Getting Started with Spectre.Console in C#: Create Beautiful Console Applications Easily – With Tim Corey

Installing Spectre.Console via NuGet Package Manager

Tim begins with a fresh .NET project using .NET 9. Inside Visual Studio, he navigates to the NuGet Package Manager and searches for "Spectre". The goal here is to install the Spectre.Console package—not to be confused with CLI or JSON variants.

Even though the current version at the time is 0.50.0, Tim reassures us that the library is mature and production-ready, even if it's not marked 1.0. It’s a .NET library that makes it easier to create beautiful, structured output in the terminal.

After installation, he includes the directive at the top of the file:

using Spectre.Console;

using Spectre.Console;

This allows access to core features like AnsiConsole.MarkupLine, progress displays, and interactive prompts.

Creating Your First Styled Console Output

To confirm that everything is working, Tim writes a simple output using Spectre’s markup system:

AnsiConsole.MarkupLine("[red bold]Hello World[/]");

AnsiConsole.MarkupLine("[red bold]Hello World[/]");

This replaces the basic Console.WriteLine() with a far more flexible output option that supports styles such as bold, italic, underline, and color. This example uses bold red text, showing off how Spectre.Console makes it easier to create beautiful console applications.

Demonstrating Text Styling and Animated Effects

Tim adds two more lines: a regular Hello World and one with a slow blinking effect using Spectre's markup capabilities. These demonstrate how the library can display animated spinners and dynamic text—a great feature for long running tasks and status controls.

You can use styles like:

• [bold green underline]Success[/]

• [italic yellow]Loading...[/]

• [blink]Please wait...[/]

These options support Unicode characters, making Spectre.Console ideal for presenting information in engaging ways—without any GUI frameworks.

Structuring the Console App with Setup Tags

Tim organizes the code by marking the current lesson with a comment:

// Lesson 2: Initial Setup

// Lesson 2: Initial Setup

This structure helps maintain the project across multiple lessons. He also adds:

Console.ReadLine();
AnsiConsole.Clear();

Console.ReadLine();
AnsiConsole.Clear();

This pauses the output so the user can view the result, then clears the terminal after pressing enter—keeping the interface clean for the next run.

Understanding Terminal and Shell Differences

Tim then explains how the current terminal’s capabilities affect Spectre.Console’s output. He distinguishes between:

• Shell (e.g., PowerShell or CMD): The processor of commands.

• Terminal (e.g., Windows Terminal): The visual container that displays shell output.

This distinction is important because Spectre.Console relies on the terminal to render styles. If your terminal doesn't support blinking or bold text, you may not see the expected results—even if your code is correct.

Configuring Font and Display Settings in Windows Terminal

To enable text styling features like bold, underline, and colors, Tim walks through Windows Terminal settings:

1. Font Face: Set to Cascadia Code, which supports modern console features like bold, Unicode, and ASCII images.

2. Text Formatting: Under Text Formatting → Intense text style, change from Bright colors to Bold font.

These configurations ensure your Spectre.Console app can display bold italic, blinking, and colored text as intended.

Fixing Blinking Issues via Accessibility Settings

If your blinking styles aren’t working, Tim recommends checking Windows Accessibility settings:

• Go to Accessibility → Visual Effects

• Enable Animation Effects

Without this, the console won’t render animated spinners or blinking text. These small changes make a big difference when trying to display progress or highlight statuses in your app.

Running Your App with Correct Terminal Context

To make sure everything runs correctly, Tim copies the full path to his .NET project, navigates there via the command line, and runs:

dotnet run

This is useful for testing how different shells behave. For example, PowerShell might display progress bars differently than Git Bash or CMD.

This is also where you can explore auto-detection features and experiment with rendering:

• A new table using var table = new Table();

• A horizontal bar chart using var chart = new BarChart();

• Even tabular data or ASCII images for decorative purposes

Tim encourages trying various outputs, which will be covered in future lessons.

Final Thoughts – Next Steps in Spectre.Console C

Tim wraps up the initial setup by highlighting that Spectre.Console is heavily inspired by the excellent Python-written Rich library. He reassures that this .NET library is fully capable of rendering:

• Styled text

• Interactive prompts

• Command line arguments parsing

• Status indicators

• And even supports unit testing and dependency injection

Whether you're handling command line arguments with CommandContext context, or using public class Settings to define user options, Spectre.Console scales with your project’s complexity.

Conclusion

As Tim Corey shows in his video, Spectre.Console is a powerful library that makes C# console applications beautiful and interactive. From setting up in Visual Studio to tweaking your terminal for proper rendering, every step is crucial in unlocking the full potential of this tool.

Whether you want to display progress, output tabular data, use ASCII images, or simply improve command line interactions, Spectre.Console is the library to know. With thoughtful configuration and an understanding of your terminal, you'll be able to build professional-grade console apps right in .NET.

For full source code and more tutorials, visit IAmTimCorey.com and continue the Spectre.Console series for deeper integration into your next project.