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You Don't Need a GUI

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Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#211

Post by lifthrasiir »

petra wrote: post #178
ronyeh wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your point about discoverability. What if there was such a thing as a right click menu for command line programs? Like if I type ffmpeg or youtube-dl with no args, it lists the 3 most common ways to use it, and maybe allows an interactive CLI menu where you can build up the correct argument list by answering a few questions. I would love the most useful commands to look like: ffmpeg --resizeVideoTo input.mp4 5…

This is a good path to go. I like the 3 top uses. As for questions, maybe when I write: ffmpeg gui I'll get a gui menu where I can select all the options, and that will generate a textual command for me that I could use further. The hard part of course is creating GUI's for all the console apps. Can that be done mechanically?

There is something like Gooey [1] that you can put to your own applications. I think it is technically possible to use Gooey to wrap existing applications, but not sure about the automation.

[1] https://github.com/chriskiehl/Gooey

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#212

Post by trinix912 »

dekerta wrote: post #33
gruez wrote: post #5

Most the things in this list are things that you technically don't need a GUI for, but a GUI is so much better that doing it in command line is pointless. For instance, you could do all those file operations in the terminal, but chances are you're already browsing files using a GUI file manager so opening a terminal to do those things is pointless. Terminal is great if you want to do something complicated that a GUI…

No kidding. I laughed at this part: "STOP DOUBLE CLICKING ON A FILE " "Instead type '$ xdg-open file'" Yeah, because that's way faster and more convenient than double clicking on an icon. This one is great too: Don't open the file explorer! Instead you should type "find . -print | sed -e 's;[^/]*/;|____;g;s;____|; |;g'" Seriously?

The "find . -print | sed -e 's;[^/]*/;|____;g;s;____|; |;g'" is a bad joke. Heck, it's better to just tell them to `brew install mc` and use `mc` afterwards (or `exa` or whatever else). I usually just type `open .` and do the rest in Finder, although this admittedly breaks the command line workflow.

No matter how fast you can type, typing this clusterf*ck of a command isn't faster than using a better utility (command line or GUI). And I assume complete beginners (which the page seems to be for) don't know how to set up shell aliases just yet.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#213

Post by michaelmrose »

unnouinceput wrote: post #182
ben509 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has been around since 1998, and after 23 years, their search is still a CLI stuck in a form. > Me, on the other hand, I can point you to a trillion dollar business that uses only GUI and not a single CLI, to say the least. No you can't. There are 5 companies with a market cap over a trillion. We can easily rule out Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google as they have all developed CLIs. That leaves Saudi Aramco. D…

Yes, I can. Game industry. See my other response to one of your siblings.

You said a business not an industry.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#214

Post by ponytech »

userbinator wrote: post #63
dekerta wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No kidding. I laughed at this part: "STOP DOUBLE CLICKING ON A FILE " "Instead type '$ xdg-open file'" Yeah, because that's way faster and more convenient than double clicking on an icon. This one is great too: Don't open the file explorer! Instead you should type "find . -print | sed -e 's;[^/]*/;|____;g;s;____|; |;g'" Seriously?

Yeah, because that's way faster and more convenient than double clicking on an icon. It is if you happen to have both hands on the keyboard. That said, I usually navigate a GUI file explorer using the keyboard too, so pressing Enter to open a file is even faster. (This comment was submitted entirely using the keyboard.)

This comment was submitted entirely using the keyboard

How did you do that? Using a specific browser extension?

I am looking for ways to use my browser with keyboard only.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#215

Post by tape_measure »

As a mechanical engineer: - I wish we would use git like our software friends - I wish commercial CAD programs had humane file formats and command line interoperability - I wish commercial CAD programs would be supported on Linux - You can pry MS Excel from my cold dead hands.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#216

Post by aequitas »

I really love how well macOS does both GUI and TUI. I can easily switch from terminal to Finder (open .) to browse files in a GUI, back to terminal (drag folder on terminal.app). Also almost everything in the system preferences has a terminal counterpart, things like network settings and such.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#217

Post by adwn »

Annatar wrote: post #197
karlicoss wrote: post #11

GUI is better for discoverability of the most common scenarios (I can right-click to see everything that can be done with the file, including some third party programs). But it's bad for composing programs and interoperability, often it's impossible or very hard to automate (how many people are doing UI testing? there is a good reason it's not many -- it completely sucks) TUI/console is very good for interoperability…

what do I do apart from searching on the internet? On a real UNIX like HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris, FreeBSD or illumos (and any of its distributions), you'd run catman -w as root only once for the lifetime of the system, then run: man -k "disk space" and then you'd search for SEE ALSO with "/", eventually you'd run into df(1), under the very bad presumption that it isn't the first hit. EXAMPLE (Solaris 10, identical for ill…

> real UNIX [...] real UNIX [...] real UNIX

Yes, we get it, you hate Linux. Your user profile page says as much. Get over it.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#218

Post by em500 »

sethammons wrote: post #82
gruez wrote: post #5

Most the things in this list are things that you technically don't need a GUI for, but a GUI is so much better that doing it in command line is pointless. For instance, you could do all those file operations in the terminal, but chances are you're already browsing files using a GUI file manager so opening a terminal to do those things is pointless. Terminal is great if you want to do something complicated that a GUI…

Just about everything in that list I do from a terminal. But I practically live in the thing. I’ve literally had trouble finding my home directory in the Mac Finder UI. Never had that issue in the terminal ~

It's in the "Go" menu, along with the keyboard shortcut. You can also put it in the sidebar, either via Preferences->Sidebar or dragging your home folder there.

I'm guessing that the reason it's not there is that for most casual/GUI users, Documents/Downloads/Desktop (which are all in the sidebar) takes the role of /home in traditional Unix.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#219

Post by adwn »

inetknght wrote: post #163
karlicoss wrote: post #11

GUI is better for discoverability of the most common scenarios (I can right-click to see everything that can be done with the file, including some third party programs). But it's bad for composing programs and interoperability, often it's impossible or very hard to automate (how many people are doing UI testing? there is a good reason it's not many -- it completely sucks) TUI/console is very good for interoperability…

> GUI is better for discoverability of the most common scenarios (I can right-click to see everything that can be done with the file, including some third party programs). No. One has to be trained to right-click. What about interfaces that don't have a right-click, such as a touch interface? Not only that, but the right-click menu has to be programmed. A lot of designers want minimalistic interfaces and would remove…

> What about interfaces that don't have a right-click, such as a touch interface?

Are you suggesting that we switch to TUIs/CLIs on touch interfaces? If not, what's your solution?

> I've found that doing one-off things is massively easier and faster in a TUI than in a GUI!

For example?

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#220

Post by yoz-y »

acomjean wrote: post #132

Does anyone still use Midnight commander? (mc from the command line). I think its falling out of favor, but I think a lot of people don't know about it. Its a clone or the old Norton Commander which uses a termnal (curses based software) to create a kind of file browsing /copying/ moving tool. I like it because I know it, and its easy to browse through directories and veiw the files using a keyboard. A breif guide wi…

All the time on ssh sessions, otherwise I use Forklift. https://binarynights.com/
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