Draw a banner-like box in the console

Usage

list_border_styles()

boxx(
  label,
  header = "",
  footer = "",
  border_style = "single",
  padding = 1,
  margin = 0,
  float = c("left", "center", "right"),
  col = NULL,
  background_col = NULL,
  border_col = col,
  align = c("left", "center", "right"),
  width = console_width()
)

Arguments

label: Label to show, a character vector. Each element will be in a new line. You can color it using the col_*, bg_* and style_* functions, see ANSI styles and the examples below.
header: Text to show on top border of the box. If too long, it will be cut.
footer: Text to show on the bottom border of the box. If too long, it will be cut.
border_style: String that specifies the border style. list_border_styles lists all current styles.
padding: Padding within the box. Either an integer vector of four numbers (bottom, left, top, right), or a single number x, which is interpreted as c(x, 3*x, x, 3*x).
margin: Margin around the box. Either an integer vector of four numbers (bottom, left, top, right), or a single number x, which is interpreted as c(x, 3*x, x, 3*x).
float: Whether to display the box on the "left", "center", or the "right" of the screen.
col: Color of text, and default border color. Either a style function (see ANSI styles) or a color name that is passed to make_ansi_style().
background_col: Background color of the inside of the box. Either a style function (see ANSI styles), or a color name which will be used in make_ansi_style() to create a background style (i.e. bg = TRUE is used).
border_col: Color of the border. Either a style function (see ANSI styles) or a color name that is passed to make_ansi_style().
align: Alignment of the label within the box: "left", "center", or "right".
width: Width of the screen, defaults to console_width().

Details

Defaults

boxx("Hello there!")

#> ┌──────────────────┐
#> │                  │
#> │   Hello there!   │
#> │                  │
#> └──────────────────┘

Change border style

boxx("Hello there!", border_style = "double")

#> ╔══════════════════╗
#> ║                  ║
#> ║   Hello there!   ║
#> ║                  ║
#> ╚══════════════════╝

Multiple lines

boxx(c("Hello", "there!"), padding = 1)

#> ┌────────────┐
#> │            │
#> │   Hello    │
#> │   there!   │
#> │            │
#> └────────────┘

Padding

boxx("Hello there!", padding = 1)
boxx("Hello there!", padding = c(1, 5, 1, 5))

#> ┌──────────────────┐
#> │                  │
#> │   Hello there!   │
#> │                  │
#> └──────────────────┘
#> ┌──────────────────────┐
#> │                      │
#> │     Hello there!     │
#> │                      │
#> └──────────────────────┘

Floating

boxx("Hello there!", padding = 1, float = "center")
boxx("Hello there!", padding = 1, float = "right")

#>                           ┌──────────────────┐
#>                           │                  │
#>                           │   Hello there!   │
#>                           │                  │
#>                           └──────────────────┘
#>                                                   ┌──────────────────┐
#>                                                   │                  │
#>                                                   │   Hello there!   │
#>                                                   │                  │
#>                                                   └──────────────────┘

Text color

boxx(col_cyan("Hello there!"), padding = 1, float = "center")

#>                           ┌──────────────────┐
#>                           │                  │
#>                           │   Hello there!   │
#>                           │                  │
#>                           └──────────────────┘

Background color

boxx("Hello there!", padding = 1, background_col = "brown")
boxx("Hello there!", padding = 1, background_col = bg_red)

#> ┌──────────────────┐
#> │                  │
#> │   Hello there!   │
#> │                  │
#> └──────────────────┘
#> ┌──────────────────┐
#> │                  │
#> │   Hello there!   │
#> │                  │
#> └──────────────────┘

Border color

boxx("Hello there!", padding = 1, border_col = "green")
boxx("Hello there!", padding = 1, border_col = col_red)

#> ┌──────────────────┐
#> │                  │
#> │   Hello there!   │
#> │                  │
#> └──────────────────┘
#> ┌──────────────────┐
#> │                  │
#> │   Hello there!   │
#> │                  │
#> └──────────────────┘

Label alignment

boxx(c("Hi", "there", "you!"), padding = 1, align = "left")
boxx(c("Hi", "there", "you!"), padding = 1, align = "center")
boxx(c("Hi", "there", "you!"), padding = 1, align = "right")

#> ┌───────────┐
#> │           │
#> │   Hi      │
#> │   there   │
#> │   you!    │
#> │           │
#> └───────────┘
#> ┌───────────┐
#> │           │
#> │     Hi    │
#> │   there   │
#> │    you!   │
#> │           │
#> └───────────┘
#> ┌───────────┐
#> │           │
#> │      Hi   │
#> │   there   │
#> │    you!   │
#> │           │
#> └───────────┘

A very customized box

star <- symbol$star
label <- c(paste(star, "Hello", star), "  there!")
boxx(
  col_white(label),
  border_style="round",
  padding = 1,
  float = "center",
  border_col = "tomato3",
  background_col="darkolivegreen"
)

#>                            ╭───────────────╮
#>                            │               │
#>                            │   ★ Hello ★   │
#>                            │     there!    │
#>                            │               │
#>                            ╰───────────────╯

About fonts and terminal settings

The boxes might or might not look great in your terminal, depending on the box style you use and the font the terminal uses. We found that the Menlo font looks nice in most terminals an also in Emacs.

RStudio currently has a line height greater than one for console output, which makes the boxes ugly.