ANSIListBoxPane

ANSIListBoxPane Class

An ANSIListBoxPane object displays a list of items, and allows the user to select one of the items in the list by using the cursor motion keys.

Each item in the list is an ANSILabelPane. To modify the appearance of the items, refer to the ANSILabelPane class. See ANSILabelPane.

After exiting by pressing Escape or Enter, a program can retrieve the text of the selected item.

Here is a simple program that displays a list of items, then prints the selected item’s text before exiting.

int main () {
  ANSIListBoxPane new listBox;

  listBox appendLine "Item 1";
  listBox appendLine "Item 2";
  listBox appendLine "Item 3";
  listBox appendLine "Item 4";
  listBox appendLine "Item 5";

  listBox show 2, 2;   // Waits for the user to press Escape or Enter
                       // before returning.

  printf ("\nYou selected %s.\n", listBox selectedText);
  
  listBox cleanup;
}

Instance Variables

items

A List of ANSILabelPane items that contain the text of the list selections.

oldSelectedContent

An ANSILabelPane object that contains the content of the previous selection. Used for erasing the previous selection before drawing the new selection.

prevSelectedLine

An Integer that contains the index of the previously selected item. The ANSIListBoxPane indexes items starting with 1 for the first item.

selectedContent

An ANSILabelPane object that contains the contents of the currently selected item.

selectedLine

An Integer that contains the index, counting from 1, of the currently selected item.

totalLines

An Integer that contains the number of items to be displayed.

Instance Methods

appendLine (String text)

Creates a new ANSILabelBox object with the contents text, then adds the ANSILabelBox to the items list.

cleanup (void)

Deletes the buffers associated with the ANSIListBoxPane object and its items.

handleInput (void)

Waits for input from the user and processes it. Pressing a cursor key or an Emacs or vi next/previous line key shifts the selection. Pressing Escape or Enter causes the method to return.

new (listPane1, listPane2, ...;)

The ANSIListBoxPane constructor. The argument contains the names of one or more new ANSIListBoxPane objects.

refresh (void)

Draw the list pane and items on the terminal.

refreshSelectionFirst (void)

Highlight the initially selected item. Should only be called after a call to refresh.

refreshSelection (void)

Redraw the highlightd selected item, and un-highlight the previously selected item. Should only be called after a call to selectNext or selectPrev

selectedText (void)

Returns the text of the selected item as a String object.

selectNext (void)

selectPrev (void)

Select the next or previous item of the list box’s contents. Also saves the index and contents of the previously selected item.