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WebTUI – A CSS Library That Brings the Beauty of Terminal UIs to the Browser

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Re: WebTUI – A CSS Library That Brings the Beauty of Terminal UIs to the Browser

#111

Post by mrighele »

sgt wrote: post #75
rollcat wrote: post #22

I don't understand the obsession with 1980s terminals. They're even less powerful than the contemporary 8-bit home computers. It's perfectly OK to be a retro enthusiast, it's another thing to claim that this is the peak tech to power our modern CLIs, or a solid foundation for portable UIs. From the docs: Stop thinking in standard CSS units like px, em, rem, % Start thinking in Character Cells for spacing, sizing, and…

Occasionally when you see someone using a point of sale terminal that is terminal based, the operator usually flies through the interface like it's nothing. So there's something to be said about those types of interfaces - it may look simple and be text based, but it's the most user friendly for the qualified operator to get things done.

That has nothing to do with the interface being a terminal, but with the primary input method being a keyboard instead of a pointing device.

You could get the same result with a graphical interface, as long as you provide proper keyboard based navigation. The web browser provide all the capabilities that you need for that.

The nice part of a text based ui is that you have a simpler device to use for rendering, so things like layout is easier, as long as you remain in the domain of what the device allows for.

Re: WebTUI – A CSS Library That Brings the Beauty of Terminal UIs to the Browser

#112

Post by sva_ »

rollcat wrote: post #43
godelski wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obsession is because it is still the best. For all its faults, I'm still terminally terminal. The beauty of it is in the utility and how it becomes so natural. It's a language you learn that gives you so much freedom you cannot find anywhere else. I've tried many IDEs but I'll always come back to vim. It might have taken time to learn but this is true for anything else. I didn't learn a tool, I learned a language…

> I've tried many IDEs but I'll always come back to vim. Vim and Emacs both have GUIs. As an Emacs user, I subjectively find the GUI superior - I can e.g. rebind Cmd-S to "save", and that's a reason enough. > It's a language you learn [...] You mean the serial lines and ANSI escape codes and termcap? I would say it's more like pidgin with a dozen obscure dialects, and a body language on top. Try writing a portable TU…

> By contrast, on macOS it's Cmd-Q; on Windows, it's Alt-F4; and so on. Innovation happens on stable foundations, not by pulling rugs.

That's the window manager of the respective systems though. On i3, I can also kill any window by pressing Option-Shift-q. But that's more like the sledgehammer approach and not how I'd close a text editor on any system ...

Re: WebTUI – A CSS Library That Brings the Beauty of Terminal UIs to the Browser

#113

Post by godelski »

dullcrisp wrote: post #91
__float wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's objectively more difficult to type [on a qwerty keyboard]. cmd-s is a single keypress and can be done with a single hand. shift-; w cr is two more and involves a back and forth over the entire keyboard.

I use two hands to type, but if I only had use of one I’d probably use a different key sequence, or more likely a different input method.

To support this claim I'd like to give a common example in vim. Everyone hates `esc`, right? Well I use `` instead. Yeah, that's control plus left bracket. 2 keys! But this is a hell of a lot easier that lifting my hand from the keyboard to reach to the top left corner. I just drop my left pinky slightly and move my right ring finger slightly. Both actions are quite normal in how I just type and my wrists never lift. Using two hands is what makes it easy. I neither type with a single finger, I use every one of them. :w is not hard because :w might as well be one key (plus I'm always hitting : so the action "burns in" as any constant motion does), w is just a normal key requiring very little movement from my rest state, same as pressing enter (pinky).

I'll give the parent that this is slightly harder than but they got the right conclusion for the wrong reasons. But if that trivial extra effort is what's required for what I can do in vim, I'll gladly make that trade. I love my panes, buffers, windows, completion (see :h ins-completion), my visual mode, my search, my replace (way more powerful than many think), my tags that allow me to walk through the program, and how I can effortlessly move my cursor around the screen and around the document. It takes far less effort to move my cursor to where I want than it is to lift my hand and grab the mouse. I love that I can open all files in my project while my computer doesn't even blink, and I can do some refactors of all my code with a single line. No IDE has ever come close to giving me these abilities and I haven't even mentioned the half of it.

