Belasoft.Meadow.GraphicsConsole 1.0.3

Welcome to Belasoft Graphics Console for Meadow

This library enables you to setup on or more consoles on a graphic display attached to a meadow board from Wilderness Labs.

You can have the whole display being a console, part of the display being a console, or you can even have more than one console on the same display.

Demos on how to use the GraphicsConsole can be found here

Sometimes it's nice to have a console that can show messages, events, commands etc. so that you have an idea of what is going on in your program. A console is like having a small window to a log while it's being written. That can be quite usefull in certain situations and for me, I would have a hard time coding on the meadow without having a console. That's why I made it - but of course it depends on the individual needs and what you are developing.

Anyway, I hope you will find it usefull - Happy coding ☺

Examples of the Console in action

Video showing one Console on St7789 display

Video showing two Consoles on St7789 display

Video showing three Consoles on St7789 display

Installation steps

1. Add the Nuget package to your project:

    Link to Nuget package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Belasoft.Meadow.GraphicsConsole
   

2. In the top of your MeadowApp.cs file add a using for the Belasoft.MeadowLibrary:

    using Belasoft.MeadowLibrary;
   

3. Setup a display with MicroGraphics, for example the St7789:

    var display = new St7789
    (
        spiBus: MeadowApp.Device.CreateSpiBus(),
        chipSelectPin: Device.Pins.A03,
        dcPin: Device.Pins.A04,
        resetPin: Device.Pins.A05,
        width: 240, height: 240,
        colorMode: ColorMode.Format16bppRgb565
    );
   
    var graphics = new MicroGraphics(display)
    {
        Stroke = 1,
        CurrentFont = new Font8x12(),
        Rotation = RotationType._270Degrees
    };        
   

4. Setup a Console:

    GraphicsConsole gc = new GraphicsConsole(graphics, false);
    gc.YTop = 0;
    gc.YBottom = graphics.Height / 2;
    gc.Indent = 0;
    gc.IndentRight = 0;
    gc.BorderColor = Color.Violet;
    gc.SetBorder();        
    Thread t = new Thread(gc.Start);
    t.Start();
   

5. Begin writing texts to the console:

    gc.WriteLine("Initializing", Color.Red, ScaleFactor.X2, true);        
    gc.WriteLine("System starting...", Color.OrangeRed, ScaleFactor.X2, true);        
    gc.WriteLine("Warming up...", Color.Orange, ScaleFactor.X2, true);        
    gc.WriteLine("Comm ready", Color.Yellow, ScaleFactor.X2, true);
    gc.WriteLine("GO", Color.Green, ScaleFactor.X3, true);        
   

Important notes

NB: If writing to the graphics display from different threads, it's important to use the GraphicsWriter that ensures that two or more threads are not writing at the same time. And of course you should not write inside a console area 😃

Use the GraphicsWriter this way:

    GraphicsWriter gWriter = new GraphicsWriter(graphics);
    gWriter.DrawText(X, Y, Text, Color, Meadow.Foundation.Graphics.ScaleFactor.X2);