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Library Guide

Playing Effect Animations

All effects are iterators which return a string representing the current frame. Basic usage is as simple as importing the effect, instantiating it with the input text, and iterating over the effect. Effects includes a helpful context manager (effect.terminal_output()) to handle terminal setup/teardown, cursor positioning, and frame rate timing.

The following example plays the Slide effect animation using the (effect.terminal_output()) context manager.

from terminaltexteffects.effects.effect_slide import Slide

text = ("EXAMPLE" * 10 + "\n") * 10

effect = Slide(text)
effect.effect_config.merge = True # (1)
with effect.terminal_output() as terminal:
    for frame in effect:
        terminal.print(frame)
  1. Use the effect_config attribute to modify the effect configuration. Setting merge to True on the Slide effect causes the text to slide in from alternating sides of the terminal.

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Effects are Iterable

If you want to handle the output yourself, such as sending the frames to a TUI or GUI, simply iterate over the effect without the context manager.

from terminaltexteffects.effects.effect_slide import Slide

text = ("EXAMPLE" * 10 + "\n") * 10

effect = Slide(text)
effect.effect_config.merge = True # (1)
for frame in effect:
    # frame is a string, do something with it
  1. Use the effect_config attribute to modify the effect configuration. Setting merge to True on the Slide effect causes the text to slide in from alternating sides of the terminal.

Configuring Effects

All effect configuration options are available within each effect via the effect.effect_config and effect.terminal_config attributes.

from terminaltexteffects.effects.effect_slide import Slide
from terminaltexteffects.utils.graphics import Color

text = ("EXAMPLE" * 10 + "\n") * 10

effect = Slide(text)
effect.effect_config.merge = True  # (1)
effect.effect_config.grouping = "column"  # (2)
effect.effect_config.final_gradient_stops = (Color("0ff000"), Color("000ff0"), Color("0f00f0"))  # (3)
effect.terminal_config.canvas_width = 30  # (4)
with effect.terminal_output() as terminal:
    for frame in effect:
        terminal.print(frame)
  1. Use the effect_config attribute to modify the effect configuration. Setting merge to True on the Slide effect causes the text to slide in from alternating sides of the terminal.
  2. Columns will slide in, rather than rows.
  3. Change the gradient colors from the defaults.
  4. Set the canvas width manually rather than automatically detect. Canvas heigth will be automatically detected as it has not been set.

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Configuring the Terminal

TTE uses a Terminal class and a Canvas class to handle terminal/canvas dimensions, wrapping text, etc. Effects contain an attribute (effect.terminal_config) which allows access to the various terminal configuration options. The configuration should be modified prior to iterating over the effect.

For example, to set the terminal dimensions manually:

effect.terminal_config.canvas_width = 80
effect.terminal_config.canvas_height = 24

If either canvas_width or canvas_height are set to 0, that dimension will be automatically detected based on the terminal device dimensions.

If you would like to ignore terminal dimensions altogether and base the canvas dimensions solely on the input data:

effect.terminal_config.ignore_terminal_dimensions = True

For more information on terminal configuration options, check out the TerminalConfig reference.

Infinitely Looping Effects

Some effects support infinite looping. For example, ColorShift via the ColorShiftConfig.cycles config attribute. When set to 0 directly, the effect will cycle indefinitely. Explore the configuration options for a given effect to see if it supports infinite looping.

Note

Infinite looping is NOT supported when TTE is run as an application. The command line argument validators will not accept these values. This is by design, to prevent users inadvertently inputting a configuration that results in having to interrupt the process to end an effect.