Fixed header, status, and input panels with scrolling activity in between

[ghost]

I just found this repo and I'm super excited to start playing with SpectreConsole as the main CLI display for a "bot" I'm building. I'm reading through the documentation and playing with some of the examples, but I still have some questions about the capabilities and implementations. I'm probably just being dense as I haven't been working with it too much yet but, at this point, I'm just curious to know if what I want to build is going to be possible (and feasible) with this library, or if I'm going to need to either build it from the ground up myself or just abandon my lofty goals.

I've already re-invented the wheel on some of this stuff before I found this beauty, and I have some of it working the way that I want, but my application is going to have a sort of a "setup wizard" that will check for and/or create a database with all the necessary structure for the bot to operate, get user credentials/tokens, etc. The attached screenshot shows what the application is currently doing, but it doesn't have enough "log" lines to fill up and push things off screen.

---

MY INTENT

What I'd like to be able to do is to have a persistent "header" always visible at the top of the console, have all of the logged activity (from Async methods and such) scrolling and displaying directly underneath that, and then a bottom section that would be reserved for status updates (such as progress bars or notifications) and/or user input.

Using the screenshot above for reference, the purple header would always be visible. The timestamped logs would scroll by underneath that. At the very bottom of the screen would be where I would display any prompts or progress information to the user. I'm guessing that the Panel object is probably going to play a big role in overall layout but, in my testing, I've not yet figured out how to keep that in place while updating things from the console logging.

[ghost]

I'm pressing forward on this and trying to put together a simple method to write log messages into a panel, but I can't seem to identify the components I need. It seems that the properties/objects I want to access either aren't available or are "hidden".

Private Sub WriteLogMessage(ByVal content As String, Optional ByVal logPanel As Panel = Nothing)
    If logPanel Is Nothing Then
        AnsiConsole.MarkupLine($"[grey]LOG:[/] {content}")
    Else
        '????
    End If
End Sub

I couldn't find any accessible property of the logPanel object that would enable me to write there, or even identify any item/text that might be associated with the object. I can set borders, padding, size, etc., but I can't seem to find anything about the Panel's actual content.

Alternately, based on some of the examples, I also tried to use a Public Layout field and access the specific "child" Layout in which I want the log messages to appear, but I can't find a property or method that allows me to access the Panel within that child, let alone be able to append new text to it:

Public RootLayout As New Layout("ROOT")

Sub Main(args As String())
    Dim header As New Layout("head")
    Dim logging As New Layout("logs")
    Dim feedback As New Layout("feedback")

    RootLayout.SplitRows({Header, Logging, Feedback})

    Dim headPanel As New Panel("Application Title Goes Here")
    Dim logPanel As New Panel("logPanel Test")
    Dim feedbackPanel As New Panel("feedbackPanel Test")

    With headPanel
        .Expand = True
        .NoBorder
        .Height = 5
    End With

    With feedbackPanel
        .Expand = True
        .RoundedBorder
        .Height = 3
        .Padding = New Padding(0, 0)
    End With

    With logPanel
        .Expand = True
        .Height = Console.WindowHeight - headPanel.Height - feedbackPanel.Height
        .NoBorder
    End With

    RootLayout("head").Update(headPanel)
    RootLayout("logs").Update(logPanel)
    RootLayout("feedback").Update(feedbackPanel)

    AnsiConsole.Write(RootLayout)

    For i As Integer = 0 To 50
        'WriteLogMessage($"Testing. Testing. One, two... {i}?", logPanel)
        WriteLogMessage($"Testing. Testing. One, two... {i}?", RootLayout("logs"))
    Next i

    Console.ReadKey(True)
End Sub

Private Sub WriteLogMessage(ByVal content As String, Optional ByVal logSection As Layout = Nothing)
    If logSection Is Nothing Then
        AnsiConsole.MarkupLine($"[grey]LOG:[/] {content}")
    Else
        logSection.Update(New Markup($"[grey]LOG:[/] {content}"))
    End If
End Sub

And I end up with this:

The logPanel Test isn't where it "should" be, but I can't set a VerticalAlignment property to change it, either in the logPanel Panel object or the logging Layout object. Neither is the feedbackPanel in its "correct" position at the very bottom of the console window. Perhaps it's just a matter of execution sequence, so I'll do some fiddling with it, but I've tried a few iterations with no success.

Also, the WriteLogMessage never updates the logPanel's content, which is obviously a huge piece of what I'm trying to achieve. I'm probably simply not doing it right, but I just can't seem to identify that missing piece of the puzzle here. Nothing seems to be getting me where I want to be. I readily admit that I may simply be overlooking some elementary aspect of the library's functionality somewhere, but I can't figure out where. I may very well be going about this all wrong and looking at SpectreConsole to do something it wasn't intended to do.

Still, I suppose I'm confused as to why some of those properties aren't exposed. I would guess that this isn't going to be the only time I encounter something like this in my project, so I just want to prepare myself as much as possible.

[ghost]

Well, I'm making progress. I found this issue - Lines lost when logging in combination with AnsiConsole.Live - which helped to point me in the right direction for getting my log messages to actually print on the screen by adding an AnsiConsole.Live call and moving the For...Next loop into the StartAsync method there. I've also done a bit of reorganizing of the method calls to try to get the layout behave as expected by moving the RootLayout.SplitRows() method call to after I've constructed all of the Panels:

Sub Main(args As String())
    Dim header As New Layout("head")
    Dim logging As New Layout("logs")
    Dim feedback As New Layout("feedback")

    Dim headPanel As New Panel("Application Title Goes Here")
    Dim logPanel As New Panel("logPanel Test")
    Dim feedbackPanel As New Panel("feedbackPanel Test")

    With headPanel
        .Expand = True
        .NoBorder
        .Height = 5
    End With

    With feedbackPanel
        .Expand = True
        .RoundedBorder
        .Height = 3
        .Padding = New Padding(0, 0)
    End With

    With logPanel
        .Expand = True
        .Height = Console.WindowHeight - headPanel.Height - feedbackPanel.Height
        .NoBorder
    End With

    header.Update(headPanel)
    logging.Update(logPanel)
    feedback.Update(feedbackPanel)

    RootLayout.SplitRows({header, logging, feedback})

    AnsiConsole.Write(RootLayout)
    AnsiConsole.Live(logPanel).StartAsync(Async Function(ctx)
                                              For i As Integer = 0 To 50
                                                  Thread.Sleep(100)
                                                  WriteLogMessage($"Testing. Testing. One, two... {i}?", ctx)
                                              Next i
                                          End Function)

    Console.ReadKey(True)
End Sub

Now, at least, I'm getting this:

Of course, as you can see, the issues now are:

1. The log messages are not confined to the logPanel
2. The log messages are filling from bottom to top instead of top to bottom
3. The three panels still aren't quite spacing themselves out the way I'm wanting them.
4. The headPanel is being pushed off the screen (I'm assuming because the log messages aren't confined to the logPanel)

I definitely feel like I'm on the right path here, but I just haven't quite found the right mix. TBH, I'm kinda using this "Q&A" post to document my own progress as much as to request any guidance that might help me minimize the learning curve.

The good news, as it were, is that, if I increase the iterations in the For...Next loop (e.g., 55 instead of 50), it does seem to avoid overwriting the single line of text in the headPanel. So, even though the console started writing the log messages below the feebackPanel, forcing the headPanel off the screen, it at least seems to keep that up there so I have at least a part of what I'm wanting. It is overwriting the top line (below the headPanel) with each new log message so that I end up seeing 55 followed by 49, but I'm assuming there's a lot more to it that I still haven't sussed out quite yet.