diff --git a/content/technical/2019/03/cross-compile-freebsd-rust-binary-with-docker.md b/content/technical/2019/03/cross-compile-freebsd-rust-binary-with-docker.md index 52ab95d..01c85cb 100644 --- a/content/technical/2019/03/cross-compile-freebsd-rust-binary-with-docker.md +++ b/content/technical/2019/03/cross-compile-freebsd-rust-binary-with-docker.md @@ -134,8 +134,8 @@ Once again, the code is at: .
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-Previous Post: [My First 3 Weeks of Professional Rust](/technical/2019/03/first-3-weeks-of-professional-rust/) - +Previous Post: [My First 3 Weeks of Professional Rust](/technical/2019/03/first-3-weeks-of-professional-rust/) +Next Post: [What I Learnt Building a Lobsters TUI in Rust](/technical/2019/04/lobsters-tui/) [freebsd-cross-upstream]: https://github.com/sandvine/freebsd-cross-build [user namespaces]: https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/userns-remap/ diff --git a/content/technical/2019/04/lobsters-tui.md b/content/technical/2019/04/lobsters-tui.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb9a204 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/technical/2019/04/lobsters-tui.md @@ -0,0 +1,117 @@ +As a learning and practice exercise I built a [crate] for interacting with the +[Lobsters](https://lobste.rs/) programming community website. It's built on the +asynchronous Rust ecosystem. To demonstrate the crate I also built a terminal +user interface (TUI). + +
+ Screenshot of Lobsters TUI +
A screenshot of the TUI in Alacritty
+
+ +## Try It + +[![crates.io](https://img.shields.io/crates/v/lobsters.svg)](https://crates.io/crates/lobsters) + +Pre-built binaries with no runtime dependencies are available for: + +- FreeBSD 12 amd64 +- Linux armv6 (Raspberry Pi) +- Linux x86_64 +- MacOS +- NetBSD 8 amd64 +- OpenBSD 6.5 amd64 + +Downloads +Source Code + + +The TUI uses the following key bindings: + +* `j` or `↓` — Move cursor down +* `k` or `↑` — Move cursor up +* `h` or `←` — Scroll view left +* `l` or `→` — Scroll view right +* `Enter` — Open story URL in browser +* `c` — Open story comments in browser +* `q` or `Esc` — Quit + +As mentioned in the introduction the motivation for starting the client was to +practice using the async Rust ecosystem and it kind of spiralled from there. +The resulting TUI is functional but not especially useful, since it just opens +links in your browser. I can imagine it being slightly more useful if you could +also view and reply to comments without leaving the UI. + +## Building It + +The client proved to be an interesting challenge, mostly because Lobsters +doesn't have a full API. This meant I had to learn how to set up and use a +cookie jar along side [reqwest] in order to make authenticated requests. +Logging in requires supplying a cross-site request forgery token, which Rails +uses to prevent CSRF attacks. To handle this I need to first fetch the login +page, note the token, then POST to the login endpoint. I could have tried to +extract the token from the markup with a regex or substring matching but +instead used [kuchiki] to parse the HTML and then match on the `meta` element +in the `head`. + +Once I added support for writing with the client (posting comments), not just +reading, I thought I best not test against the real site. Fortunately the site's +code is open source. I took this as an opportunity to use [my new-found Docker +knowledge][alpine-docker] and run it with Docker Compose. That turned out +pretty easy since I was able to base it on one of the Dockerfiles for a Rails +app I run. If you're curious the [Alpine Linux] based `Dockerfile` and +`docker-compose.yml` can be viewed in [this +paste](https://paste.sr.ht/%7Ewezm/6da6b05677f80069b166433b19ef2209176f036f). + +After I had the basics of the client worked out I thought it would be neat to +fetch the front page stories and render them in the terminal in a style similar +to the site itself. I initially did this with [ansi_term]. It looked good but +lacked interactivity so I looked into ways to build a TUI along the lines of +[tig]. I built it several times with different crates, switching each time I +hit a limitation. I tried: + +* [easycurses], which lived up to it's name and produced a working result + quickly. I'd recommend this if your needs aren't too fancy, however I needed + more control than it provided. +* [pancurses] didn't seem to be able to use colors outside the core 16 from + ncurses. + +Finally I ended up going a bit lower-level and used [termion]. It does +everything itself but at the same time you lose the conveniences ncurses +provides. It also doesn't support Windows, so my plans of supporting that were +thwarted. Some time after I had the `termion` version working I revisited +[tui-rs], which I had initially dismissed as unsuitable for my task. In +hindsight it would probably have been perfect, but we're here now. + +In addition to async and TUI I also learned more about: + +- Building a robust and hopefully user friendly command line tool. +- Documenting a library. +- Publishing crates. +- Dockerising a Rails app that uses MySQL. +- How to build and publish pre-built binaries for many platforms. +- How to accept a password in the terminal without echoing it. +- Setting up multi-platform [CI builds on Sourcehut][builds]. + +Whilst the library and UI aren't especially useful the exercise was worth it. I got +to practice a bunch of things and learn some new ones at the same time. + + + +
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+ +Previous Post: [Cross Compiling Rust for FreeBSD With Docker](/technical/2019/03/cross-compile-freebsd-rust-binary-with-docker/) + + +[repo]: https://git.sr.ht/~wezm/lobsters +[ansi_term]: https://crates.io/crates/ansi_term +[tig]: https://jonas.github.io/tig/ +[pancurses]: https://crates.io/crates/pancurses +[tui-rs]: https://crates.io/crates/tui +[termion]: https://crates.io/crates/termion +[builds]: https://man.sr.ht/builds.sr.ht/ +[reqwest]: https://crates.io/crates/reqwest +[kuchiki]: https://crates.io/crates/kuchiki +[alpine-docker]: /technical/2019/02/alpine-linux-docker-infrastructure/ +[easycurses]: https://crates.io/crates/easycurses +[Alpine Linux]: https://alpinelinux.org/ +[crate]: https://crates.io/crates/lobsters diff --git a/content/technical/2019/04/lobsters-tui.yaml b/content/technical/2019/04/lobsters-tui.yaml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04effd7 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/technical/2019/04/lobsters-tui.yaml @@ -0,0 +1,14 @@ +--- +title: What I Learnt Building a Lobsters TUI in Rust +extra: As a learning and practice exercise I built a crate and TUI for interacting with the Lobsters programming community website. +kind: article +section: technical +created_at: 2019-04-25 16:00:00.000000000 +11:00 +#updated_at: 2019-03-30T10:02:56+11:00 +keywords: + - rust + - lobsters + - async + - tokio + - tui +short_url: diff --git a/output/images/2019/lobsters-tui.png b/output/images/2019/lobsters-tui.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad2d53b Binary files /dev/null and b/output/images/2019/lobsters-tui.png differ