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

webtui.ironclad.sh

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

#41

Post by eMPee584 »

imiric wrote: post #32

Ah, wonderful. It even mimics the empty rectangles when a font doesn't contain a glyph... This is neat, but no, stop it. TUIs are an abomination of design that poorly mimic actually beautiful UIs. They look the way they do because of inherent constraints of the terminal, not because their authors particularly wanted them to look like that. So bringing that design language to a platform that does support rich UIs is a…

TUIs are memory-friendly tools for complex tasks and have a different UX feel (can be more comfortable, clear & informative, accessible) to pure CLI or native/web apps. I for one am extremely happy there's a thriving terminal ecosystem, nowadays with colors, icons (nerdfonts), emojis, mouse support, widget layouts.. even sixels and smooth scrolling..

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

#42

Post by freehorse »

wiseowise wrote: post #36
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…

GP talks about how you develop those TUIs, not TUIs themselves. Web model is objectively better than ‘’’ Stop thinking in standard CSS units like px, em, rem, % Start thinking in Character Cells for spacing, sizing, and positioning ‘’’

It is a different design decision. You do not have to choose all capabilities of modern browsers when you do sth.

Of course nobody would expect this to take off largely. But aesthetically speaking, I see nothing wrong in the design per se. It is clean, consistent, light and minimalist-like. Terminals just provide a minimalist style that is tested and also familiar to some. It is very easy to get around the website. Pages load fast.

The main drawback I see is lack of multimedia support, obviously (even if supported they would be a bit out of style). But that's not a problem if you do not care about that. And that it is hard to place ads.

Sure, "Web model is objectively better" but also depends what one considers as "web model" because a lot of modern web is just a bloated mess, which I find more annoying thaν a project like this.

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

#43

Post by rollcat »

godelski wrote: post #33
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…

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 TUI application from scratch, without touching curses or termbox. https://viewsourcecode.org/snaptoken/kilo/>

Or do you mean, how to drive a TUI application from the keyboard? Here's the painful truth: you can't quit a TUI application without learning it. In vi, it's "Esc-q!-Enter", in Emacs it's "C-x C-c", in screen it's "C-a C-\", in tmux it's "C-a C-d", and so on. Maybe pressing "q" or F10 or C-d will work, but good luck guessing. This is just to quit, and ironically - it's only the start.

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.

> It's not a one size tool for all. There is no product that can be made for everyone. [...] Everyone's dotfiles are as unique as they themselves are.

You know non-TUI applications are also customisable? I have Hammerspoon scripts, a dozen custom keybindings in macOS, .xsession+.Xdefaults+.Xresources, .gitconfig (I use git via Emacs+Magit), various .config/*'s (for e.g. sway), .emacs (bankrupted several times), and so on - none of these are TUI applications.

Or do you mean the command line? I believe we can build a better REPL than a terminal emulator. Emacs is a decent PoC, you can also have a look at Swift Playgrounds. Maybe we can build a generic non-terminal REPL where Ctrl-C means "copy", and Ctrl-V means "paste", that would be a great start.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy if you're happy, I just don't understand the collective obsession. These tools exist, which is great, but we deserve better.

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

#44

Post by pfg_ »

rvz wrote: post #40
imiric wrote: post #32

Ah, wonderful. It even mimics the empty rectangles when a font doesn't contain a glyph... This is neat, but no, stop it. TUIs are an abomination of design that poorly mimic actually beautiful UIs. They look the way they do because of inherent constraints of the terminal, not because their authors particularly wanted them to look like that. So bringing that design language to a platform that does support rich UIs is a…

Hmm, Not really convinced. I like TUIs and also the aesthetic of them. Much faster to use on a keyboard than point clicking all over the place with a mouse on the screen or typing the long commands and flags and forgetting a single flag and having to typing it once again.

If you forget a flag, can't you move your cursor and add the flag? No need to type the whole command again

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

#45

Post by rollcat »

wiseowise wrote: post #36
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…

GP talks about how you develop those TUIs, not TUIs themselves. Web model is objectively better than ‘’’ Stop thinking in standard CSS units like px, em, rem, % Start thinking in Character Cells for spacing, sizing, and positioning ‘’’

> Web model is objectively better than [...]

