Why is this library useful?

csi provides easy to use methods that return special strings for controlling the terminal. For example, enable(style::bold) and disable(style::bold) return "\033[1m" and "\033[21m" which the terminal interprets as commands to enable and disable bold.

How to print text with style:

The enable and disable methods take style values and return strings that enable or disable a style. style is an enum class of 5 styles: bold, italics, underline, strikethrough, and inverse. inverse inverts the text color and the background color as-if the text is highlighted.

#include <iostream>
#include "csi.hpp"

int main(){
	/* Enable bold, print "Hello World!",
	   disable bold, then print a newline. */
	std::cout << csi::enable(csi::style::bold)
	          << "Hello World!"
	          << csi::disable(csi::style::bold)
	          << std::endl;
}

How to print text with color:

The foreground and background methods take color values and return strings that set the text color or the background color. color is an enum class of 9 colors: none, black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, and white. none is the terminal's default color.

#include <iostream>
#include "csi.hpp"

int main(){
	/* Set the text color to yellow, print "Hello World!",
	   set the text color to default, then print a new line */
	std::cout << csi::foreground(csi::color::yellow)
	          << "Hello World!"
	          << csi::foreground()
	          << std::endl;
		  
	/* Set the background color to blue, print "Hello World!", 
	 * set the background color to default, then print a new line */
	std::cout << csi::background(csi::color::blue)
	          << "Hello World!"
	          << csi::background()
	          << std::endl;
}

How to move the cursor:

There are 7 methods for moving the cursor: cursor_up, cursor_down, cursor_forward, cursor_back, cursor_next_line, cursor_previous_line, and cursor_position. cursor_position accepts two parameters: row and column, both 1 by default (top-left corner) while the other methods accept a single parameter, also 1 by default.

#include <iostream>
#include "csi.hpp"

int main(){
	/* Set the cursor position to the second column of
	   the second row, print "Hello World!", then print
	   a new line. */
	std:: cout << csi::cursor_position(2, 2)
	           << "Hello World!"
	           << std::endl;
}

How to erase the display:

The erase_display and erase_line methods accept erase_mode values as parameters and return strings which erase lines or even the whole display. erase_mode is an enum class which defines three modes: to_end, to_beginning, and all. to_end erases from the cursor to the end of the line/display. to_beginning erases from the cursor to the beginning of the line/display. all erases the entire line/display. For both methods, erase_mode is all by default.

#include <iostream>
#include "csi.hpp"

int main(){
	/* Erase the display, set the cursor position to
	   the top-left, print "Hello World!", then print
	   a new line */
	std:: cout << csi::erase_display()
	           << csi::cursor_position()
	           << "Hello World!"
	           << std::endl;
}