First steps

Prerequisites

This document assumes you have installed Moulti.

First steps with Moulti

1. Open two terminals on the same machine/host/VM/container.

   For better visual results, these terminals should ideally support 24-bit colors and advertise it to applications. This typically does the trick:

   !!! example "Both terminals" shell export TERM=xterm-256color COLORTERM=truecolor

2. In the first terminal, launch the Moulti instance, i.e. the Terminal User Interface (TUI) itself:

   !!! example "Terminal #1: TUI" shell moulti init Upon startup, Moulti is empty: it shows nothing beyond a title bar and a footer: !!! example "Terminal #1: TUI"

3. From now on, we will use the second terminal to issue commands to the Moulti instance through the Command-Line Interface (CLI) client. First, make yourself at home by setting its title:

   !!! example "Terminal #2: CLI" shell moulti set --title='This is MY (first) Moulti instance' The effect should be immediate in the first terminal:

   !!! example "Terminal #1: TUI"

4. Create your first Moulti step with step id "my_step":

   !!! example "Terminal #2: CLI" shell moulti step add my_step --title='My first step'

   !!! example "Terminal #1: TUI"

5. Now, fill the "log" part of your step with some content:

   !!! example "Terminal #2: CLI" shell ip -c a | moulti pass my_step Again, the effect should be immediate in the first terminal:

   !!! example "Terminal #1: TUI"

6. Back to the second terminal, adjust your step:

   !!! example "Terminal #2: CLI" shell # Applying the "success" class turns the step green: moulti step update my_step --classes='success' # Steps have optional top and bottom texts: moulti step update my_step --top-text='Here is the output of [red bold]ip -color address[/]:' !!! example "Terminal #1: TUI"

7. That syntax we used to turn the command red is called "Rich markup". Its BBcode-like syntax is described here, the list of available colors is there and styles that typically work fine in a modern terminal emulator are: blink bold conceal italic overline reverse strike underline underline2. Try them all at once:

   !!! example "Terminal #2: CLI" shell moulti step update my_step --bottom-text \ '[blink]blink[/] [bold]bold[/] [conceal]conceal[/] [italic]italic[/] [overline]overline[/] [reverse]reverse[/] [strike]strike[/] [underline]underline[/] [underline2]underline2[/] [blue]blue[/] [on yellow1]on yellow1[/] [blue on yellow1]blue on yellow1[/]' !!! example "Terminal #1: TUI"

   !!! warning "Important: Rich markup cannot be used in the log part of a step."

8. And of course, you can add multiple such steps:

   !!! example "Terminal #2: CLI" shell for class in warning error inactive standard; do moulti step add "${class}_example" \ --classes="${class}" \ --title="${class^} step" \ --text="This is a step with class '${class}'." \ --bottom-text=' ' done !!! example "Terminal #1: TUI"

   !!! warning "Step ids (e.g. "my_step") must remain unique in a Moulti instance."

9. If necessary, you can also clear (i.e. empty) a step:

   !!! example "Terminal #2: CLI" shell moulti step clear warning_example or simply delete it:

   !!! example "Terminal #2: CLI" shell moulti step delete error_example !!! example "Terminal #1: TUI"

!!! info "Refer to the output of moulti step add --help for more options."

What next?

You now know how to add, update, fill, clear and delete steps. Steps are a core feature of Moulti, but they are not the only widgets available: you can also leverage questions, dividers and the progress bar. Or you can head straight to the Documentation section and browse its various topics, starting with shell scripting.