elaris.ui — True-color terminal UI for .NET

Elaris.UI is a lightweight Terminal UI library for .NET with true 24-bit RGB color support, built for modern terminals with cross-platform support.

Features

True 24-bit RGB color — full truecolor support via ANSI escape sequences
Zero dependencies — pure .NET implementation with no external packages
Cross-platform — works on Windows, macOS and Linux
Modern architecture — clean, extensible widget-based design
High performance — double-buffered rendering with minimal overhead
Multi-target — supports .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0 and .NET 10.0

Quick start

dotnet add package Ambystech.Elaris.UI

using Ambystech.Elaris.UI;

// Create application
var app = new Application();

// Create main window
var window = new Window("Hello Elaris")
{
    Width = 80,
    Height = 24
};

// Add widgets
var label = new Label("Welcome to Elaris!")
{
    ForegroundColor = Color.FromRgb(100, 200, 255)
};
window.Add(label);

// Run application
app.Run(window);

Elaris.UI works in any terminal that supports ANSI escape codes — make sure yours supports truecolor for the best experience. A plugin package for code editing is also available as Ambystech.Elaris.UI.CodeEditor.Plugins.

Architecture

The library is organized around a small set of core components:

Screen — terminal screen abstraction with buffering
Widget — base class for all UI components
EventLoop — main application loop and event handling
AnsiRenderer — 24-bit RGB color rendering via ANSI codes
InputHandler — keyboard and mouse input processing

Widget (abstract base)
├── Container
│   ├── Window
│   ├── Frame
│   └── Panel
├── Label
├── TextField
├── TextView
└── StatusBar

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/ambystechcom/Ambystech.Elaris.UI.git elaris
cd elaris/lib

dotnet restore
dotnet build
dotnet test