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You Don't Need a GUI

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Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#311

Post by anticristi »

Whatever became of nuances ...

I thought this discussion was settled. You need to expose functionality via:

1. A library 2. A CLI 3. A TUI 4. A GUI

NetworkManager is a good example: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/NetworkManager

Each of these have trade-offs. Any assertions like "you don't need X" might be good for website traffic, but does not help steer the discussion on how to best serve the user.

Taking disk usage as an example, sure a quick 'df' is nice. But I do enjoy the extra power and discoverability of graphical disk usage analyzer tools. Both the CLI and GUI tools require a library.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#312

Post by nec4b »

bendiksolheim wrote: post #295
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 that you move. This might be the case for you, but please don’t mistake it for an objective truth. I find the terminal far superior for file manipulation than any of the graphical file explorers I…

Objectively nothing beats software such as Midnight Commander, Krusader, Total Commander,... for file manipulation. You can do common operations with single clicks or shortcuts and they also have the shell integrated for less common operations.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#314

Post by thies226j »

nicoburns wrote: post #286
skissane wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 i…

That might be more because finder is so bad and less to do with file management GUIs in general. Windows Explorer and Nautilus are both much better than finder.

Imagine using Windows Explorer... Right Click -> New Folder Choosing the files you want to move there -> CTRL+C -> Going into the directory -> CTRL+V Yeah that’s just the best and most efficient way to move files into a new directory.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#315

Post by noisem4ker »

thomasahle wrote: post #287
phtrivier wrote: post #285

I have a problem with the very first entry: ``` cp readme.md documents/ ``` It misses the point of: "How did I get to the place where the "readme.md" file is ? How did I know I wanted to put it in `documents/` ? I'd argue that this is not what most users are really doing is. A real-life scenario is: 1. I need to send a file to Bob. Where the hell is that file ? I think it's in the "Files" directory. No wait, is it in…

You don't have to type the names, you only need the first character + tab. To me that's much faster than reading through a list of folders trying to find and click the right one. In case one of those folders only contain one other folder, you don't even have to type the first character, just tab+tab+tab done.

Graphical file managers can also select a file by typing the first few characters of its name (type-ahead)*. In case there's only one item, just press the down-arrow key to select it. One can navigate a GUI just like CLIs, just with slightly different keys, but with the added benefits of visualization and mouse actions such as drag-and-drop.

Edit: * Unless you're using GNOME's Nautilus, which I think will stupidly trigger a recursive search instead.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#316

Post by sbuttgereit »

_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.

I've actually contemplated this very idea and think it has merit. What I've found in many applications is that there is a stark distinction between GUI and TUI/CLI that isn't completely necessary... I speculate that there's more room for grey between the two. To be clear many GUIs can be used via keyboard alone, but often times that ability feels bolted on in that you only get things like shortcuts for a button presses whereas many text oriented interfaces offer more actions which are composites or which might not make sense in a visual presentation of the functionality.

Having said that, I think that the inertia of "good enough" is a real danger to the concept. The new user that uses the less efficient GUI aspects of the interface to learn quickly may not have much incentive to go the next step and work the keyboard oriented workflow into their muscle memory. Also, if you realize that issue, there's also the problem that if the keyboard interface were less used, there would be less incentive to fix issues or add features to it as the application changed. Rightfully, it could become less useful because of less attention. I can tell you that in practice I find it fairly uncommon to see staff using the keyboard capabilities insofar as it's already supported by their GUI applications.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#317

Post by AlbertoGP »

Waterluvian wrote: post #85

I think a killer GUI feature that I've never seen would be a log that shows you the text-based equivalent of every action you take.

One example is AutoCAD, where GUI actions get translated to commands and inserted in the command line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZoCJ-mUffs&t=4s

Edit: others have mentioned AutoCAD too in this discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26748281

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26748700

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#318

Post by DukeBaset »

nec4b wrote: post #312
bendiksolheim wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This might be the case for you, but please don’t mistake it for an objective truth. I find the terminal far superior for file manipulation than any of the graphical file explorers I…

Objectively nothing beats software such as Midnight Commander, Krusader, Total Commander,... for file manipulation. You can do common operations with single clicks or shortcuts and they also have the shell integrated for less common operations.

Two pane window managers with a third pane for previews because I keep downloading pdfs and shit and I really need to know what is inside pog3715.pdf

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#319

Post by sbuttgereit »

systems wrote: post #170
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 is your setup to save queries in file and run them, does psql support this model i use ssms for mssql, and i have a large solution with multiple projects i know datagrip can be used in the same way as ssms, but can you this be done using psql

You can use the .psqlrc for this purpose, though I suppose you could also real that in via a file on demand, too. You make entries something like:

  \set show_slow_queries
  'SELECT 
    (total_time / 1000 / 60) as total_minutes, 
    (total_time/calls) as average_time, query 
  FROM pg_stat_statements 
  ORDER BY 1 DESC 
  LIMIT 100;'
(got from https://www.craigkerstiens.com/2013/02/21/more-out-of-psql/)

and then later at the command prompt you access it as; ":show_slow_queries".

I have a few system queries like this in my .psqlrc file, but I don't do much which this feature often truth be told. I have a pretty strong knowledge of the database schema I work with, I do a lot of work on systems I don't regularly control so its not dependably available, and readline history suffices for more immediate needs.

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