Rust viot-console

Robert Love — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 09:56:23 +0000

Earlier I announced that I was building a new TUI framework for rust.
Original Post

Well, I wanted to share some screen shots of the progress. Right now the TUI features are missing but I have standard output fairly complete.

Showing only 256 Colors of the True Color support, and color safe fallback

The following Gradient Charts show a bit of the difference between true color and 256 color.

Only 256 Color Supported

True Color Supported

It also supports themes and markup.

I want to clean up the API a bit before I push my code.

Stay Tuned

Did I just join a Hackathon

Robert Love — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 22:59:56 +0000

Introduction

I love working in the terminal where I spend most of my time. A few years ago, I lost vision in my right eye, which made it difficult to use many GUI applications due to their small print and interface elements.

My Background

As a developer, I use multiple programming languages and consider myself language agnostic. This mindset encourages me to experiment with different tools for various projects.

Rust and Terminal Libraries.

Rust is a friendly programming language with excellent crates for building TUI and terminal applications. However, these libraries didn’t quite do things the way I am used to.

Project Motivation

At work, I primarily code in C# and have used Spectre.Console, which was inspired by Python’s excellent Rich library. I wanted a similar styling library for Rust but never felt it was worth the effort until now.

Recently, I discovered Kiro, which approaches AI-driven development differently than GitHub Copilot which I use at work. Although it does support vibe coding like GitHub Copilot, its spec driven development is where is really shines. Around the same time, I learned about an upcoming hackathon called Kiroween having never joined a hackathon so it made me curious.

Motivated by my interest in experimenting with Kiro and my obsession with terminal applications and my desire to work more with Rust, I joined the hackathon to see how well I could build a Rich-like library for Rust. With some personal enhancements to make it unique. It did not hurt that both Spectre and Kiro both used ghosts in their logos.

Level of commitment

Since I have a full-time job, I can only work on this project during nights, weekends and Holidays. As such the desire to have a fully working project by the start of December is going to put Kiro to the test. Kiro isn’t on my employer’s approved software list(yet), so I’ll use it only on my home machine. To ensure I don’t accidentally work on it during office hours, I plan to track my time in the Kiro IDE and maintain an audit log to prove to myself I’m still giving my employer 110%.

Hackathon Categories

The hackathon features several categories for entries

Resurrection: Revive your favorite dead technology, reimagining obsolete tech with today’s innovations.
Frankenstein: Combine disparate technologies into one app, creating something unexpectedly powerful.
Skeleton Crew: Build a lean, flexible code template and demonstrate its versatility with two distinct applications.
Costume Contest: Create any app, but showcase a haunting, unforgettable user interface with spooky design elements.

My project could fit into any of these categories:

Skeleton Crew: It’s a library—enough said. But for several years I have desired an awesome TUI to manage amazon authentication configuration with support for SSO so I see that as practical application that this library, and maybe submitted that way.
Costume Contest: I could give it a theming engine and add a Halloween theme.
Resurrection: Years ago, I used Turbo Vision; maybe I could build something similar, or perhaps a Pac-Man-like terminal game. -Frankenstein: I could adapt the library for GUI applications instead of the console, though I’m sure it’s not worthwhile.

Summary

This project is inspired by my passion for terminal applications and my desire to explore new approaches in AI-driven development. By participating in the Kiroween hackathon, I aim to create a versatile, visually engaging Rust library that draws on my experience with tools like Spectre.Console, Rich and Turbo Vision. With several hackathon categories to choose from, my idea is flexible enough to fit any of these.

More details to come.

Cover Image Source: AI Generated using Chat-GPT

DEV Community: Robert Love