Using the Python Rich library to display status indicators
I recently added a status indicator to my azruntime application. If users have a lot of VMs in their subscriptions, the azruntime application can take a long time to run. Users will appreciate seeing the status so they know the program is still running and is not hung up.

I used the Rich library to implement a status indicator. I had to learn more about Python context managers to understand how the Rich library’s progress bar and status indicators work. The Rich library’s documentation is aimed at intermediate-to-advanced programmers and the Rich tutorials I found on the web did not cover using the Rich library’s status update features.
In this post, I will share what I learned while adding a status indicator to my program and show you how to implement the same in your projects.
Rich library overview
The Rich library makes it easy to add color and style to terminal output. Rich can also render pretty tables, progress bars, markdown, syntax highlighted source code, tracebacks, and more.1
This post focuses only on creating a status indicator. To learn more about what Rich can do for you, I encourage you to read one of the excellent Rich overviews Continue reading


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