ProgressBars for console apps

• Download demo - 36.2 KB

Introduction

It is nice to place progress bars in console apps, but sometimes there is no time to create them. So I wrote some utility classes to be used in all console apps.

About the code

The project has three classes; one abstract (AbstractBar) that define the generic behaviour of the progress bars and two implementation, which are: AnimatedBar and SwayBar. feel free to add your own implemetantion.

Abstract class:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace ProgressBarDemo
{
    abstract class AbstractBar
    {
        public AbstractBar()
        {

        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Prints a simple message 
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="msg">Message to print</param>
        public void PrintMessage(string msg)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(msg);
        }

        public abstract void Step();
    }
}

Animated class:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace ProgressBarDemo
{
    class AnimatedBar : AbstractBar
    {
        List<string> animation;
        int counter;
        public AnimatedBar() : base()
        {
            this.animation = new List<string> { "/", "-", @"\", "|" };
            this.counter = 0;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// prints the character found in the animation according to the current index
        /// </summary>
        public override void Step() {
            Console.Write(this.animation[this.counter]+"\b");
            this.counter++;
            if (this.counter == this.animation.Count)
                this.counter = 0;
        }
    }
}

Output:

Sway class:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace ProgressBarDemo
{
    class SwayBar : AbstractBar
    {
        string bar;
        string pointer;
        string blankPointer;
        int counter;
        direction currdir;
        enum direction { right, left };
        public SwayBar() : base()
        {
            this.bar = "|                         |";
            this.pointer = "***";
            this.blankPointer = this.BlankPointer();
            this.currdir = direction.right;
            this.counter = 1;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// sets the atribute blankPointer with a empty string the same length that the pointer
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns>A string filled with space characters</returns>
        private string BlankPointer() 
        {
            StringBuilder blank = new StringBuilder();
            for (int cont = 0; cont < this.pointer.Length; cont++)
                blank.Append(" ");
            return blank.ToString();
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// reset the bar to its original state
        /// </summary>
        private void ClearBar() 
        {
            this.bar = this.bar.Replace(this.pointer, this.blankPointer);    
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// remove the previous pointer and place it in a new possition
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="start">start index</param>
        /// <param name="end">end index</param>
        private void PlacePointer(int start, int end) 
        {
            this.ClearBar();
            this.bar = this.bar.Remove(start, end);
            this.bar = this.bar.Insert(start, this.pointer);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// prints the progress bar acorrding to pointers and current direction
        /// </summary>
        public override void Step()
        {
            if (this.currdir == direction.right)
            {
                this.PlacePointer(counter, this.pointer.Length);
                this.counter++;
                if (this.counter+this.pointer.Length == this.bar.Length)
                    this.currdir = direction.left;
            }
            else 
            {
                this.PlacePointer(counter - this.pointer.Length, this.pointer.Length);
                this.counter--;
                if (this.counter == this.pointer.Length)
                    this.currdir = direction.right;
            }
            Console.Write(this.bar + "\r");
        }
    }
}

Output:

Using the code  

In order to test our progress bars we are going to write a simple console app and write the following code in its program.cs file.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading;

namespace ProgressBarDemo
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main()
        {
            AbstractBar bar;
            bar = new AnimatedBar();
            int wait = 100;
            int end = 50;

            //Animated bar
            Test(bar, wait, end);
            //Sway bar
            bar = new SwayBar();
            Test(bar, wait, end);
            Console.ReadLine();
        }

        public static void Test(AbstractBar bar, int wait, int end) 
        {
            bar.PrintMessage("Loading...");
            for (int cont = 0; cont < end; cont++)
            {
                bar.Step();
                Thread.Sleep(wait);
            }
            bar.PrintMessage("Finished");
        }
    }
}

Conclusion

I had fun writing those classes, I hope you find them useful.