What's a good Java, curses-like, library for terminal applications?

Question

I would like to write a Java terminal application that does screen manipulation. Are there any good libraries out there that allow you to manipulate the screen like curses in the *nix/C world?

Minimal features I'm looking for are windowing and user input support.

In feature-speak, I'd like to have a region of the terminal where some data is regularly updated while (at the same time) the user can enter commands/text in some other part of the screen.

score 58 · Answer 1 · edited May 02 '22 at 18:53

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Lanterna

I found the Lanterna library recently. Haven't had the opportunity to use it yet but it looks like a more up-to-date alternative to the others.

edited May 02 '22 at 18:53

Basil Bourque

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answered Oct 15 '12 at 13:21

Bryce

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Thanks! I was looking for one that uses no native code. – David Ehrmann Sep 20 '13 at 20:57
Last update was 4 months ago. Seems like the most recently maintained solution here. – Thomas Feb 16 '22 at 01:30
[*Griffon*](http://griffon-framework.org/) is an application framework that supports 4 different UI toolkits: Swing, JavaFX, Apache Pivot, and Lanterna. – Basil Bourque May 02 '22 at 19:00

Bart Schuller · Accepted Answer · 2009-01-13T19:23:51.140

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There is Charva, which links to native code but has an api based on Swing. The screenshots show lots of text windows, so that looks useful.

edited Jan 13 '09 at 19:23

answered Jan 13 '09 at 17:06

Bart Schuller

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Nice one, too bad though that it requires native libraries. I'll give this a shot and see how far I get. – Francisco Canedo Jan 16 '09 at 12:03
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Last release: 2006. – Grzegorz Oledzki Jan 25 '11 at 12:10
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@GrzegorzOledzki Just updating...Last release: 2013. – Mar 07 '14 at 07:34
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@BartSchuller The link is dead. – Itay Grudev Mar 11 '17 at 16:21

score 26 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 13 '09 at 16:58

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Haven't used it myself, but Java Curses Library sounds like what you want.

answered Jan 13 '09 at 16:58

Jim Blizard

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Sounds good, but I think I'll go with Charva, since that'll provide a more OO experience. Thanks for the suggestion. – Francisco Canedo Jan 16 '09 at 12:02
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Java Curses last release: 2002. – Pistos Dec 03 '09 at 23:34
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Java Curses has now gotten some recent attention, and a new release in 2012. – Nate C-K Apr 17 '12 at 19:44
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Java Curses last release: 2012-12-07 – Stephan Feb 17 '16 at 15:47
Last Update: 2015-08-07. Note that this uses native code. – JonasCz Mar 31 '18 at 17:33

score 10 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 13 '09 at 17:12

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Here is a way to call the ncurses lib using JNI. I tested this and it works.

answered Jan 13 '09 at 17:12

DMKing

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score 8 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 20 '13 at 17:52

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As of 2013, the closest I can find is Blacken.

Blacken is not a curses library per-se. It moves away from the terminal, and instead, renders it's own "console window." This has the disadvantage of not looking "console-like." Instead, you get full (arbitrary) colour support, and a curses-like API (in addition to their main API).

You can also set the font to Mono for fixed-width characters.

answered Nov 20 '13 at 17:52

ashes999

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Perfect for what I was wanting to do. Thank you. – Mar 07 '14 at 06:06
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@jdersen there are some bugs in Blacken, but overall, it's quite good, and the owner responds quite quickly to opened issues. – ashes999 Mar 07 '14 at 14:09
Last release: Sep 27, 2012 – Stephan Feb 17 '16 at 15:49

What's a good Java, curses-like, library for terminal applications?

5 Answers5

Lanterna

Linked