Enigma

Enigma is a Java Console Library written by Ethan Royael Nicholas. I discovered it on SourceForge but looked long dead, so I've revived it on Github using Eclipse. BTW the link http://www.ethannicholas.com/enigma/ is dead and domain ethannicholas.com has a squatter.

I may or may not continue using it as it's GPL.

About the Enigma Console API

Enigma is a Java-based operating system which is currently in the very early stages of development. The Enigma Console API is the first component of Enigma to be completed. It is a full-featured text-mode API for Java which can be used on any platform, with any program. It will ultimately serve as Enigma's text-mode API, but will remain pure Java and therefore be compatible with all Java-capable platforms.
Please see http://www.ethannicholas.com/enigma/ for more information about the status and goals of the Enigma project.

Version

This is version beta-0.2 of the Enigma Console API, dated 09/12/2002. Please see http://www.ethannicholas.com/enigma/ to find the latest release.

Changes

Changes since beta-0.1:

Due to overwhelming demand, the Console API now runs under Java 1.3.
The rest of Enigma, including the command-line shell, will continue to require Java 1.4 or higher.
ANSI support is now available. Type "ansi on" from the command-line shell to enable it, or check out the source for enigma.shells.commandline.commands.Ansi to see an example of how to enable and disable it in your own code.
Remote console support has been added. This support is currently incomplete, poorly documented, and does not provide support for TextWindow, but you may find it useful regardless. Support will be much better in beta-0.3.
Numerous bugs fixed.

This archive contains the following files:

README the file you are reading now LICENSE the terms of licensing this software lib/enigma-all_en_US.jar all Enigma classes, localized for English lib/enigma-console.jar the Enigma Console API lib/enigma-shell.jar the Enigma Command-Line Shell lib/enigma-i18n.jar English localization data enigma-src.jar source code docs/* documentation

Licensing

Enigma is copyrighted software licensed under the terms of the General Public License (GPL), a copy of which is contained in the file LICENSE.
Please see http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for more information.

Getting Started

To get a quick demonstration of the Enigma Console API, run:

java -jar lib/enigma-shell.jar

substituting whatever path is appropriate for the lib/enigma-shell.jar file. This will launch a preview version of the Enigma Command-Line Shell, which is in the early stages of development but serves as a quick demo.

To run an arbitrary Java class in an Enigma console window, run:

java -classpath lib/enigma-console.jar enigma.loaders.ConsoleProxyLoader "Window Title" classname

You will need to substitute the appropriate path to lib/enigma-console.jar and add to the classpath as necessary to run the class you specify. The class will be displayed in an Enigma console window, but naturally will not take advantage of any of the Enigma console's extra features unless it is modified to use the Enigma Console API directly.

To modify a program to start its own console window:

Add the following import statements to your class:

import enigma.framework.; import enigma.text.;

In your program's main() method (or other appropriate location), add the line:

Console console = Enigma.getConsole("Window Title");

This will request a console window, and since your program is not already running in one, it will cause a new console window to be created. You may then interact with the Console object to take advantage of the extra features of the Enigma Console API.

Building the Source Code

You must have a copy of Ant installed in order to build Enigma. Ant may be downloaded from http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/. Enigma has only been tested with Ant 1.5.

The Enigma source code is contained in enigma-src.zip, located in the root of the installation directory. It must be unzipped in the root installation directory using a command such as "jar xvf enigma-src.jar".
Once you have unzipped the source, ensure that Ant's bin directory is in your PATH and JAVA_HOME is set to the root of your Java installation. Then you may build Enigma by running one of the following commands:

ant builds the Enigma JAR files in build/lib ant javadoc builds the javadocs in build/docs/javadoc ant dist builds the final distribution in the build directory ant clean deletes the build directory

Comments / Feedback

Please send all comments and feedback to ethan@ethannicholas.com.

androide23 / Enigma