nocterm 0.9.0

A Flutter-like framework for building rich terminal user interfaces with components, state management, animations, and more.

0.9.0

Features

• Box-line blending: Dividers and borders now merge with box-drawing characters they overlap, forming junctions (├ ┤ ┬ ┴ ┼) instead of leaving gaps. Every line character is modeled as four arms (up/right/down/left) with light/heavy/double weights; drawing one on another combines the arms and emits the matching glyph. New mergeBoxCharacters/mergeArmsIntoCharacter utilities, TerminalCanvas.drawText(blendBoxLines:), and TerminalCanvas.drawJunction
• Divider: A negative indent/endIndent reaches the divider outside its own bounds; those cells contribute only the arm pointing back into the rule, so an end landing on a border forms a tee (├), not a cross. An end with nothing to join paints nothing
• BoxBorder: An overlaid panel's border corners merge with box characters beneath them, so a docked panel tees into the border it lands on
• BoxBorderStyle.bold: New heavy border style (┏ ━ ┓)
• Demo: example/box_line_blending_demo.dart shows dividers, crossings, all weights, and an overlaid panel

Behavior Changes

• Blending is always on for Divider, VerticalDivider, and border corners (the ascii divider style never merges). When both characters carry an arm in the same direction, the newly drawn character wins (z-order), so drawing ╭ over ┌ rounds the corner and vice versa
• Dotted borders: Edges now use light triple-dash (┄ ┆) instead of heavy (┅ ┇) to match their light corners

Bug Fixes

• Divider: No longer throws (discarding the whole frame) when laid out under unbounded constraints
• Divider: A cell the merge leaves unchanged keeps its original style instead of being recolored
• BoxBorder: Vertical sides run the full height of the box when no top/bottom border paints the end cells, so backgrounds no longer show holes
• BorderTitle: A styled title keeps the panel background instead of showing what was underneath
• LogServer: Each server can publish its port to its own file (portFilePath), so multiple servers in one process no longer race on the pid-keyed global file
• getProjectDirectory: Accepts an explicit starting directory to avoid racing on process-wide Directory.current

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0.8.0

Bug Fixes

• IME composition (Windows/CJK): Emit each rendered frame in a single pipe write so the terminal never anchors the IME composition window to a transient streaming cell — fixes IME window flickering across the screen during chat/log streaming
• IME cursor: Stabilize IME cursor position to prevent Chinese input flickering
• TextField cursor: Correct cursor position with multiple consecutive newlines
• Windows input: Restore ENABLE_PROCESSED_INPUT so Ctrl+C generates SIGINT
• Windows input: Cap the input loop wait so timers and signals fire reliably
• Win32 input: Encode KEY_EVENT_RECORD.uChar as UTF-8 for correct IME input
• Win32 mouse: Forward bare mouse motion as SGR button 35 so hover works
• Character width: Keep East Asian Ambiguous punctuation single-width
• Selection: Edge auto-scroll during selection drag in scroll views
• Terminal shutdown: Stop sending DECRDA query on TUI shutdown
• Project paths: Terminate getProjectDirectory walk at Windows drive roots
• TextField: Use InputDecoration instead of BoxDecoration

Refactoring

• Character width: Delegate CJK classification to the xterm wcwidth table

Chores

• CI: Bump GitHub Actions to node24-compatible majors
• Strengthen the test suite with additional matchers, audit fixes, and gap coverage

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0.7.0

Layout pipeline

The layout-skip check now uses value equality on constraints instead of identical(), and every core mutation path marks layout explicitly. Apps get strictly fewer redundant relayouts than 0.6.0 (which effectively re-laid out the full tree every frame), while content updates render reliably.