Hard disagree. Modern web browsers are incredibly complex beasts that evolved by amalgamating decades of experimentation, poor non-standards, and elaborate counter-measures to fix that mess. I recommend reading https://browser.engineering>, or even just building Chromium from source, to gain some appreciation. Most applications would benefit from something much simpler. But it's often practical to use as it is, pretty much exactly like terminal emulators.

The main difference being, terminal emulators are still several orders of magnitude less complex than web browsers, but in spite of that still require a lot of complexity to undo the side-effects of having a serial line between the CPU and the character grid. If you like monospaced fonts and character grids, you can probably render that with plain SDL, bitmap fonts with indexed sprite sheets (no Freetype), and in return get non-broken copy & paste, or even a dock icon. You know, the MVP of GUI.

Try https://lite-xl.com>, it builds its GUI straight on top of SDL.

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

#46

Post by santiagobasulto »

imiric wrote: post #32

Ah, wonderful. It even mimics the empty rectangles when a font doesn't contain a glyph... This is neat, but no, stop it. TUIs are an abomination of design that poorly mimic actually beautiful UIs. They look the way they do because of inherent constraints of the terminal, not because their authors particularly wanted them to look like that. So bringing that design language to a platform that does support rich UIs is a…

> TUIs are an abomination of design that poorly mimic actually beautiful UIs

My mother used to have an early "digital company" back in the 90s in Argentina. We are from a small town in the "Patagonia region"[0] and there was only 1 programmer in the whole town. The guy was a huge nerd that had spent some time studying in Buenos Aires.

Long story short, my mother hired this kid to build software for him. This is around 1992 so it was all DOS.

This guy built a full TUI software with CRUD operation, reporting, "cron jobs" (some stuff that I never understood but would run every night), printing, etc.

Until this day I remember the people working at my mother's company how they just FLEW over the software. It was all keyboard and hotkeys. They'd just go back and forth, print stuff, enter data, connect with the Fax machine, all with their keyboard in this black screen full of green, white and orange glyphs.

I NEVER found any other software that is SO powerful and efficient and user friendly as TUIs.

[0] The "true" Patagonia region in the East of Arg.

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

#47

Post by dullcrisp »

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…

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

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

#48

Post by troupo »

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…

The obsession is with information-dense quick-to-use low-latency interfaces that are nearly impossible to replicate with most modern tools [1]

Whether libraries like this one manage to replicate the experience is a whole other question.

[1] Just look at what modern tools FilePilot and RAD Debugger can do with their UIs and compare that to nearly every single one of modern apps.

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

#49

Post by troupo »

rollcat wrote: post #45
wiseowise wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP talks about how you develop those TUIs, not TUIs themselves. Web model is objectively better than ‘’’ Stop thinking in standard CSS units like px, em, rem, % Start thinking in Character Cells for spacing, sizing, and positioning ‘’’

> Web model is objectively better than [...] Hard disagree. Modern web browsers are incredibly complex beasts that evolved by amalgamating decades of experimentation, poor non-standards, and elaborate counter-measures to fix that mess. I recommend reading https://browser.engineering >, or even just building Chromium from source, to gain some appreciation. Most applications would benefit from something much simpler. B…

> If you like monospaced fonts and character grids, you can probably render that with plain SDL

You don't even need SDL https://github.com/cmuratori/refterm

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

#50

Post by imiric »

santiagobasulto wrote: post #46
imiric wrote: post #32

Ah, wonderful. It even mimics the empty rectangles when a font doesn't contain a glyph... This is neat, but no, stop it. TUIs are an abomination of design that poorly mimic actually beautiful UIs. They look the way they do because of inherent constraints of the terminal, not because their authors particularly wanted them to look like that. So bringing that design language to a platform that does support rich UIs is a…

> TUIs are an abomination of design that poorly mimic actually beautiful UIs My mother used to have an early "digital company" back in the 90s in Argentina. We are from a small town in the "Patagonia region"[0] and there was only 1 programmer in the whole town. The guy was a huge nerd that had spent some time studying in Buenos Aires. Long story short, my mother hired this kid to build software for him. This is aroun…

That's great, but keyboard shortcuts are not exclusive to TUIs. GUIs can be just as powerful in that sense, and most advanced web apps support keyboard navigation. My objection is mainly to the claim that TUIs are beautiful, and to the effort of bringing their design to the web. But this is ultimately down to personal preferences, and others may disagree.
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