Re: WebTUI – A CSS Library That Brings the Beauty of Terminal UIs to the Browser

#114

Post by Vegenoid »

mrighele wrote: post #111
sgt wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occasionally when you see someone using a point of sale terminal that is terminal based, the operator usually flies through the interface like it's nothing. So there's something to be said about those types of interfaces - it may look simple and be text based, but it's the most user friendly for the qualified operator to get things done.

That has nothing to do with the interface being a terminal, but with the primary input method being a keyboard instead of a pointing device. You could get the same result with a graphical interface, as long as you provide proper keyboard based navigation. The web browser provide all the capabilities that you need for that. The nice part of a text based ui is that you have a simpler device to use for rendering, so thi…

Agreed that a GUI can be just as keyboard-friendly as a good TUI, but it would seem natural that restricting things to a grid of characters encourages keyboard interaction, whereas allowing arbitrary placement of elements at the pixel level encourages mouse interaction.

Re: WebTUI – A CSS Library That Brings the Beauty of Terminal UIs to the Browser

#116

Post by nickandbro »

godelski wrote: post #14
nickandbro wrote: post #11

This is the UI I would have used for my hobby project, vimgolf.ai if I knew about it sooner! Though for certain sections of the site, I might just be able to use it. Great work!

Why does this ask for a login when I click on "motions". Sorry but insta pass for me

Because I have to spin up a neovim instance for every user on the backend, I only allow authenticated users to gate the amount of users at this time. I am going to adjust the site more to reflect that as it’s more of interactive experience rather that a vim tips site.

Re: WebTUI – A CSS Library That Brings the Beauty of Terminal UIs to the Browser

#117

Post by wruza »

rollcat wrote: post #22

I don't understand the obsession with 1980s terminals. They're even less powerful than the contemporary 8-bit home computers. It's perfectly OK to be a retro enthusiast, it's another thing to claim that this is the peak tech to power our modern CLIs, or a solid foundation for portable UIs. From the docs: Stop thinking in standard CSS units like px, em, rem, % Start thinking in Character Cells for spacing, sizing, and…

Because it's how normal people think. This under that. This after that, left-aligned with that. Text modes are the most basic tech supporting it.

Css uses boxing with no sugar (like size groups or custom allocation). Boxing is this in that in that in that, sometimes stretched. And now when you want A and B in different boxes to align well, you're screwed, cause it creates an invisible fragile tree of braces that hold everything in place.

Maybe they would use a much more natural constraints-based language instead of text modes. Like, literally, "this under that, and these five left- and width-aligned". But web is reluctant to add it, because when not used carefully it could slow down first interactive renders by 0.01% out of average 10s (that is, assuming the same moronic site structure for some reason and the code that renders it).

Re: WebTUI – A CSS Library That Brings the Beauty of Terminal UIs to the Browser

#119

Post by EasyMark »

sgt wrote: post #75
rollcat wrote: post #22

I don't understand the obsession with 1980s terminals. They're even less powerful than the contemporary 8-bit home computers. It's perfectly OK to be a retro enthusiast, it's another thing to claim that this is the peak tech to power our modern CLIs, or a solid foundation for portable UIs. From the docs: Stop thinking in standard CSS units like px, em, rem, % Start thinking in Character Cells for spacing, sizing, and…

Occasionally when you see someone using a point of sale terminal that is terminal based, the operator usually flies through the interface like it's nothing. So there's something to be said about those types of interfaces - it may look simple and be text based, but it's the most user friendly for the qualified operator to get things done.

once those keys become muscle memory no mouse driven interface will ever repair lol. I used to work best buy and they had a bunch of backend inventory/database stuff and I could absolutely fly through those. I used be able to do the same with wordperfect as well. now all those skills and muscle memory..... gone like tears in the rain.

Re: WebTUI – A CSS Library That Brings the Beauty of Terminal UIs to the Browser

#120

Post by wruza »

__float wrote: post #81
dullcrisp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm I just use :w to save in my graphical editors too. It’s easier to type.

No, it's objectively more difficult to type [on a qwerty keyboard]. cmd-s is a single keypress and can be done with a single hand. shift-; w cr is two more and involves a back and forth over the entire keyboard.

Good thing you can bind arbitrarily complex action to a key/combination in a programmable editor and avoid this semantic fuss whatsoever.
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