Bug Fixes

• Overlay/Stack positioning: Mark parent dirty when applying Positioned parent data, including the copy-in-place path used inside Overlay/Navigator (fixes overlay children frozen at stale positions)
• Padding/Align: Convert RenderPadding and RenderPositionedBox to compare-and-mark setters so padding/alignment changes re-layout (fixes stale layout when constraints are unchanged)
• Child reorder: Mark layout when moving render children, so reordering const/keyed children in Row/Column/Stack takes effect
• ListView/LayoutBuilder: Always mark layout in update() — a stable (hoisted) builder reading mutated state now re-renders instead of pinning stale content
• ListView: Evict stale separator cache entries when itemCount shrinks
• Element slots: Propagate slot changes for identity-equal components, so reordering const children updates paint order
• Ticker: Skip tail reschedule when onTick stops and restarts the ticker (fixes orphaned frame callbacks with AnimationController status listeners)
• Selection: Notify listeners on selection drag state mutations so list viewports repaint selection bands

New APIs

• EdgeInsets: Value equality (==/hashCode), matching Flutter semantics

Performance

• Render pipeline: markNeedsLayout/markNeedsPaint are idempotent — already-dirty nodes short-circuit instead of re-walking to the root

Example

• Interactive relayout_fixes_demo.dart exercising the layout-mark paths, with an e2e smoke test

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0.6.0

New Features

• Windows Support: Add Windows platform support with Console API input for arrow keys and special keys
• Shift+Enter Newline: Support Shift+Enter for newline input via kitty keyboard protocol
• Benchmark Suite: Add benchmark suite with baseline comparison and CI workflow
• Smart Markdown Tables: Wrap markdown tables to fit terminal width

Bug Fixes

• Theme Colors: Soften onBackground/onSurface theme colors to match terminal defaults; use explicit theme colors for fg/bg
• Kitty Protocol: Restore 0x0A as Enter and fix kitty sub-parameter parsing; include kitty/modifyOtherKeys in EscapeCodes values lists
• Scroll Views: Guard against non-finite sizes in scroll views and improve error rendering
• Scrollbar: Prevent scrollbar thumb from overlapping arrows at start/end
• Terminal Exit: Flush stdout before exit to prevent broken terminal state on macOS
• Markdown: Trim trailing newlines from last markdown block element
• Element Comparison: Use operator== instead of identical (matching Flutter)

Performance

• Inherited Element: Skip redundant rebuilds in inherited element updates

Refactoring

• InheritedElement: Make InheritedElement extend ProxyElement

Chores

• Improve pub.dev score (description, changelog, example, lint)
• Add community section to README

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0.5.1

Bug Fixes

• SingleChildScrollView: Should shrink-wrap to child size instead of expanding
• Selection: Use screen position sorting for all viewports
• Render Object: Fix attach lifecycle
• Shutdown: Cancel pendingFrameTimer on shutdown to prevent dangling timers

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0.5.0

New Features

• Text Selection: Full text selection support with mouse drag, copy to clipboard, and visual highlight
• TextField Mouse Interaction: Click to position cursor and drag to select text

Bug Fixes

• Selection Cleanup: Clean up drag state on unmount and exit
• Scrollbar Position: Fix scrollbar thumb positioning

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0.4.4

New Features

• Backend Parameter: Add optional backend parameter to runApp for custom terminal backends

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0.4.3

New Features

• Image Protocol Support: Implement image rendering in the terminal using the Kitty graphics protocol (experimental)

Bug Fixes

• Color Quantization: Quantize colors in environments without true color support for better compatibility
• Web Backend: Fix input handling and debug overlay stack fit issues

Documentation

• Image Documentation: Add documentation for image support and mark as experimental
• Website: Add nocterm.dev website link to README

Refactoring

• Internal: Use built-in getElementForInheritedComponentOfExactType for cleaner code

Testing

• CI Fix: Fix unicode block encoder tests for CI environment

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0.4.2

Bug Fixes

• Refactor: Use built-in getElementForInheritedComponentOfExactType for cleaner code

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0.4.1

Bug Fixes

• Test cleanup: Remove unused variable in test

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0.4.0

Major Features

Developer Tools

• DebugOverlay: New debug overlay toggled with Ctrl+G showing real-time FPS, build/layout/paint timings, memory usage, and CPU usage
• FrameRate presets: New FrameRate class with common presets (fps30, fps60, fps120, unlimited)

Scrolling Improvements

• keyboardScrollable: New property on ListView and SingleChildScrollView to enable built-in arrow key scrolling
• cacheExtent: New cacheExtent property on ListView for smoother scrolling with pre-rendered items
• Offset caching: Performance optimization for variable-height ListView items

UI Components

• Tint widget: New widget for applying color tints to children
• ModalBarrier.obscure: New property to control barrier visibility
• ColoredBox.obscure: Consistent obscure support across box widgets
• BoxConstraints equality: Added == operator for constraint comparison

