Ratatui-crossterm

This crate provides [CrosstermBackend], an implementation of the Backend trait for the Ratatui library. It uses the Crossterm library for all terminal manipulation.

Crossterm Version and Re-export

ratatui-crossterm requires you to specify a version of the Crossterm library to be used. This is managed via feature flags. The highest enabled feature flag of the available crossterm_0_xx features (e.g., crossterm_0_28, crossterm_0_29) takes precedence. These features determine which version of Crossterm is compiled and used by the backend. Feature unification may mean that any crate in your dependency graph that chooses to depend on a specific version of Crossterm may be affected by the feature flags you enable.

Ratatui will support at least the two most recent versions of Crossterm (though we may increase this if crossterm release cadence increases). We will remove support for older versions in major (0.x) releases of ratatui-crossterm, and we may add support for newer versions in minor (0.x.y) releases.

To promote interoperability within the Ratatui ecosystem, the selected Crossterm crate is re-exported as ratatui_crossterm::crossterm. This re-export is essential for authors of widget libraries or any applications that need to perform direct Crossterm operations while ensuring compatibility with the version used by ratatui-crossterm. By using ratatui_crossterm::crossterm for such operations, developers can avoid version conflicts and ensure that all parts of their application use a consistent set of Crossterm types and functions.

For example, if your application's Cargo.toml enables the crossterm_0_29 feature for ratatui-crossterm, then any code using ratatui_crossterm::crossterm will refer to the 0.29 version of Crossterm.

For more information on how to use the backend, see the documentation for the [CrosstermBackend] struct.

Crate Organization

ratatui-crossterm is part of the Ratatui workspace that was modularized in version 0.30.0. This crate provides the Crossterm backend implementation for Ratatui.

When to use ratatui-crossterm:

• You need fine-grained control over dependencies
• Building a widget library that needs backend functionality
• You want to use only the Crossterm backend without other backends

When to use the main ratatui crate:

• Building applications (recommended - includes crossterm backend by default)
• You want the convenience of having everything available

For detailed information about the workspace organization, see ARCHITECTURE.md.