📜 Create mutable log lines into the terminal, and give life to your logs!

It may be useful to expose the line number whenever you update a draft console via console.draft()() so if we want to clear that line, we can use the line number without adding complex code to calculate it ourselves, as I see DraftLog._line contains the line, however it cannot be accessed via console.draft()()._line as console.draft() returns an new DraftLog(...).update.

Maybe you could add this simple thing by returning this._line in the update method. Sorry about the big sentence above, I didn't know how to explain myself.

Or maybe a feature to clean the line completely could be added, as

DraftLog.update(); // or DraftLog.update('');

still leaves an empty line.

Thank you for your time, and sorry if this isn't something you want DraftLog to do. Thanks for making such a great module. ✌️

First of all: Nice lib!

Now my question: Is it possible to fix a log at the bottom while I keep sending more console.logs?

I want to keep a status bar counting the number of downloads and failed downloads, while I keep submitting lines with the individual downloads

When I run my timer for long enough, it seems to fail to re-render the line resulting in bizzare spelling issues that gradually become gibberish for each update. When the minute count no longer is necessary, the seconds from that format stick around as seen below.

Because this module extends functionality of Console, the following is required to avoid typescript complaining about missing "draft" function:

interface Console {
        draft: (a) => (b) => {}
}

I think to support this from the module level, we can use the global declaration feature

declare global {
    interface Console {
        draft: (a) => (b) => {}
    }
}

Let's say I have codes like this below:

let a = console.draft(' ')
let b = console.draft('')

setInterval(() => {
  a('something')
  b('something')
}, 1000)

It only shows a string.

Here's a naive attempt at writing a Node REPL which shows the output of each command on the same line every time:

const repl = require('repl')
require('draftlog').into(console)
const update = console.draft('Starting REPL...')
repl.start({prompt:update})

And the output looks like this: https://asciinema.org/a/U0y4BMlqxMlhQLE2QE1szHiFi

DraftLog works. The API is simple. I want to keep it that way, but it might be improved with a few ideas.

Please, contribute by giving your insights, ideas and so on.

[1] Avoid overriding console._stdout

Can we find a way to NOT put something in the middle of the Stream? Is it possible to 'listen' to data on a Writable stream? If so, that's all we need (we don't ever modify contents anyway)

[2] Should we 'hook' draft method into console?

Hooking into console is really cool, but... To specific.

What if the person doesn't uses console to do logging, but writing to stdout directly? In that case, it would cause two problems:

1. Draft method would be available only through custom instantiated Console. That's a bad requirement to ask developers... (Console is cool, but not a requirement for logging stuff)
2. If any data get's logged directly into stdout, then it would not capture that data. [1] would fix that, if just in listening mode.

[3] Ideas for a new (and simpler) API

const DraftLog = require('draftlog')
console.draft = DraftLog(process.stdout[, process.stdin])
// Or save to a custom function maybe
const draft = DraftLog(process.stdout[, process.stdin])

// Would make things easier in case of disabling:
if (PRODUCTION) 
  const draft = DraftLog();