termbox2 is a terminal rendering library for creating TUIs. It is a suckless alternative to the ubiquitous ncurses library. It ships with built-in support for popular terminals and can also fallback to terminfo if present. Compared to the original termbox, it retains a simple API and no dependencies beyond libc, and adds stricter error checking, more efficient escape sequence parsing, opt-in support for 32-bit color, extended grapheme clusters, code gen for built-in escape sequences, a test suite, and more.
termbox2 is organized as a single file header library, though it is possible to compile it as a stand-alone shared or static library.
#define TB_IMPL
#include "termbox2.h"
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
struct tb_event ev;
int y = 0;
tb_init();
tb_printf(0, y++, TB_GREEN, 0, "hello from termbox");
tb_printf(0, y++, 0, 0, "width=%d height=%d", tb_width(), tb_height());
tb_printf(0, y++, 0, 0, "press any key...");
tb_present();
tb_poll_event(&ev);
y++;
tb_printf(0, y++, 0, 0, "event type=%d key=%d ch=%c", ev.type, ev.key, ev.ch);
tb_printf(0, y++, 0, 0, "press any key to quit...");
tb_present();
tb_poll_event(&ev);
tb_shutdown();
return 0;
}
The basic API is pretty self-explanatory. Consult the header file itself for the complete API and documentation.
int tb_init();
int tb_shutdown();
int tb_width();
int tb_height();
int tb_clear();
int tb_present();
int tb_set_cursor(int cx, int cy);
int tb_hide_cursor();
int tb_set_cell(int x, int y, uint32_t ch, uintattr_t fg, uintattr_t bg);
int tb_peek_event(struct tb_event *event, int timeout_ms);
int tb_poll_event(struct tb_event *event);
int tb_print(int x, int y, uintattr_t fg, uintattr_t bg, const char *str);
int tb_printf(int x, int y, uintattr_t fg, uintattr_t bg, const char *fmt, ...);
As mentioned above, there are two options:
- Copy (or
git submodule
)termbox2.h
into your C project. As normal, include the header file wherever you want to usetb_*
functions, but also be sure to#define TB_IMPL
in exactly one of your source files. (This is a common pattern for single file header libraries.) Ensure that feature test macros_DEFAULT_SOURCE
and_XOPEN_SOURCE
are defined (either by defining them via compiler flags or includingtermbox2.h
first1). - Build termbox2 as a library (either
make libtermbox2.so
ormake libtermbox2.a
) and link as normal. Make sure the compile-time options remain the same for libtermbox2 and your application. (Alternatively, build withmake lib
and usetermbox2.h.lib
instead oftermbox2.h
. This will guarantee that the sameTB_LIB_OPTS
-gated compile-time options are used in the library and the header file.)
Basic FFI or ABI-compatible examples in the languages below are in the demo/
directory. (Feel free to submit PRs for other languages.)
- D
- Go
- Nim
- PHP
- Python
- Ruby
- Rust
- Zig
Other wrapper libraries:
- termbox.cr (Crystal)
- termbox2.cr (Crystal)
- Termbox.pm (Perl)
- termbox2-hs (Haskell)
- termbox2-zig (Zig)
- letloop's termbox2 (Chez Scheme)
- mle - flexible terminal-based text editor
- ictree - like tree but interactive
- lavat - lava lamp for the terminal
- termbox-tetris - Tetris clone
- dvd-screensaver - a terminal screensaver
- matrix-tui - Matrix client
- Vgmi - Gemini client
- poe -
.po
file editor