Creating a powerful shell like window

[PlasmaHH]

Hi, I would like to add to one of my apps a powerfull shell like window. Think gdbs tui interface with one of the windows being the gdb prompt and the other displaying stuff.

This question is just about the shell/terminal like window.

Obviously I do not want a ready made solution but some pointers into the right direction. Here is what it should support in the end:

• of course just typing of commands and enter executes it
• The last line should be the command and everything above it the command outputs, just like a normal shell/terminal
• I want a prompt that the cursor cannot be placed in, in general the cursor should only be on that line (while the window is active)
• Hitting TAB (or other configurable characters) should call some internal function that I will then use to do tab completion (and which will then be written as if the user typed it)
• In some colour after the cursor I want to be able to add some other text (e.g. hints or tab completion suggestions etc)
• Hitting something like C-R should open me an fzf like window (kind a like a dropdown visually but probably more like "drop up" because I will be on the last line) that when I type will display matching history lines that on enter will fill my cmd line line. This is probably a bit similar as the C-P in most textual demo apps.

So I had a look at the input widgets and they seem to just take text, don't they?

I was thinking that the most flexible solution to achieve all that would probably be to implement something based on key input events, trigger on key combos that I am interested in and otherwise from all of them compose whatever I want to display at the prompt line. Possibly I could have the display areay split (not visible to the user) so the above is purely history and below is (possibly multi line) what my current command is? And then on my search dialogue I can simply open some "overlay dialog" that is on top of everything at the right place (so that it appears it comes out of the command line) ?

Am I on the right track here? Or did I overlook some components of textual that would make this easier/faster ?

[davep]

So I had a look at the input widgets and they seem to just take text, don't they?

With a little bit of tinkering you can take Input quite a way. I've used it as a "command line" for a couple or so apps. One of mine has a form of command line with a history, suggestions from history, that sort of thing (while the implementation is going to be fairly specific to what I developed, the source is here and might spark some ideas); I suspect adding completion wouldn't be too difficult.