Windows VT (Virtual Terminal)

This backend is based on both Windows API and VT100 escape sequences.

For clipboard based operations, it relies on the following APIs:

OpenClipboard
EmptyClipboard
CloseClipboard
SetClipboardData
GetClipboardData
IsClipboardFormatAvailable

Input (mouse / keyboard / console resize) is handled by the following APIs:

API	Task(s)
`GetStdHandle(...)`	To gain access to stdin and stdout
`GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo(...)`	To get information about console size and position
`GetConsoleMode(...)`	To get information about the current mode of the console
`ReadConsoleInputW(...)`	To read input events (keys, mouse, resizing, console closing)
`SetConsoleTitleW(...)`	To set the title (caption) of the console
`SetConsoleScreenBufferSize(...)`	To resize the console to a specific width and heighr

The output is done via VT100 escape sequences (please refer to Wikipedia for more information). This backend supports true colors (24 bits per pixel) and wide characters (2 bytes per character) but it depends on the Windows version to support them.

Limitations:

Because of the way VT100 escape sequences work, the backend is much slower than a regular Windows Console backend (that renders the output directly into the console). If speed is a priority, it is recommended to use the Windows Console backend instead.

Keep in mind that the speed limitation can be mitigated by using a 3rd party terminal (that use the GPU to render the output)such as:

Usage

Windows VT is not the default backend on Windows. To use it, you need to specify the WindowsVT backend type when creating the application:

use appcui::prelude::*;

fn main() -> Result<(), appcui::system::Error> {
    let app = App::with_backend(appcui::backend::Type::WindowsVT).build()?;
    // build your application here
    Ok(())
}

Further more, if you also want to use true colors you will need to enable the TRUE_COLORS feature when building the application:

[dependencies]
appcui = { version = "*", features = ["TRUE_COLORS"] }