Interactive Console Options

Very simple interactive options selection for .NET console apps. Supports single option selection, as well as multiple options selection. The options to select from, can be taken from an user-defined Enums or supplied dynamically.

Usage

Single selection

enum Options
{
    [OptionDescription("This is option 1")]
    Option1,
    [OptionDescription("This is option 2")]
    Option2,
    [OptionDescription("This is option 3")]
    Option3
}

var result = ConsoleOptionsBuilder
    .SingleSelector<Options>(Direction.Vertical)
    .Prompt("Select an option with up/down arrows, Enter/Space to submit:")
    .WaitForSelection()
    .Single();
// result will be Options.Option2, if selected as below

In console:

Select an option with up/down arrows, Enter/Space to submit:
 This is option 1
→This is option 2
 This is option 3

Multiple selection

If an Enum is used, it should be attributed with the [Flags] attribute, but this is not strictly necessary.

[Flags]
enum OptionsFlags
{
    [OptionDescription("This is option 1")]
    Option1 = 1 << 0,
    [OptionDescription("This is option 2")]
    Option2 = 1 << 1,
    [OptionDescription("This is option 3")]
    Option3 = 1 << 2
}

var result = var result = ConsoleOptionsBuilder
    .MultiSelector<OptionsFlags>(Direction.Vertical)
    .ConfigureFormatter(x =>
    {
        x.Prompt = "Select options with up/down arrows, Spacebar to mark an option, Enter to submit:";
        x.SelectedIndicator = "[✓]";
        x.NotSelectedIndicator = "[ ]";
    })
    .WaitForSelection()
    .BitwiseOr();
// result will be OptionsFlags.Option1 | OptionsFlags.Option2, if selected as below

In console:

Select options with up/down arrows, Space to mark an option, Enter to submit:
 [✓]This is option 1
 [ ]This is option 2
→[✓]This is option 3

Dynamically supplied options

OptionDescription<int>[] values = [new(1, "One"), new(2, "Two"), new(3, "Three")];

var result = ConsoleOptionsBuilder
    .MultiSelector(values, Direction.Vertical)
    .ConfigureFormatter(x =>
    {
        x.Prompt = "Select an option:";
    })
    .WaitForSelection();
// result will be [1, 3], if selected as below

In console:

Select an option:
 [*]One
 [ ]Two
→[*]Three

Customization

Customization possibilities are available by creating custom classes that inherit from Formatter<,> (or implement IFormatter<,>) and FormatterOptions. See the samples folder for details.

Changes

Version 1.0.0

• The library is largely re-written. Lot's of breaking changes from previous version.
• The ripebananas.ConsoleOptions.Lib package has been merged into the main ripebananas.ConsoleOptions package.

Version 0.0.8

• Added ANSI coloring codes and related string extension methods to make console colored output easier. E.g. to change the foreground color to red, you could just use

  Console.WriteLine("test".RedForeground());