PromptPlus

# PromptPlus ## **TableSelect<T> — Operations** [![NuGet](https://img.shields.io/badge/NuGet-PromptPlus-blue)](https://www.nuget.org/packages/PromptPlus) [![License: MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-yellow.svg)](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT) [![.NET](https://img.shields.io/badge/.NET-8%20%7C%209%20%7C%2010-512BD4)](https://dotnet.microsoft.com/)

← Back to Home • Next: TableSelect — Styles →

How the TableSelect<T> control behaves while it is running: keyboard, columns, filtering, horizontal scrolling, paging, validation, history, and view-only mode.

Anatomy of the control

Select a product                         ← prompt
Category: Electronics                     ← description (optional / dynamic)
┌──────┬───────────────┬────────────┐
│  Id  │ Name          │   Price    │    ← header row
├──────┼───────────────┼────────────┤
│    1 │ Notebook Pro  │  $ 1299.99 │    ← focused row (SelectedCell)
│    2 │ Wireless Mouse│  $   29.90 │
└──────┴───────────────┴────────────┘
Filter: note                              ← live filter text (when filtering)
Page 1/2                                  ← pagination
Enter: confirm  Esc: cancel               ← tooltip

Every region can be recolored — see Styles.

Keyboard

Key	Action
`↑` / `↓`	Move focus up / down (rows)
`Page Up` / `Page Down`	Jump one page
`Ctrl+Home` / `Ctrl+End`	First / last row
`Tab` / `Shift+Tab`	Move the focused column; wraps around at the first/last column
`Enter`	Confirm the focused row (runs validation)
`Esc`	Abort → `IsAborted == true`
Any printable character	Type to filter (when `Filter` is not `Disabled`)
`Backspace`	Edit the filter text
`F1`	Cycle tooltip content
`Ctrl+F1`	Show / hide the tooltip

Disabled rows are skipped automatically as you move.

Columns

AddColumn is header-first: header text, then a Func<T, object> selector, then optional formatter, width, alignment, and filterable flag.
Width is either fixed (width: n) or auto-sized from the header and all cell values at Run time.
Content that exceeds the column width is truncated with an ellipsis; the full row is still returned in .Content.Value.

Column alignment

ColumnAlignment sets per-column horizontal alignment:

Value	Effect
`Left`	Align cell content to the left (default)
`Right`	Align cell content to the right (typical for numbers)
`Center`	Center cell content

Horizontal scrolling

Tab / Shift+Tab always move the focused column, wrapping around at the first/last column — this works even when every column already fits on screen and nothing needs to scroll; the focused column is always highlighted and reported in the pagination line as Col X/Y. HorizontalScroll only changes what happens once scrolling is actually needed (the columns don’t all fit within the console width):

Full (default) — shifts the visible viewport as a full column window.
Column — focuses one column at a time.

The focused column’s index is returned as .Content.ColumnIndex.

Layout & border regions

LayoutMode picks the box-drawing character set: SingleBox (default), DoubleBox, SingleASCII, DoubleASCII, or None (no borders).
HideElements hides individual regions — RowSeparator, Header, ColumnSeparator, OuterBorder — and combines with | to strip several at once. HideTable.None (default) shows everything.

Filtering

When Filter is Contains or StartsWith, typing narrows the visible rows in real time:

The match is case-insensitive.
FilterTableMode.Answer matches against the answer text (TextSelector).
FilterTableMode.ColumnFilters matches against the concatenated text of every column declared with isFilterable: true.
Matching resets paging to the first page of results.
Clearing the filter (Backspace) restores the full list.

Disabled (the default) turns typing off entirely — arrow keys only.

Confirmation & validation flow

Pressing Enter on the focused row:

Validation runs — PredicateSelected / PredicateSelectedAsync, if configured.
Valid → the control closes and returns the row inside a TableSelectResult<T>. Invalid → the table stays open and shows the error line.

Disabled rows cannot be focused for confirmation, so validation typically guards business rules rather than availability.

Initial selection & history

Default(value) pre-selects a row; provide DefaultMatchBy for records/classes so the right row is located.
With EnableHistory, confirmed selections are stored on disk; UseDefaultHistory (or Default(..., useDefaultHistory: true)) restores the last one on the next run.
History options (MinPrefixLength, MaxItems, ExpirationTime, FilterType, PageSize) match the Input history options.

View-only mode

ViewOnly() renders the table for display only:

Arrow and column keys still navigate, but the selection cannot change.
On Enter the control returns the item highlighted at startup (from Default or the first row), regardless of where the user browsed.
Selection predicates and disabled-row restrictions are not enforced.

Options that change behavior

Set per instance via Options(...), or globally on PromptPlus.Config:

Option	Effect on `TableSelect<T>`
`EnabledAbortKey(false)`	Removes Esc — the user must choose
`HideAfterFinish(true)`	Erases the table after confirm — the whole control is erased, not just the interactive part
`ShowTooltip(false)`	Hides the keyboard hint line
`Prompt(...)` / `Description(...)`	Overrides the prompt / description text

PageSize can be set per control (PageSize) or globally (PromptPlus.Config.PageSize).

Edge cases & gotchas

Configuration is required. Run throws ValidationException unless at least one column and one row have been added.
Aborted results carry .Content == default (a TableSelectResult<T> with default(T)). Always branch on IsAborted.
Custom types need equality. Without DefaultMatchBy, Default on a record/class may not match the intended row.
Async callbacks block the UI thread — keep validators, selectors, and description callbacks fast.
Long cells are truncated with …; the full row is still returned in .Content.Value.