. Will be cached and updated on receipt of
       "SIGWINCH" signals.

   bind_key
          $tickit->bind_key( $key, $code )

       Installs a callback to invoke if the given key is pressed, overwriting any previous
       callback for the same key. The code block is invoked as

        $code->( $tickit, $key )

       If $code is missing or "undef", any existing callback is removed.

       As a convenience for the common application use case, the "Ctrl-C" key is bound to the
       "stop" method.

       To remove this binding, simply bind another callback, or remove the binding entirely by
       setting "undef".

   rootwin
          $tickit->rootwin

       Returns the root Tickit::Window.

   set_root_widget
          $tickit->set_root_widget( $widget )

       Sets the root widget for the application's display. This must be a subclass of
       Tickit::Widget.

   setup_term
          $tickit->setup_term

       Set up the screen and generally prepare to start running

   teardown_term
          $tickit->teardown_term

       Shut down the screen after running

   tick
          $tickit->tick

       Run a single round of IO events. Does not call "setup_term" or "teardown_term".

   run
          $tickit->run

       Calls the "setup_term" method, then processes IO events until stopped, by the "stop"
       method, "SIGINT", "SIGTERM" or the "Ctrl-C" key. Then runs the "teardown_term" method, and
       returns.

   stop
          $tickit->stop

       Causes a currently-running "run" method to stop processing events and return.

AUTHOR

       Paul Evans <leonerd@leonerd.org.uk>