Configuration Management

Terminal.Gui provides persistent configuration settings via the ConfigurationManager class.

Settings. Settings are applied to the Application class. Settings are accessed via the Settings property of ConfigurationManager.
Themes. Themes are a named collection of settings impacting how applications look. The default theme is named "Default". Two other built-in themes are provided: "Dark", and "Light". Additional themes can be defined in the configuration files.
AppSettings. Applications can use the ConfigurationManager to store and retrieve application-specific settings.

The ConfigurationManager will look for configuration files in the .tui folder in the user's home directory (e.g. C:/Users/username/.tui or /usr/username/.tui), the folder where the Terminal.Gui application was launched from (e.g. ./.tui), or as a resource within the Terminal.Gui application's main assembly.

Settings that will apply to all applications (global settings) reside in files named config.json. Settings that will apply to a specific Terminal.Gui application reside in files named appname.config.json, where appname is the assembly name of the application (e.g. UICatalog.config.json).

Settings are applied using the following precedence (higher precedence settings overwrite lower precedence settings):

App-specific settings in the users's home directory (~/.tui/appname.config.json). -- Highest precedence.
App-specific settings in the directory the app was launched from (./.tui/appname.config.json).
App settings in app resources (Resources/config.json).
Global settings in the the user's home directory (~/.tui/config.json).
Global settings in the directory the app was launched from (./.tui/config.json).
Default settings in the Terminal.Gui assembly -- Lowest precedence.

The UI Catalog application provides an example of how to use the ConfigurationManager class to load and save configuration files. The Configuration Editor scenario provides an editor that allows users to edit the configuration files. UI Catalog also uses a file system watcher to detect changes to the configuration files to tell ConfigurationManager to reload them; allowing users to change settings without having to restart the application.

What Can Be Configured

Settings

(Note, this list may not be complete; search the source code for SerializableConfigurationProperty to find all settings that can be configured.)

Glyphs

The standard set of glyphs used for standard views (e.g. the default indicator for Button) and line drawing (e.g. LineCanvas) can be configured.

The value can be either a decimal number or a string. The string may be:

A Unicode char (e.g. "☑")
A hex value in U+ format (e.g. "U+2611")
A hex value in UTF-16 format (e.g. "\u2611")

  "Glyphs": {
    "RightArrow": "►",
    "LeftArrow": "U+25C4",
    "DownArrow": "\\u25BC",
    "UpArrow": 965010
  }

Themes

A Theme is a named collection of settings that impact the visual style of Terminal.Gui applications. The default theme is named "Default". The built-in configuration within the Terminal.Gui library defines two more themes: "Dark", and "Light". Additional themes can be defined in the configuration files. The JSON property Theme defines the name of the theme that will be used. If the theme is not found, the default theme will be used.

Themes support defining ColorSchemes as well as various default settings for Views. Both the default color schemes and user-defined color schemes can be configured. See ColorSchemes for more information.

Example Configuration File

{
  "$schema": "https://gui-cs.github.io/Terminal.Gui/schemas/tui-config-schema.json",
  "Application.QuitKey": {
    "Key": "Esc"
  },
  "AppSettings": {
    "UICatalog.StatusBar": false
  },
  "Theme": "UI Catalog Theme",
  "Themes": [
    {
      "UI Catalog Theme": {
        "ColorSchemes": [
          {
            "UI Catalog Scheme": {
              "Normal": {
                "Foreground": "White",
                "Background": "Green"
              },
              "Focus": {
                "Foreground": "Green",
                "Background": "White"
              },
              "HotNormal": {
                "Foreground": "Blue",
                "Background": "Green"
              },
              "HotFocus": {
                "Foreground": "BrightRed",
                "Background": "White"
              },
              "Disabled": {
                "Foreground": "BrightGreen",
                "Background": "Gray"
              }
            }
          },
          {
            "TopLevel": {
              "Normal": {
                "Foreground": "DarkGray",
                "Background": "White"
              ...
              }
            }
          }
        ],
        "Dialog.DefaultEffect3D": false
      }
    }
  ]
}

Key Bindings

Key bindings are defined in the KeyBindings property of the configuration file. The value is an array of objects, each object defining a key binding. The key binding object has the following properties:

Key: The key to bind to. The format is a string describing the key (e.g. "q", "Q, "Ctrl-Q"). Function keys are specified as "F1", "F2", etc.

Configuration File Schema

Settings are defined in JSON format, according to the schema found here:

https://gui-cs.github.io/Terminal.Gui/schemas/tui-config-schema.json

Table of Contents