Getting Started

Paste these commands into your favorite terminal on Windows, Mac, or Linux. This will install the Terminal.Gui.Templates, create a new "Hello World" TUI app, and run it.

(Press Esc to exit the app)

dotnet new --install Terminal.Gui.templates
dotnet new tui -n myproj
cd myproj
dotnet run

Adding Terminal.Gui to a Project

To install Terminal.Gui from Nuget into a .NET Core project, use the dotnet CLI tool with this command.

dotnet add package Terminal.Gui

Using the Templates

Use the Terminal.Gui.Templates.

Sample Usage in C#

The following example shows a basic Terminal.Gui application using the modern instance-based model (this is ./Example/Example.cs):

// A simple Terminal.Gui example in C# - using C# 9.0 Top-level statements

// This is a simple example application.  For the full range of functionality
// see the UICatalog project

using Terminal.Gui.App;
using Terminal.Gui.Configuration;
using Terminal.Gui.ViewBase;
using Terminal.Gui.Views;

// Override the default configuration for the application to use the Amber Phosphor theme
ConfigurationManager.RuntimeConfig = """{ "Theme": "Amber Phosphor" }""";
ConfigurationManager.Enable (ConfigLocations.All);

IApplication app = Application.Create ();

app.Run<ExampleWindow> ();

// Dispose the app to clean up and enable Console.WriteLine below
app.Dispose ();

// To see this output on the screen it must be done after shutdown,
// which restores the previous screen.
Console.WriteLine ($@"Username: {ExampleWindow.UserName}");

// Defines a top-level window with border and title
public sealed class ExampleWindow : Window
{
    public static string UserName { get; set; }

    public ExampleWindow ()
    {
        Title = $"Example App ({Application.QuitKey} to quit)";

        // Create input components and labels
        var usernameLabel = new Label { Text = "Username:" };

        var userNameText = new TextField
        {
            // Position text field adjacent to the label
            X = Pos.Right (usernameLabel) + 1,

            // Fill remaining horizontal space
            Width = Dim.Fill ()
        };

        var passwordLabel = new Label
        {
            Text = "Password:", X = Pos.Left (usernameLabel), Y = Pos.Bottom (usernameLabel) + 1
        };

        var passwordText = new TextField
        {
            Secret = true,

            // align with the text box above
            X = Pos.Left (userNameText),
            Y = Pos.Top (passwordLabel),
            Width = Dim.Fill ()
        };

        // Create login button
        var btnLogin = new Button
        {
            Text = "Login",
            Y = Pos.Bottom (passwordLabel) + 1,

            // center the login button horizontally
            X = Pos.Center (),
            IsDefault = true
        };

        // When login button is clicked display a message popup
        btnLogin.Accepting += (s, e) =>
                              {
                                  if (userNameText.Text == "admin" && passwordText.Text == "password")
                                  {
                                      MessageBox.Query (App, "Logging In", "Login Successful", "Ok");
                                      UserName = userNameText.Text;
                                      Application.RequestStop ();
                                  }
                                  else
                                  {
                                      MessageBox.ErrorQuery (App, "Logging In", "Incorrect username or password", "Ok");
                                  }

                                  // When Accepting is handled, set e.Handled to true to prevent further processing.
                                  e.Handled = true;
                              };

        // Add the views to the Window
        Add (usernameLabel, userNameText, passwordLabel, passwordText, btnLogin);
    }
}

Key aspects of the modern model:

Use Application.Create() to create an IApplication instance
The application initializes automatically when you call Run<T>()
Use app.Run<ExampleWindow>() to run a window that implements IRunnable
Call app.Dispose() to clean up resources and restore the terminal
Event handling uses Accepting event instead of legacy Accept event
Set e.Handled = true in event handlers to prevent further processing

When run the application looks as follows:

Simple Usage app

Building the Library and Running the Examples