Animation

• ColorTween: New tween for animating between colors
• Color.lerp: Linear interpolation support for colors

Performance Improvements

• Paint phase optimization: Skip paint phase when nothing visual changed
• ListView cache optimization: Smarter cache invalidation to avoid excessive rebuilds
• Relayout on resize: Proper relayout when terminal constraints change
• Reduced idle CPU: Removed forced relayout hack

Bug Fixes

• ListView parent data: Refactored to use parent data for layout offsets
• Scroll bounds: Improved ListView scroll bounds clamping
• Wide character rendering: Fixed zero-width space handling
• Scroll lag: Resolved O(n) ListView performance issues
• Debug overflow indicator: Disabled by default
• Markdown tables: Use unicode display width for column calculations
• Analyzer warnings: Resolved various warnings and unused code

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0.3.5

Bug Fixes

• GestureDetector: Fixed tap not working in ListView and with centered content

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0.3.4

Bug Fixes

• Frame rate: Respect frame rate limiting in TerminalBinding

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0.3.3

Features

• BorderTitle rich text: Added rich text support to border titles
• Clipping: Implemented proper clipping in RenderStack and Container
• New components: Added ClipRect, OverflowBox, and SizedOverflowBox

Bug Fixes

• Input freeze: Fixed input freeze from rapid key sequences
• Mouse wheel: Fixed stacking order issues with mouse wheel events

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0.3.2

Bug Fixes

• Package publishing: Include lib/src/third_party in published package

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0.3.1

Bug Fixes

• Multi-child containers: Pass slot through ProxyElement to maintain child order
• Stack repaint: Implement invokeLayoutCallback to fix Stack repaint bug

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0.3.0

Major Features

Animation System

• Flutter-like animations: Complete animation system with AnimationController, Animation, Tween, Curves
• Ticker system: Proper Ticker and TickerProvider for frame-based animations
• AnimatedBuilder: Widget that rebuilds on animation changes
• SingleTickerProviderStateMixin: Mixin for state classes that need animation support

New Components

• AsciiText: Large ASCII art text renderer with extensible font system
  • Built-in fonts: standard, banner, block, slim
  • Custom font support via AsciiFont extension
• Builder: Simple component for inline building (like Flutter's Builder)

TextField Improvements

• onKeyEvent callback: Intercept key events before TextField processes them

Bug Fixes

• Overlay state: Prevent setState call on unmounted OverlayState

Infrastructure

• Release workflow: Automated pub.dev publishing with OIDC
• Version management: Enhanced release workflow with custom version and README updates

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0.2.0

Highlights

This is a major release with 100+ commits introducing foundational changes for theming, performance, web support, and developer experience.

Comprehensive Theming System

• 6 built-in themes: dark, light, nord, dracula, catppuccin, gruvbox
• Auto-detection: Terminal brightness detection via OSC 11, COLORFGBG, and macOS Dark Mode
• New TuiThemeData, TuiColors, and TuiTheme InheritedComponent
• Added onSuccess and onWarning colors for complete status color pairs

Differential Rendering (Major Performance Boost)

• Partial rendering that only updates cells that changed since previous frame
• Cell equality comparison (char + style) with previous frame buffer tracking
• Dramatically reduces terminal output for mostly static UIs

Web Platform Support (Experimental)

• New WebBackend abstraction for running in browsers
• Extracted Terminal backend architecture for platform flexibility
• xterm.dart integration experiments

Monorepo Architecture

• Melos for monorepo management with standardized scripts (test, analyze, format, clean)
• New provider package for state management
• New nested package for organization
• SDK constraint updated to >=3.5.0

Major Features

UI Components

• LayoutBuilder: Constraint-aware layouts (Flutter-like) for responsive designs
• ValueListenableBuilder: Reactive widget for ValueListenable
• Rectangle class: Exposed for geometry operations
• Border titles: BoxDecoration now supports title property
• Opacity/Alpha blending: Proper transparency support
• Clipping: Implement clipping with riverpod provider assertions
• ensureVisible: Auto-scroll support for ScrollViews

Input

• Soft-wrapping TextField: Text wrapping, selection, and clipboard support
• SIGINT handling: Proper Ctrl+C signal handling

