Tui-chat

A Rust crate providing terminal chat widgets for ratatui applications. Includes ChatArea for displaying messages and InputArea for multiline text input, along with a complete ChatApp for quick prototyping.

Features

• Multiline Input: Type messages with line breaks using Shift+Enter.
• Clipboard Paste Support: Paste multiline text from clipboard with proper line ending normalization.
• Scrollable Chat History: Navigate through messages with Page Up/Down or mouse wheel.
• Simulated AI Responses: Automatically responds to user messages for demonstration.
• Keyboard Navigation: Full cursor movement support in input area (arrow keys, etc.).
• Cross-Platform: Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Installation

Add the crate to your project:

cargo add tui-chat

Or manually add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
tui-chat = "0.2.0"

This will automatically include all required dependencies (ratatui, crossterm, textwrap, arboard).

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.70 or later
• Cargo package manager

Usage

As a Library

use tui_chat::{ChatArea, InputArea, ChatMessage};

let mut chat_area = ChatArea::new();
let mut input_area = InputArea::new();

// Add a message
chat_area.add_message(ChatMessage {
    sender: "User".to_string(),
    content: "Hello!".to_string(),
});

// In your render loop
chat_area.render(frame, chat_rect);
input_area.render(frame, input_rect);

Running the Example

To see a full chat application, run the included example:

cargo run --example chat_app

Keybindings (for ChatApp example)

• Enter: Send message
• Ctrl+Enter, Ctrl+J, Shift+Enter: New line in input (depends on the OS and terminal. With WSL, and likely macOS and Linux, it's Ctrl+Enter or Ctrl+J; with PowerShell (pwsh), it's Shift+Enter and Ctrl+J)
• Ctrl+V: Paste from clipboard
• Page Up/Down: Scroll chat history
• Mouse Wheel: Scroll chat history (when cursor is over chat area)
• Arrow Keys: Navigate cursor in input area
• Backspace: Delete character
• Ctrl+C or Esc: Quit application

Dependencies

• crossterm: Cross-platform terminal manipulation
• ratatui: Terminal UI framework

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.