Feature suggestion: cli_ask function combining cli::cli_alert + readline

[elipousson]

I created a simple utility function that I thought may be helpful to consider as a possible addition to the cli package. I know there is already a related issue w/ #228 and you have similar functionality in your separate {ask} package but figured I'd open the issue for consideration. I'm using it to offer the user an opportunity to input a URL but I can imagine a variety of potential use cases. Here is the code I have currently:

cli_ask <- function(text, prompt = ">> ", ..., .envir = parent.frame()) {
  cli::cli_alert(text, ..., .envir = .envir)
  readline(prompt = prompt)
}

If you're interested, let me know and I'm happy to open a pull request.

I also created a cli_yeah function that is a only very slightly modified version of the usethis::ui_yeah function but I saw you previously flagged this function as "not relevant" for {cli} in the comments for #68. If you're interested in revisiting this, I'm happy to include it in the same PR with cli_ask. Here is the code:

cli_yeah <- function(text,
                     yes = c("Yes", "Definitely", "For sure", "Yup", "Yeah", "I agree", "Absolutely"),
                     no = c("No way", "Not now", "Negative", "No", "Nope", "Absolutely not"),
                     n_yes = 1,
                     n_no = 2,
                     shuffle = TRUE,
                     .envir = parent.frame()) {
  x <- glue::glue_collapse(text, "\n")
  x <- glue::glue(text, .envir = .envir)

  if (!rlang::is_interactive()) {
    cli::cli_abort(
      c(
        "User input required, but session is not interactive.",
        "Query: {text}"
      )
    )
  }

  n_yes <- min(n_yes, length(yes))
  n_no <- min(n_no, length(no))
  qs <- c(sample(yes, n_yes), sample(no, n_no))

  if (shuffle) {
    qs <- sample(qs)
  }

  cli::cli_alert(text)
  out <- utils::menu(qs)
  out != 0L && qs[[out]] %in% yes
}

[gaborcsardi]

Thanks, I'll will have to think about this more, but hopefully will get to it soon.

[JosiahParry]

Came here to see if this functionality existed in cli yet.

I was hoping to use cli to create a series of prompts to help create a metadata file. Something along the lines of

widget_type <- menu(c("fizz", "buzz"), title = "Which kind of widget?")
widget_name <- cli::cli_ask("Give your widget a name")