Textie

Windows-first text automation for power users and QA engineers. Textie delivers an advanced Spectre.Console terminal experience, global hotkeys, templated messaging, profiles, and a CLI/scheduler for unattended runs.

Highlights

• Premium Spectre TUI – Figlet banner, stepper wizard, live dashboards, and run summaries.
• Smart configuration wizard – Profiles, templating preview, jitter, strategies, and focus lock in one guided flow.
• Advanced automation engine – Async pipeline, jittered delays, per-character typing, templated payloads, optional submit key.
• Global hotkeys – ENTER to start, ESC to cancel, backed by a signal-based low-level hook (no busy loops).
• Profiles & persistence – Settings and profiles stored under %AppData%/Textie; tolerant JSON persistence.
• CLI commands – Headless run, dry-run, profile management, and schedule commands using Spectre.Console.Cli.
• Scheduling – Cron-powered scheduled runs (via NCrontab) persisted alongside profiles.
• Telemetry-friendly logging – Microsoft.Extensions.Logging with console provider; consistent error surfacing in UI.
• Unit tests – Core engine behaviour covered with xUnit (requires Windows Desktop runtime locally).

Quick Start

# clone
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/textie.git
cd textie

# restore + build (Windows)
dotnet restore
dotnet build

# run interactive UI
dotnet run

Note: The project targets net10.0-windows and depends on Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App. Build and runtime require Windows or a Windows-targeting SDK installation.

Interactive Experience

1. Wizard – Launch presents a six-step configuration stepper (Message → Count → Delay → Strategy → Advanced → Review). Warnings are non-blocking and surfaced inline.
2. Profiles – Load existing profiles, reset to defaults, or save new ones during the review step.
3. Dashboard – After confirming, the waiting dashboard displays active configuration, profiles, and hotkey hints.
4. Automation run – ENTER to start. Live progress bars (Spectre progress columns), templated status, and cancellation via ESC.
5. Summary – Completion panel with metrics (messages, duration, errors, cancellation state) followed by next-action prompt.

CLI Commands

Textie ships with a Spectre.Console.Cli command surface. To view help:

dotnet run -- --help

Key commands:

Command	Description
run [options]	Headless run with optional overrides (--profile, --message, --count, --delay, --focus-delay, --preview).
dry-run [--samples N]	Render templated messages without sending input.
profile list	Show saved profiles with timestamps.
profile save --name <NAME>	Persist the current configuration as a profile (and optional notes).
profile delete --name <NAME>	Remove a stored profile.
schedule list	Display scheduled runs, target profiles, cron expressions, and next occurrence.
schedule add --name <NAME> --profile <PROFILE> --cron "0 8 * * *"	Create/update a scheduled run (optionally --disabled).
schedule remove --name <NAME>	Delete a scheduled run.
schedule run	Execute all due schedules immediately (updates next-run timestamps).

Automation Strategies & Options

• Strategies – SendTextAndEnter, SendTextOnly, TypePerCharacter.
• Templating – Built-in fast template renderer with placeholders ({index}, {total}, {timestamp}, {guid}, {random}, {rand}).
• Timing – Base delay (0–120,000ms) with optional jitter (0–100%) and per-character delays for humanized typing.
• Submit Key – Toggle Enter submission regardless of strategy.
• Focus control – Optional target window title + focus lock reminder before and during runs.

Configuration & Persistence

• Configuration file: %AppData%/Textie/settings.json
• Profiles file: %AppData%/Textie/profiles.json
• Schedules file: %AppData%/Textie/schedules.json

Files are written with indentation, ignore defaults on failure, and are resilient to missing/corrupt data.

Architecture Overview

├── Program.cs                         # Host builder, DI, CLI wiring
├── Core/
│   ├── Abstractions/                 # Interfaces (hotkeys, template, config)
│   ├── Configuration/                # Configuration models + manager
│   ├── Input/                        # Global keyboard hook implementing IHotkeyService
│   ├── Infrastructure/               # Config store, NativeInputService (P/Invoke), Spectre registrar
│   ├── Scheduling/                   # Schedule manager and models (NCrontab)
│   ├── Spammer/                      # Engine, progress events, summaries, templating context
│   ├── Templates/                    # FastTemplateRenderer (zero-alloc, span-based)
│   └── UI/                           # IUserInterface + Spectre implementation (wizard, dashboard, run view)
├── Core/Cli/                         # CLI command handlers (run, dry-run, profile, schedule)
└── Tests/Textie.Tests/               # xUnit project covering engine behaviour

Dependency Graph

• TextieApplication orchestrates configuration manager, UI, hotkeys, engine, and logging.
• ConfigurationManager & ConfigurationStore persist settings/profiles/schedules via async JSON.
• TextSpammerEngine consumes ITextAutomationService (native P/Invoke via NativeInputService) and ITemplateRenderer to drive automation with cancellation and jitter.
• UserInterface (Spectre) renders wizard, dashboards, and progress; hosts CLI progress output for headless runs via shared engine events.
• Hotkey Service uses Win32 low-level hook with TaskCompletionSource signalling (no polling loops).
• CLI commands reuse DI-registered services for headless operations and scheduling maintenance.

Testing

# Build everything
dotnet build textie.sln

# Run tests (requires Microsoft.WindowsDesktop runtime on Windows)
dotnet test Tests/Textie.Tests/Textie.Tests.csproj

In non-Windows environments the WindowsDesktop runtime is unavailable; tests will fail to launch the xUnit testhost. Run tests on Windows or install the Windows Desktop SDK.

Dependencies

• Spectre.Console 0.51.1 (core TUI)
• Spectre.Console.Cli 0.51.1 (CLI surface)
• Spectre.Console.ImageSharp 0.51.1 (optional branding)
• [Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Json 9.0.9]
• [Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection 9.0.9]
• [Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting 9.0.9]
• [Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console 9.0.9]
• [NCrontab 3.4.0]
• [Vanara.PInvoke.User32 4.2.1] (Win32 API wrappers)
• [xUnit 2.9.2] (tests)

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Resolution
Keyboard hotkeys ignored	Run as Administrator, ensure no security software blocks low-level hooks.
No input delivered	Confirm target window focus; increase delays; disable focus lock if target changes title during run.
Scheduler not executing	schedule list to confirm cron and next run; ensure schedule is enabled; run CLI with dotnet run -- schedule list.
CLI fails on Linux/macOS	CLI is Windows-focused; ensure Windows Desktop runtime present.
Tests fail to run	Install .NET 10 Windows Desktop runtime or run tests on Windows environment.

Contributing

1. Fork and clone the repository.
2. Create a feature branch.
3. Run dotnet build (and dotnet test on Windows) before submitting PRs.
4. Describe CLI/UX changes in PR description and update README if necessary.

License

Textie is released under the MIT License.

Acknowledgements

• Spectre.Console team for an exceptional terminal toolkit.

• Vanara for modern P/Invoke wrappers used in keyboard input automation.

• The wider .NET community for tooling and inspiration.