ConsolePlus.net 1.0.0-rc2

ConsolePlus

A modern .NET library for building beautiful, cross-platform console applications.

ConsolePlus is a .NET library that makes it easier to create beautiful, cross-platform console applications. It provides a rich, styled output engine (colors, markup, emoji, banners), robust input helpers, terminal-capability detection, ANSI escape sequence control, and screen/buffer management — all behind one clean, static entry point: ConsolePlus.

ConsolePlus is heavily inspired by the excellent Spectre.Console and serves as the core foundation for PromptPlus.

✨ Key Features

• 🎨 Rich colors — 148 CSS named colors, HEX, RGB, 4-bit/8-bit/24-bit (TrueColor) with automatic down-sampling
• 🏷️ Markup — Inline [red]...[/] style tags with auto-closing, background colors, hierarchical nesting, and raw fallback on errors
• 😀 Emoji — :smiley: shortcodes, typed names (EmojiName/EmojiValue), and public group helpers (EmojiTravelAndPlaces, EmojiSymbols, etc.)
• 🖋️ Styling — Foreground/background colors, inversion, and overflow strategies (crop / ellipsis)
• 🧱 Widgets — FIGlet banners and dash separators
• ⌨️ Input — Standard reads plus an Emacs-style line editor (sync & async)
• 🖥️ Screen control — Cursor movement, alternate/secondary buffer, clear, resize events
• 🧭 Capabilities — Automatic detection of ANSI, Unicode, color depth, TTY and CI environments
• 🔤 ANSI — Low-level IAnsiCommands emitter for direct escape-sequence control
• 🪟 Legacy Windows — Automatic ANSI support on pre-Windows 10 via bundled ANSICON
• ♿ Accessibility — WCAG luminance/contrast helpers to keep text readable

📦 Installation

dotnet add package ConsolePlus.net

Or via the Package Manager Console:

Install-Package ConsolePlus.net

Supported frameworks: .NET 8, .NET 9, .NET 10

🚀 Quick Start

using ConsolePlusLibrary;

// Clear and reset colors
ConsolePlus.Clear();

// Markup: foreground, background ("on"/":") and nesting
ConsolePlus.WriteLine("[Yellow]Hello[/], [Red on White]ConsolePlus[/]!");

// A FIGlet banner
ConsolePlus.Banner("ConsolePlus", Color.Teal, DashOptions.SingleBorderUpDown);

// Styled output with a Style object
ConsolePlus.WriteLine("Styled text", new Style(Color.White, Color.Navy));

// Emoji (3 equivalent approaches)
ConsolePlus.WriteLine(":rocket: Ready to launch!");                              // 1) Shortcode
ConsolePlus.WriteLine($"{EmojiTravelAndPlaces.Rocket} Ready to launch!");       // 2) Group helper class
ConsolePlus.WriteLine($"{(EmojiValue)EmojiName.Rocket} Ready to launch!");      // 3) EmojiName + EmojiValue

// Read a line using the Emacs-style editor
var name = ConsolePlus.ReadLineEmacs();
ConsolePlus.WriteLine($"Welcome, [Aqua]{name}[/]!");

📚 Documentation

Complete documentation is available on GitHub:

👉 Full Documentation

Quick Links

• Getting Started — Install, first app, and initialization
• Writing Output — Write, WriteLine, formatting
• Reading Input — Keys, lines, and Emacs-style editor
• Markup Language — Inline color tags and emoji
• Colors — Color systems and visual palette
• Widgets — Banners and separators
• Cursor & Screen — Screen control and ANSI commands

🧩 ConsolePlus + PromptPlus

ConsolePlus focuses on console fundamentals — styled output, colors, capabilities and screen control.

When you need intelligent, professional interactive controls on top of that foundation (select lists, multi-select, inputs with validation, masked secrets, confirmations, calendars, progress bars, input history, and more), reach for PromptPlus.

using PromptPlusLibrary;

// PromptPlus surfaces ConsolePlus through PromptPlus.Console / PromptPlus.Widgets
PromptPlus.Console.WriteLine("[Green]Powered by ConsolePlus[/]");
PromptPlus.Widgets.Banner("PromptPlus", Color.Bisque);

💡 Examples

Markup and Colors

// Simple markup
ConsolePlus.WriteLine("[Red]Error:[/] File not found");

// Background colors
ConsolePlus.WriteLine("[White on Red] CRITICAL [/]");

// Nested styles
ConsolePlus.WriteLine("[Yellow]Warning: [Red]Critical[/] issue detected[/]");

// Emoji
ConsolePlus.WriteLine(":warning: System temperature high :fire:");
ConsolePlus.WriteLine($"{EmojiSymbols.Warning} System temperature high {EmojiTravelAndPlaces.Fire}");
ConsolePlus.WriteLine($"{(EmojiValue)EmojiName.Warning} System temperature high {(EmojiValue)EmojiName.Fire}");

Widgets

// FIGlet banner with border
ConsolePlus.Banner("My App", Color.Cyan, DashOptions.DoubleBorderUpDown);

// Separator with title
ConsolePlus.Dash("Configuration", Color.Yellow, DashOptions.SingleBorder);

Input

// Standard readline
var input = ConsolePlus.ReadLine();

// Emacs-style editor with features
var email = ConsolePlus.ReadLineEmacs(
	caseOptions: CaseOptions.Lowercase,
	acceptInput: c => char.IsLetterOrDigit(c) || c == '@' || c == '.'
);

// Async with cancellation
var result = await ConsolePlus.ReadLineEmacsAsync(cancellationToken: token);

📄 License

ConsolePlus is licensed under the MIT License.

Portions are inspired by and adapted from Spectre.Console (© 2020 Patrik Svensson, Phil Scott, Nils Andresen), also under the MIT license.

Emoji-datasource is licensed under the UNICODE LICENSE V3.

Project: https://github.com/FRACerqueira/ConsolePlus
Maintained by: Fernando Cerqueira
Copyright: © 2026 Fernando Cerqueira