Interactive Terminal (TUI) Target

Strata can compile the exact same declarative RSX component code directly to an interactive Terminal User Interface (TUI) (strata_tui / --target tui). You can deploy enterprise interfaces to SSH sessions, headless cloud servers, and terminal emulators without writing specialized terminal code.

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Double-Buffered Delta ANSI Engine

Traditional terminal applications redraw the entire console screen every frame, leading to noticeable flicker, cursor drifting, and high CPU usage.

Strata implements a double-buffered differential screen buffer:

1. Back Buffer: The layout engine calculates glyph characters, 24-bit TrueColor foregrounds, and background styles for each terminal cell (col, row).
2. Delta Differential Pass: The renderer compares the back buffer against the front buffer (the current screen state).
3. Optimized ANSI Run Emission: Only cells that changed between frames are emitted as cursor jump sequences (\x1b[{row};{col}H) and ANSI color escape codes.
4. Synchronized Updates: Strata wraps frame emissions with the standard Synchronized Output terminal protocol (\x1b[?2025h ... \x1b[?2025l), ensuring atomic screen refreshes without visual tearing on modern terminals (iTerm2, Alacritty, Kitty, WezTerm, Windows Terminal).

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Hare-Niemeyer Integer Quantization

Converting floating-point CSS layout coordinates (e.g., width: 33.333%) into discrete terminal character grid cells creates rounding errors. Naive rounding algorithms (round() or floor()) frequently produce 1-character gaps or right-edge overflow clipping.

Strata implements the Hare-Niemeyer Largest Remainder Method:

• Track allocations calculate exact fractional remainders.
• Surplus integer cells are distributed systematically to tracks with the largest fractional remainders.
• Flex and grid layouts always fill 100% of the terminal console width without gaps or overflows.

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Unicode Box Junction Synthesis

Strata automatically analyzes adjacent border boundaries and synthesizes clean Unicode junctions:

┌──────────────┬──────────────┐
│ Left Panel   │ Right Panel  │
├──────────────┼──────────────┤
│ Bottom Cell  │ Status Bar   │
└──────────────┴──────────────┘

The engine resolves single-line (┌┬┐├┼┤└┴┘), double-line (╔╦╗╠╬╣╚╩╝), and rounded corners (╭─╮│╰─╯) based on the component's Tailwind border utility classes (border, border-double, rounded-lg).

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High-Resolution Image Protocols

When running in modern terminals that support graphics extensions:

• Kitty Graphics Protocol: High-resolution RGB images are transferred directly into terminal VRAM using base64 chunked protocols.
• Sixel Protocol: Automatic palette quantization renders images on legacy DEC terminal emulators.
• Braille Matrix Fallback: On terminals without pixel protocol support, images and vector icons are downsampled into 2x4 Unicode braille dot matrices (⠋, ⠙, ⠹, ⠸).

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Compile-Time TUI Diagnostics

Certain graphical features (such as 3D WebGL scenes or Gaussian blur filters) cannot be represented in a terminal. Strata's compiler analyzes your component tree at build time:

• Emits helpful compiler warnings with line numbers when graphics-only features are detected.
• Provides <TuiFallback> components that render alternate text representations when compiling to --target tui.

rsx! {
    <div>
        <TuiFallback
            desktop={rsx! { <Canvas3D ... /> }}
            terminal={rsx! {
                <div class="p-4 border border-neutral-700 text-neutral-400 font-mono">
                    [ 3D CAD MODEL: Rendered as ASCII Wireframe ]
                </div>
            }}
        />
    </div>
}