News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by willm on Thursday September 07, 2023 @11:15AM (#37420174)
I don't think the two use cases are mutually exclusive. You can have that keyboard driven muscle-memory workflow, while keeping things discoverable for users who haven't committed everything to memory.
Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by eterps on Thursday September 07, 2023 @11:21AM (#37420270)
Do you have examples where this is the case? In my experience, they've always seemed mutually exclusive.
Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by verdverm on Thursday September 07, 2023 @11:33AM (#37420466)
the TUI library for tcell has mouse support, though you see it more in tview (or one of the dozens of maintained forks)

I've already experimented with dropdown menus and minimizing sections. While I too love the TUI and keyboard driven experience, many want something they can click on, less overhead from every application having their own hotkeys. For me, it's about reaching more people, and the hope that I can bring more of them into the mouseless development experience

Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by eterps on Thursday September 07, 2023 @11:53AM (#37420840)
> many want something they can click on [...] it's about reaching more people

To me, these reasons underscore the need for a genuine GUI, rather than a TUI that requires users to open a terminal just to have something clickable.

Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by verdverm on Thursday September 07, 2023 @12:00PM (#37420963)
yeah, I've consigned myself to needing a GUI, but for the time being, iteration with a TUI is much faster. Our focus is also CUE, where working from the Go API unlocks way more possibilities. We get to keep the extra complexity of representing CUE constructs as JSON for sending on the wire. Though that GUI might be native and avoid all the web stuff anyway.
Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by nine_k on Thursday September 07, 2023 @12:54PM (#37421902)
Many TUI programs, e.g. Midnight Commander, can use mouse, but are perfectly operable with just a keyboard. Same with Emacs or Vim in terminal mode.

This is more about blending in among GUI tools, which is also important.

Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by eterps on Thursday September 07, 2023 @01:25PM (#37422402)
> This is more about blending in among GUI tools, which is also important.

This is what I find difficult to understand, why is that important? And to whom?

It made sense 35 years ago when MS-DOS was shipped by default and you just had to make do.

Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by nine_k on Thursday September 07, 2023 @01:46PM (#37422764)
Right now on my desktop I see 4 TUI windows, and 11 GUI windows.

A full-featured web browser or a video chat client can't be realistically made TUI. I could have run Emacs in TUI mode, but I appreciate variable font support in non-code texts I write.

Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by makapuf on Thursday September 07, 2023 @02:52PM (#37423803)
For the videochat client it could be one video window with several panes (PIP, main+side small, ...) with a textual interface for controls, chatting etc.
Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by Halfwhit on Thursday September 07, 2023 @11:32AM (#37420440)
Emacs?
Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by cptnapalm on Thursday September 07, 2023 @11:50AM (#37420781)
zellij
Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by p_l on Thursday September 07, 2023 @01:30PM (#37422505)
Older versions of AutoCAD (though even the most recent can't escape the REPL) are a good example.
Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by adamckay on Thursday September 07, 2023 @01:51PM (#37422832)
tmux. I know the keyboard shortcuts (that I customised) to create new windows and panes, and the shortcut to resize them all equally. I've not bothered to learn / remember the keyboard shortcuts to swap pane focus or resize individual panes because I've enabled mouse support and simply click where I want to focus and drag to resize.
Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by qup on Thursday September 07, 2023 @02:50PM (#37423773)
they're really easy defaults. like modifier and arrow key.
Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by chinchilla2020 on Thursday September 07, 2023 @01:58PM (#37422948)
AutoCAD is a great example of something that gives both options.

New users tend to get really involved with the buttons, but gradually shift to full text control over years.

Obviously in CAD sometimes you cannot enter coordinates and must grab the mouse... but it's still faster if you minimize use of the mouse.

Re:Textual Web: TUIs for the Web by gcr on Sunday September 10, 2023 @03:52PM (#37459335)
I've found Fusion 360 to be highly mouse-driven with frustratingly few keyboard shortcuts available. It feels borderline unusable without having one hand on the mouse at all times to select various operations, and the faux-pie menus are too contextual to be a great replacement.

Tools like Plasticity CAD¹ or Blender feel way more keyboard-friendly in this space.

[1]: https://www.plasticity.xyz/