{"slug": "dabeob-a-simple-tui-lib-for-zig", "title": "`dabeob`: a simple TUI lib for Zig", "summary": "Developer `dabeob` released version 0.17.0 of its namesake TUI library for Zig, a first presentable alpha that wraps low-level terminal setup, column/row grid filling and a double-buffer grid for efficient writing, without a predefined widget system. The library was built to replace the LLM/AI-powered TUI library in the author's hobby project `lui` with handwritten code, and the author has already swapped `lui`'s TUI dependency to `dabeob`. The author warns the state is far from perfect and to expect bugs and breaking changes.", "body_md": "`dabeob`:\nAfter investing not too less hours of my free time over the last weeks into writing my own TUI lib, it’s now in a first presentable alpha state; as already reported in the “Whats everybody working on” thread.[\\[1\\]](https://ziggit.dev#footnote-80826-1)[\\[2\\]](https://ziggit.dev#footnote-80826-2)\n\nThe main inspiration was to replace the LLM/AI-powered TUI lib of my primary hobby project `lui` with handwritten code. Since the latter is only made out of fun, I want it to be mostly my own crafted code.\n\nIn contrast to many other TUI libs (not only the Zig ones) `dabeob` offers no enhanced “Widget” system with predefined widget sets like “lists”, “bars”, “tables” etc. The main focus is on wrapping the low level stuff (setting up terminal, fill col/row grid, double buffer grid for efficient writing) and offer a simple but easy to understand interface for printing styled chars to the terminal at specific locations. Because in the end thats what every elaborated widget also does: printing styled chars to stdout.\n\nThe repo has a simple example showing a plain list, some boxes and text input field:\n\nSo far, it works good enough that I already replaced the TUI dep in [`lui`](https://codeberg.org/lukeflo/lui/src/branch/switch_tui_to_dabeob) with `dabeob`.\n\nSince the state is far from perfect, expect bugs and breaking changes\n\n0.17.0", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/dabeob-a-simple-tui-lib-for-zig", "canonical_source": "https://ziggit.dev/t/dabeob-a-simple-tui-lib-for-zig/18166#post_1", "published_at": "2026-10-31 22:57:50+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-31 23:19:55.527357+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools"], "entities": ["dabeob", "Zig", "lui"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/dabeob-a-simple-tui-lib-for-zig", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/dabeob-a-simple-tui-lib-for-zig.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/dabeob-a-simple-tui-lib-for-zig.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/dabeob-a-simple-tui-lib-for-zig.jsonld"}}