Quick start

Once the library is installed, every program follows the same shape:

1. uses VSoft.AnsiConsole;
2. Call class methods on the static AnsiConsole facade for I/O.
3. Build widgets with the Widgets factory record and pass them to AnsiConsole.Write.

Hello world

program Hello;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  VSoft.AnsiConsole;

begin
  AnsiConsole.MarkupLine('[bold yellow]Hello[/] [italic]world[/]!');
  AnsiConsole.MarkupLine('Numbers: [red]1[/], [green]2[/], [blue]3[/] :rocket:');
end.

Two things to notice:

• Markup tags like [bold yellow] and [italic] style the surrounding text. Closing tag is [/]. See the markup syntax reference for the full grammar.
• Emoji shortcodes like :rocket: resolve to the corresponding unicode glyph. See the emoji reference.

Run it. You'll see styled coloured output if your terminal supports ANSI - which it does on every modern Windows Terminal, VS Code integrated terminal, PowerShell 7+, ConEmu, and pretty much anything not running cmd.exe from Windows 7.

TIP

The first call to any AnsiConsole.X method lazily constructs a singleton IAnsiConsole with capabilities auto-detected from the host terminal. No explicit setup needed.

Building a widget

Widgets are values you build with the Widgets factory record and write with AnsiConsole.Write.

program Greeting;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  VSoft.AnsiConsole;

var
  panel : IPanel;
begin
  panel := Widgets.Panel(Widgets.Markup('[bold]hello[/] world'))
             .WithHeader('Greeting')
             .WithBorder(TBoxBorderKind.Rounded);

  AnsiConsole.Write(panel);
end.

That renders:

╭── Greeting ───────╮
│ hello world       │
╰───────────────────╯

Markup vs Write

Two methods for emitting text. Pick by intent:

• AnsiConsole.MarkupLine('[bold]hi[/]') — parses BBCode-style tags. Use this for styled output.
• AnsiConsole.WriteLine('[bold]hi[/]') — literal, no parsing. The brackets appear verbatim.

The widget form is Widgets.Markup('[bold]hi[/]'), which returns an IMarkup you can embed in panels, table cells, etc.

What's next

• Architecture — how segments, renderables, and the ANSI writer fit together.
• Markup widget — full BBCode grammar.
• Panel, Table, Tree — the headline widgets.
• Status and Progress — live displays for long-running work.
• Prompts — Ask, Confirm, SelectionPrompt<T>.

Or browse the runnable demo snippets at demos/snippets/ - every widget has one.