Core concepts

A one-page map: ink-cartridge has three parts — the screen system, the keyboard engine, and the React adapter. Building this overall picture first makes the later chapters much easier.

Prerequisites

Chapter	Why you need it
Quick Start	Get it running first, then read the structure

The three parts

Part	Responsibility	Entry point
Screen system	Screen tree and stack, layers, modal layers, navigation	registerComponent / useScreenSystem
Keyboard engine	The whole path from a key press to a matched binding (nine-stage pipeline)	KeyboardEngine
React adapter	Wires both into React	ScenarioManagementProvider / KeyboardProvider

Screen tree and stack

registerComponent(Component, template, { parent }) builds a screen tree; the active one is a stack from root to leaf, whose top is the screen CurrentScreen renders. skip / back / gotoScreen navigate within it. See Organize Your Screen and Navigation.

Layers and modal layers

Layers float above the screen; modal layers float above the layers and, by default, take over the keyboard exclusively. Both are opened / closed through useScreenSystem. See Layer Basics and Modal Layer Basics.

The keyboard pipeline

A key press travels from the device to a matched binding through a nine-stage pipeline:

Modal → overlay phase (composition / global sequences / global keys) → layer broadcast → screen phase (composition / global sequences / global keys) → screen stack

The first stage that consumes the event ends propagation. See Custom Processors.

Ownership

Every binding carries an owner (the current screen or layer element); a key is matched only while that owner is active. See Binding Attribution & the Owner Stack.

Provider nesting

KeyboardProvider must sit inside ScenarioManagementProvider. Reversed, the keyboard silently stops working.