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Why is the terminal input so weird?

warp.dev

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Re: Why is the terminal input so weird?

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app is 100% free for any and all individuals. The business plan is to create collaborative and cloud-based features that businesses will be willing to pay for. Please check out our pricing page to learn more. Please note that our business model is not about collecting and monetizing any of your personal data. https://www.warp.dev/privacy

of so if it's 100% free, where's the source code?

That would be libre

Re: Why is the terminal input so weird?

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you prefer it to be? Audio recording of spoken words? Diagrams like Labview?

Code is really a tree of stuff. There are are somewhat more powerful editing paradigms for trees than bare text. The editor I'm imagining looks and works a lot like your typical code view, but has a better understanding of the semantics and makes things there are keyboard shortcuts for more visible. From the top of my head: First-class code folding and commenting and actions primarily on blocks rather than lines. e.g…

Sounds like emacs paredit mode. I tried to learn it, but in the end I waved the white flag and went back to vimming through invalid states to achieve the next valid one.

Re: Why is the terminal input so weird?

#84
I like the idea of Warp, but I just can't get past the whole "login required to use a terminal" thing. If you force a login to use your closed-source app, beta or not, I'm sorry, but I can't take any commitment to privacy you make seriously whatsoever. No matter how well-intentioned you may be. That well's been poisoned beyond redemption by far worse people than you and there's just no going back.

Now if that login required barrier was removed, I'd at least be willing to give it a try. May not switch, but I'd be willing to give it a chance. But as it stands? Hard pass.

Re: Why is the terminal input so weird?

#85
As a casual terminal user, I have found Warp to be a nice improvement over standard terminals. Although most of the issues raised in this article can be addressed with various shortcuts, it is nice to not have to remember these when I only pull up the terminal a couple times a week.

Re: Why is the terminal input so weird?

#86

What I don’t like is the non-ergonomic way that text scrolls. If three lines appear then the cursor is moved down three lines. I’m always craning my neck to try and find where the input cursor is just to reset it constantly to the “top” of the screen. I’d love it if I could just “glue” it to the bottom or top so output doesn’t change its location constantly.

You can use a VT100 escape to force the prompt to the bottom by moving the cursor to line 999 col 0:

  \[\033[999;0f\]

Re: Why is the terminal input so weird?

#87
post #80

A lot of those complaints are non issues with the default terminal in MacOS. Option + mouse click moves the cursor to where ever, control+a|e move to the beginning or end of the line, option+arrow jumps words, and the arrows navigate up and down lines just fine... What am I missing?

You're missing the fact that those shortcuts are not discoverable.

Re: Why is the terminal input so weird?

#89

A lot of macOS users are suckers for any sort of themed-up applications that can be replicated in their normal setups without any extra software, had they just bothered to RTFM.

You're not wrong but historically a lot of money has been made selling thing to people who don't RTFM. I mean a lot.

Re: Why is the terminal input so weird?

#90
Let me mention MPW - The Macintosh Programmer's Workshop for classic MacOS. The shell was a text editor, just like the text editor for editing code. When you hit enter (or command-return) it evaluated the current line or selection. Command results were included in the document. (This was strictly a dumb terminal so there were no vt100 escape codes or such to mess up the display)

If you were confused about the command arguments you could run commando (or use … as an argument) to bring up a GUI to select the flags.

The Eddie text editor for BeOS and now MacOS X/XI/XII/XIII has a similar text-editor/shell hybrid.

http://www.el34.com

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