The Command-Line User Interface Term::Clui Term::Clui offers a high-level user interface, with subroutines &choose &ask &edit &view &confirm and &sorry. It works at a higher level than widgets; it gives command-line applications a consistent "look and feel". Its metaphor for the computer is a human-like conversation-partner, and as each answer/response is completed it is summarised onto one line, and remains on screen, so that the history of the dialogue gradually accumulates on the screen and is available for review, or for cut/paste. If &choose is called in an array context, it offers multiple choice. Also included is the file-selector module Term::Clui::FileSelect, with its main subroutine &select_file. Term::Clui doesn't yet work yet under Windows. To install ( cool ! new ! interactive ! ) just: perl Install that's all ! or you can still do it the usual way ... perl Makefile.PL make make install For up-to-date source, see http://search.cpan.org/~pjb or see http://www.cpan.org/SITES.html in the directory authors/id/P/PJ/PJB For the user, &edit and &view use the default EDITOR and PAGER from the user's environment, except that if &view is called with a very short text a builtin viewer is used allowing the user to choose whether the text remains on-screen or is cleared. &choose uses arrow keys or hjkl and return (or q to quit); the spacebar marks items in a multiple choice. If the choices won't fit on the screen the user is asked for a substring clue. &confirm expects Y,y,N or n. &ask respects left and right arrows and backspace, ctrl-B moves to the beginning, ctrl-E to the end, and ctrl-C, ctrl-D or ctrl-X clear the current string. &choose maintains a DBM database of what the user chose last time in response to the same question and if that choice is in the list this time then &choose highlights it as the default. Thus &choose manages its own defaults and menus using Term::Clui autoconfigure themselves to the user's preferences. &select_file obeys options modelled after those of Tk::FileDialog.pm and Tk::SimpleFileSelect.pm The programmer can pass &ask a default string as an optional second argument. &choose handles big lists gracefully, asking the user for a substring clue (very cool..), and when called in an array context, offers the user multiple choice. A highly featured File-Selector is included. Term::Clui is fast, very easy for both programmer and user, and has few external dependencies. It doesn't use curses which is a whole-of -screen interface; it uses a tiny and very portable subset of vt100 sequences (up left right normal reverse and clrtoeol). It requires only Exporter, which is core Perl. It handles window size changes, using Term::Size.pm if available; if not, it tries `tput`. Peter Billam peter.billam@pjb.com.au http://www.pjb.com.au