Terminal Features

• Terminal Color API: Get/set API with extended OSC handling
• Service extensions: Debugging tools including rainbow paint

CLI & Developer Experience

• compile command: Compile and restore shell commands in CLI
• Args package: CLI argument parsing
• Hot reload debounce: Prevents rapid reload spam
• HTTP logging: Logs exposed via HTTP server instead of log.txt
• Pre-commit hook: Auto-format on commit

Documentation

• Full documentation site at docs.nocterm.dev (Fumadocs + GitHub Pages)
• Updated README with proper badges and guides

Performance Improvements

• Differential rendering: Only redraws changed cells between frames
• No-flush optimization: Reduced unnecessary flushes
• Better frame scheduling: Smoother animations

Bug Fixes

Critical Fixes

• Center widget: Now properly expands within bounded constraints (was incorrectly shrinking)
• Ctrl+C in TextField: App is now properly quittable again
• Hot reload assertion: Fixed crashes during hot reload

Rendering Fixes

• Fixed unconnected borders in BoxDecoration
• Fixed markdown rendering and nested list items
• Improved emoji handling (including FEOF emojis)

Other Fixes

• Navigator test stale context (now uses GlobalKey)
• Stateful component inheritance
• TextField onChange text mutation issues
• Shell command exceptions
• Frame buffer null assertion removal

Refactoring & Maintenance

• Hot reload architecture cleanup with shareable classes
• Code organization with proper command classes
• Extensive linting and formatting passes
• Added pubignore for cleaner publishing
• Third-party license notice for Flutter code

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0.1.0

Breaking Changes

ListView

• BREAKING: Removed automatic keyboard navigation from ListView. Applications must now manually wrap ListView in Focusable for keyboard support:

  // Before (0.0.1)
  ListView(children: [...])
  
  // After (0.1.0)
  Focusable(
    onKeyEvent: (event) { /* handle navigation */ },
    child: ListView(children: [...]),
  )
  

TextField

• BREAKING: Removed automatic tap-to-focus behavior. Manual focus management now required for tap interactions.

Major Features

State Management

• Riverpod Integration: Complete Riverpod state management with ProviderScope, reactive widgets, and full provider API support
• Render Theater: New overlay management system with optimized paint ordering and hit testing
• Provider Dependencies: Sophisticated subscription management for reactive UI updates

UI Components

• Stack Widget: Overlapping layout support with positioned/non-positioned children
• ConstrainedBox: Min/max width/height constraints for precise layout control
• Markdown Support: Rich text rendering with headers, lists, code blocks, tables, and links

Navigation

• Overlay System: Complete navigator rewrite using overlay-based architecture
• Route Replacement: New pushReplacement methods for better navigation flow
• Navigator Improvements: Enhanced route management and lifecycle handling

Performance Improvements

• Terminal Output: Write buffering dramatically reduces system calls
• ListView CPU Fix: Fixed 100% CPU usage with proper change detection
• Event Processing: Eliminated keyboard event spam from unparseable mouse events
• Performance Tests: Added benchmark suite for regression testing

Scrolling Enhancements

• RenderObject Scrolling: Moved scrolling logic to RenderObject layer for better performance
• Mouse Support: Full mouse wheel scrolling with SGR coordinate tracking
• Auto-Scroll: Smart auto-scrolling for chat/log interfaces
• Reverse Mode: ListView reverse option for chat-like UIs
• Improved Metrics: Better scroll extent calculation for variable-height items

Visual Improvements

• Modern Colors: Updated color palette with sophisticated muted tones
• Cursor Styles: Enhanced text field cursor customization
• Text Wrapping: Proper text wrapping in columns with cross-axis stretch

Bug Fixes

• Fixed multi-child rebuild layout issues
• Fixed column-in-column constraint handling
• Fixed render object handling for Expanded widgets
• Fixed ESC key handling
• Fixed ordering bugs with Row/Column non-RenderObject elements
• Fixed constraints in flexible layouts and Align widgets
• Improved error handling and hot reload logging

Architecture

• Clean separation of display and input concerns
• Enhanced lifecycle management for components
• Improved render object system with better layout calculations
• Comprehensive test coverage with visual validation

0.0.1

• Initial version.