Simple Console

Simple Console is nice clean command-line interface for the web. Check out the demo!

Features

Light and dark styles
Easy rich HTML output
Command history accessible with up/down arrow keys, saved to localStorage
Command history menu for mobile accessibility
Doesn't create a duplicate history entry if you re-enter the last command
Lets you delete history entries with Shift+Delete
Automatically scrolls down to new entries - unless you scroll up (good in case there are a lot of messages being logged and you want to view earlier output!)
Includes aria attributes, although the accessibility still needs work!
Vanilla JavaScript and CSS with no external dependencies
MIT licensed

Limitations

Delivered as two separate files (CSS and JS).
(It'd be nicer if it was a single JS file, and especially if it was a Web Component! Wanna help out?)
The CSS uses some generic selectors like error and success that are likely to conflict.
The console.log, and console.warn etc. methods only accept a single argument; they don't match the browser console API - which doesn't have a standard specification, by the way, it's just some de facto shared methods between browsers.

Usage

Download simple-console.css and simple-console.js, and include in the <head>:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="simple-console.css">

and anywhere before you use SimpleConsole but probably in the <body>:

<script src="simple-console.js"></script>

Example

var con = new SimpleConsole({
	placeholder: "Enter JavaScript",
	handleCommand: function(command){
		try {
			con.log(eval(command));
		} catch(error) {
			con.error(error);
		}
	},
	autofocus: true, // if the console is to be the primary interface of the page
	storageID: "app-console", // or e.g. "simple-console-#1" or "workspace-1:javascript-console"
});

// add the console to the page
document.body.appendChild(con.element);

// show any uncaught errors (errors may be unrelated to the console usage)
con.handleUncaughtErrors();

See demo.js for a more complete example (altho not that complete).

Page Setup

You should probably include a charset and viewport like in the demo.

You can position the console on the page the same way you might any div.

To make the console take up the entire page, use:

html,
body {
	height: 100%;
	margin: 0;
	display: flex;
	flex: 1;
}

For a Quake-style dropdown console, see the Tilde Dropdown Console Example.

Dark Mode

The dark styles take effect when the console element or any parent contains the class dark.

You could add a theme switcher like so:

var toggleDarkMode = function() {
	if (console.element.classList.contains("dark")) {
		console.element.classList.remove("dark");
	} else {
		console.element.classList.add("dark");
	}
};
var button = console.addButton(toggleDarkMode);
button.textContent = "◐";
button.setAttribute("title", "Toggle dark theme");
button.setAttribute("aria-label", "Toggle dark theme");

API

`new SimpleConsole(options)`

Creates a console instance.

Note: The SimpleConsole object is referred to as console below, but you should probably give it a different name so it doesn't conflict with the global console object.

options.handleCommand(command) is called when the user hits Enter. You can handle the input however you want. It's recommended that you catch errors and log them with console.error. Other logging methods are documented below.

options.outputOnly specifies that there should be no input. You must specify either outputOnly or handleCommand.

options.placeholder is strongly recommended especially with the default input styling as there is very little visual indication of the input (when it's not focused).

options.autofocus should be used within an application where the console is the primary interface.

options.storageID should be used to separate the command history of different consoles. It's used as a localStorage key prefix.

`console.element`

You must use this to add the console to the page, e.g. document.body.appendChild(console.element)

`console.input`

The console's <input> element. Can be used to add controls/widgets i.e. console.input.parentElement.appendChild(widget)

`console.addButton(action)`

Adds a button to the right of the console's input area and returns the button element.

action should be a function.

`console.addPopupButton(updatePopup)`

Adds a button with a popup to the right of the console's input area and returns the button element.

updatePopup(popupElement) should update the contents of the popup.

Use addPopupMenuButton instead if the popup's contents are a standard menu.

`console.addPopupMenuButton(getItems)`

Adds a button with a standard popup menu to the right of the console's input area and returns the button element.

getItems() should return an array of items, with each item either of the form {label, action} or {type: "divider"}.

`console.handleUncaughtErrors()`

Sets up a window.onerror event listener which logs any uncaught errors to the console.

`console.log(content)`

Logs the given text or element to the console.

`console.logHTML(html)`

Logs the given HTML to the console.

`console.error(content)`

Logs the given error message (or element) to the console.

`console.warn(content)`

Logs the given warning message (or element) to the console.

`console.info(content)`

Logs the given info message (or element) to the console.

`console.success(content)`

Logs the given success message (or element) to the console.

`console.getLastEntry()`

Returns the last logged entry as an HTMLDivElement for further manipulation.

`console.clear()`

Clears the console.

TODO

Support multiple arguments to log, warn etc.
Distinguish error/success/warning messages for screen readers (maybe with cue-before from the CSS Speech Module)
Solarized and retro themes
Position menus better?

Packaging

Rename project because "simple-console" is taken on npm ("cute-console" maybe?)
This seems like it would be an ideal candidate for a Web Component!

Input

Multiline input (i.e. textarea)
Autocomplete (aria-autocomplete="inline")
Syntax highlighting
Should probably just let you use your own input component

FIXME

Fix duplicate reading of aria-label and placeholder by some screen readers
Fix input styling in Firefox with font: inherit and something else to make stuff line up perfectly

License

MIT-licensed, see LICENSE

1j01 / simple-console