Guide to Setting and Styling Shell Greetings in Aspectran

Greeting messages in Aspectran Shell are a key element for communicating your application’s identity and status. This guide covers how to compose greetings, use text styling, and leverage dynamic tokens for a rich terminal experience.

1. Components of Greeting Messages

Aspectran Shell greetings are combined from two primary sources:

1. Static Banner and Help (Shell Greetings): Configured in aspectran-config.apon. This typically includes fixed content like logos (ASCII Art) and usage instructions.
2. Application Identity (Global Description): The <description> element of the first loaded configuration file (e.g., app-description.xml). This is ideal for dynamic info like server URLs or the execution environment.

2. Text Styling (ANSI Markup)

Aspectran provides a powerful markup feature using the {{style1,style2,...}} syntax to apply styles to console text.

Syntax

• Basic: {{styleName}}Text{{reset}}
• Multiple: {{bold,red,bg:white}}Important Message{{reset}}

Key Style Keywords

Resetting Styles

Use these keywords to revert terminal attributes after applying styles:

• reset: Resets all attributes (bold, foreground, background, etc.) to defaults.
• fg:off: Resets only the foreground color (retains bold, etc.).
• bg:off: Resets only the background color.

3. Dynamic Data Binding (AsEL Tokens)

Both shell: { greetings: ... } and <description> elements support Aspectran Expression Language (AsEL) tokens for dynamic content.

• Version Info: #{class:com.aspectran.core.AboutMe^version}
• Execution Profile: #{currentEnvironment^currentProfiles}
• Bean Property: #{someBean^status}

Internal token parsers evaluate these tokens in real-time when the shell starts or descriptions are rendered.

4. Text Formatting (TextStyleType)

The style attribute of the <description> element controls how text is formatted before rendering.

• style="apon" (Recommended): Supports APON multi-line text syntax. It strips the | character at the beginning of each line and handles indentation precisely.
• style="compact": Trims leading/trailing whitespace from each line and compresses multiple blank lines into a single one.
• style="compressed": Removes all newlines and trims each line, joining them into a single continuous line.

5. Configuration Example

aspectran-config.apon (Banner & Help)

shell: {
    greetings: (
        |
        |{{WHITE  }}     ___                         __
        |{{CYAN   }}    /   |  _________  ___  _____/ /_____ _      __
        |{{GREEN  }}   / /| | / ___/ __ \/ _ \/ ___/ __/ __ \ | /| / /
        |{{YELLOW }}  / ___ |(__  ) /_/ /  __/ /__/ /_/ /_/ / |/ |/ /
        |{{RED    }} /_/  |_/____/ .___/\___/\___/\__/\____/|__/|__/    {{WHITE}}Enterprise Edition
        |{{gray   }}=========== /_/ ==========================================================
        |{{MAGENTA}}:: Built with Aspectran :: {{RED}}#{class:com.aspectran.core.AboutMe^version}{{reset}}
        |
        |{{gray}}To see a list of all built-in commands, type {{GREEN}}help{{reset}}.
    )
}

app-description.xml (Global Identity)

<aspectran>
    <!-- The description in the FIRST loaded rule file becomes the Identity -->
    <description style="apon">
        |
        |{{CYAN}}Server Status:{{reset}}
        |   {{bg:green,white}} ACTIVE {{reset}} {{81}}http://localhost:8081/{{reset}}
        |
        |{{gray}}Current profiles:{{reset}} #{currentEnvironment^currentProfiles}
    </description>
</aspectran>

Writing Tips

• Visual Hierarchy: Use bright colors (CYAN, GREEN) for essential info (URLs, Status) and gray for supplementary help text.
• Load Order: Place your dedicated description file at the very top of the rules list in aspectran-config.apon.