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You Don't Need a GUI

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Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#271

Post by austincheney »

I mostly agree with the article but there are some important considerations missing:

* Parallelization - It requires far less effort to perform parallel jobs from the same application instance in a GUI. This is entirely resultant from the APIs and interface provided by a given application more than the environment in which that application runs.

* Security - It is possible for a GUI to provide additional security controls and context not readily available to a terminal interface. This point, though, is extremely narrow in context, not guaranteed, and may likely introduce additional compromise vectors.

* Performance - In most cases and with more traditional technologies it is a generally safe assumption that GUIs require more resources than terminal interfaces. That performance gap closes as technologies become higher level (further from the metal) and more distributed across different physical devices.

* Scripting and Automation - It took considerable effort but I have managed to achieve mostly parity and some automation superiority in a GUI versus the terminal in a personal application. This point on automation is entirely dependent upon the APIs and data structures provided by a lower level system.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#272

Post by dvdkon »

_Microft wrote: post #228
sbuttgereit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair part of what I do includes ERP implementation project work. Way back, when TUI/keyboard centric ERP system dominance was starting to give way to GUI/mouse centric ERP systems, I was working with one client where replacing a TUI with GUI based system. One measure we made during the project was the impact to new employee training time and we saw significant reductions in training time due to the sorts of discove…

What about a system that shows actions in a GUI as a list of equivalent plain text commands. New users would have the discoverability of a GUI while being able to see what goes on command-wise. With time they would be able to convert to plain-text commands and scripting for increased efficency.

An interesting UI paradigm I've run across [0] is using a keyboard-accessible hierarchical menu for all actions. It's similar to how AutoCAD works, but the "commands" you type are actually just sequences of menu hints. Most desktop apps support these hints with Alt, so the capability is there, but there is something about using the hint sequences as primary keyboard shortcuts that appeals to me.

The nice thing is that by using the keyboard to navigate menus, you develop muscle memory for "shortcuts" without really trying. And if you ever get "stuck", not knowing how to complete the sequence, you only have to look at the currently open menu.

Formica doesn't do this, but this could be extended into rudimentary scripting.

This kind of paradigm won't fit all software, for example I don't think it's a good fit for software where typing mildly structured text is the main mode of interaction. It might be mainly useful for shortcut-heavy software.

[0]: The software in question: https://www.formica.cz/

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#273

Post by umvi »

syl_sau wrote: post #270

I'm not sure if this is satire or not, but certainly the single worst case of using a terminal is file manipulation. Nothing will ever beat the right-clicks or Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V combos. It's just more natural to "see" things that you move. Now when it comes to more complex applications, I'd stop using the CLI if I had to search the manpages or the internet each time for doing something I already did previously. Since I d…

Have you seen a Vim master in action? They make a really good case for terminal file manipulation.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#274

Post by megous »

ronyeh wrote: post #174
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…

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…

That's what aliases or shell functions are for. Put them into your .bashrc/.zshrc/.whatnotrc and you can have commands like that, without messing up the fine tools you mentioned for the rest of us. Just drop the first space.

ffmpeg--resize-video video.mp4 50%

.bashrc:

    ffmpeg--resize-video() {
       ffmpeg ... "$1"
    }
You'll have added benefit that ffmpeg-- will suggest you only your own UI, without interference from the tool's own options.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#275

Post by amelius »

syl_sau wrote: post #270

I'm not sure if this is satire or not, but certainly the single worst case of using a terminal is file manipulation. Nothing will ever beat the right-clicks or Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V combos. It's just more natural to "see" things that you move. Now when it comes to more complex applications, I'd stop using the CLI if I had to search the manpages or the internet each time for doing something I already did previously. Since I d…

> I'm not sure if this is satire or not, but certainly the single worst case of using a terminal is file manipulation.

In the old days you used Norton Commander for that, which ran in text mode. I'm sure there must be some open source equivalents today which run in the terminal.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#276

Post by erk__ »

amelius wrote: post #275
syl_sau wrote: post #270

I'm not sure if this is satire or not, but certainly the single worst case of using a terminal is file manipulation. Nothing will ever beat the right-clicks or Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V combos. It's just more natural to "see" things that you move. Now when it comes to more complex applications, I'd stop using the CLI if I had to search the manpages or the internet each time for doing something I already did previously. Since I d…

> I'm not sure if this is satire or not, but certainly the single worst case of using a terminal is file manipulation. In the old days you used Norton Commander for that, which ran in text mode. I'm sure there must be some open source equivalents today which run in the terminal.

There is of course Midnight Commander, but the visual aspect helps quite a bit imo

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#277

Post by gitanovic »

amelius wrote: post #275
syl_sau wrote: post #270

I'm not sure if this is satire or not, but certainly the single worst case of using a terminal is file manipulation. Nothing will ever beat the right-clicks or Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V combos. It's just more natural to "see" things that you move. Now when it comes to more complex applications, I'd stop using the CLI if I had to search the manpages or the internet each time for doing something I already did previously. Since I d…

> I'm not sure if this is satire or not, but certainly the single worst case of using a terminal is file manipulation. In the old days you used Norton Commander for that, which ran in text mode. I'm sure there must be some open source equivalents today which run in the terminal.

Midnight Commander

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#278

Post by skissane »

syl_sau wrote: post #270

I'm not sure if this is satire or not, but certainly the single worst case of using a terminal is file manipulation. Nothing will ever beat the right-clicks or Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V combos. It's just more natural to "see" things that you move. Now when it comes to more complex applications, I'd stop using the CLI if I had to search the manpages or the internet each time for doing something I already did previously. Since I d…

> I'm not sure if this is satire or not, but certainly the single worst case of using a terminal is file manipulation. Nothing will ever beat the right-clicks or Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V combos. It's just more natural to "see" things than you move.

I've been using a Mac full-time for the last 8 years, and I do the vast majority of file manipulation in Terminal instead of Finder, because I find the command line easier and more intuitive.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#279

Post by MaxBarraclough »

syl_sau wrote: post #270

I'm not sure if this is satire or not, but certainly the single worst case of using a terminal is file manipulation. Nothing will ever beat the right-clicks or Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V combos. It's just more natural to "see" things that you move. Now when it comes to more complex applications, I'd stop using the CLI if I had to search the manpages or the internet each time for doing something I already did previously. Since I d…

Do TUIs count as GUIs? Midnight Commander (mc) is a TUI file manager with mouse support.

edit I see others beat me to it in mentioning mc. I'll leave this here anyway.

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