sysmess

Fancy terminal message box renderer using Unicode box characters and ANSI styling.

Uses a dynamic string buffer for quick and snappy message rendering.

Installation & Building

Install Via PIP (Recomended)

pip install sysmess

Build From Source

• Clone the repository git clone https://github.com/canadaluke888/sysmess.git

• Build the extension in-place:

  python3 setup.py build (MacOS & Linux)

  python setup.py build (Windows)

• (Optional) Install into your current environment:

  1. Make a virtual environment: python3 -m venv .venv (MacOS & Linux) | python -m venv .venv (Windows)

  2. Activate virtual environment: source .venv/bin/activate (MacOS & Linux) | .venv/Scripts/Activate (Windows)

  3. Install into current environment:

     pip install .

Usage

import sysmess

msg = sysmess.fancy_box(
    "Hello, world!",
    title="Greeting",
    center=True,
    bold=True,
    italic=False,
)
print(msg)

# Measure the width of the box (including borders)
width = sysmess.measure_box_width("Hello, world!", title="Greeting")
print(width)

Use the "round" style for rounded corners

msg = sysmess.fancy_box(
    "Rounded corners!",
    title="Round",
    style="round"
)
print(msg)

You can also specify colors for the border, title, and body:

msg = sysmess.fancy_box(
    "Colored message",
    title="Colorful",
    border_color="magenta",
    title_color="cyan",
    body_color="yellow"
)
print(msg)

Supported color names:

Basic colors	Bright colors
black	bright_black
red	bright_red
green	bright_green
yellow	bright_yellow
blue	bright_blue
magenta	bright_magenta
cyan	bright_cyan
white	bright_white

Word wrap & max width

By passing wrap=True, sysmess will wrap your message text to fit your terminal width (or a specific maximum width via max_width):

import sysmess
long_text = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit..."
print(sysmess.fancy_box(long_text, wrap=True))
# Or specify a fixed max width:
print(sysmess.fancy_box(long_text, wrap=True, max_width=60))

Output

Blink support

You can make the border, title, or body text blink using the blink flags:

import sysmess
print(sysmess.fancy_box("Blinking border!", blink_border=True))
print(sysmess.fancy_box("Blinking title!", title="Hey", blink_title=True))
print(sysmess.fancy_box("Blinking body text!", blink_body=True))

Examples

Once built (or installed), run the demonstration script to see sample outputs:

python3 examples.py

Output

Testing

Run the unit tests using the included test runner:

python3 test.py