Griddle simplifies the concept of creating 2D games or UI applications within a 2D-matrix, or grid, which in turn makes it a suitable cross-platform graphics framework for lower fidelity games or apps.

It is inspired by:

• tcell, a Go package that provides cell-based views for terminals
• termbox, a minimalistic API to write text-based UIs
• termpixels, the terminal as a character-cell matrix

Creating simple 2D programs that run inside a terminal (or terminal emulator) is complicated. The goal of griddle is to abstract a terminal-like screen into a 2D grid of character cells.

Like termpixels, this project makes the terminal more accessible and more fun, but in Dart!

To learn more about griddle, read our design philosophy.

import 'dart:io' show stdout;
import 'dart:math' as math;

import 'package:griddle/griddle.dart';

void main() {
  final screen = Screen.display(Display.fromAnsiTerminal(
    stdout,
    width: () => stdout.terminalColumns,
    height: () => stdout.terminalLines,
  ));

  const string = 'Hello World, from Griddle for Dart!';

  Stream<void>.periodic.listen((_) {
    screen.clear();

    for (var i = 0; i < string.length; i++) {
      final t = DateTime.now().millisecondsSinceEpoch / 1000;
      final f = i / string.length;
      final c = Color.fromHSL(f * 300 + t, 1, 0.5);
      final x = screen.width ~/ 2 - string.length ~/ 2;
      final o = math.sin(t * 3 + f * 5) * 2;
      final y = (screen.height / 2 + o).round();

      screen.print(string[i], x + i, y, foreground: c);
    }

    screen.update();
  });
}

(For the full example, see example/example.dart)

This package welcomes new issues and pull requests.

Changes or requests that do not match the following criteria will be rejected:

1. Common decency as described by the Contributor Covenant.
2. Making this library brittle.
3. Adding platform-specific functionality.
4. A somewhat arbitrary bar of "complexity", everything should be easy to use.