Terminallayout

Terminallayout is a term used in the field of terminal user interfaces (TUIs) to describe a structured approach to describing and rendering the arrangement of panels within a terminal window. It emphasizes tiling and grid-based layouts to partition the screen into resizable regions, such as headers, sidebars, and content panes, without relying on a particular terminal emulator feature set. Terminallayout is not a single standard; rather, it denotes a family of concepts and libraries that allow developers to declare layouts independent of rendering backends.

Data models typically describe a layout tree with containers (rows, columns, grids) and leaf nodes (panels). Sizes are specified as fixed units, fractions of available space, or a mix (for example, a 20% pane beside a fixed 30-character pane). The system must respond to terminal resize events by recomputing pane geometry and re-drawing content.

Rendering components translate the layout into drawing commands compatible with terminal capabilities, using escape sequences to position the cursor, apply attributes, and update pane content. Interaction is enabled by mapping input events to focused panels and widgets.

Implementations are language-specific and may serialize layouts in JSON, YAML, or a small domain-specific language. Terminallayout concepts appear in several TUIs and toolkits, but there is no universally accepted specification. Advantages include predictable, keyboard-driven navigation, efficient reuse of screen space, and easier testing of complex interfaces.

Related topics include terminal user interfaces, tiling window managers, ncurses-based toolkits, and layout engines for TUIs.