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Getting Started with charstyle

This guide will help you get started with charstyle, a Python library for styling terminal text.

Installation

Install charstyle using pip:

pip install charstyle

Basic Usage

Here's a simple example to get you started:

from charstyle import styled, Style

# Basic color
print(styled("This is red text", Style.RED))

# Color with style
print(styled("This is bold blue text", (Style.BLUE, Style.BOLD)))

# Multiple styles
print(styled("This is bold green text on yellow background",
             (Style.GREEN, Style.BOLD, Style.BG_YELLOW)))

# Text alignment
from charstyle import Align
print(styled("Centered Header", Style.BOLD, width=30, align=Align.CENTER))
print(styled("Right aligned", Style.YELLOW, width=30, align=Align.RIGHT))

Development Setup

If you want to contribute to charstyle or modify it for your own needs:

  1. Install Hatch: 

    pip install hatch

  2. Clone the repository: 

    git clone https://github.com/joaompinto/charstyle.git
cd charstyle

  3. Run tests to verify everything is working: 

    hatch -e dev run test

For more detailed development instructions, see the Contributing Guide.

Next Steps

Now that you have charstyle installed and know the basics, you can:

  1. Learn more about basic usage
  2. Explore text alignment features
  3. Explore advanced styling techniques
  4. Check out the API reference

Example: Styled Output

Here's a more complete example showing how to create styled terminal output:

from charstyle import styled, Style, Align

# Define some reusable styles
header_style = (Style.BLUE, Style.BOLD)
success_style = (Style.GREEN, Style.BOLD)
error_style = (Style.RED, Style.BOLD)
warning_style = (Style.YELLOW, Style.ITALIC)

# Create a header with alignment
print(styled("APPLICATION STATUS", header_style, width=50, align=Align.CENTER, fill_char="="))

# Use the styles
print(styled("✓ Database connection: ", success_style) + "Connected")
print(styled("✓ Configuration: ", success_style) + "Loaded")
print(styled("⚠ Disk space: ", warning_style) + "Running low")
print(styled("✗ External API: ", error_style) + "Unavailable")

Requirements

  • Python 3.11 or higher
  • A terminal that supports ANSI color codes