command line vs gui
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From: Richard Steiner on 22 Nov 2005 02:04 Here in comp.os.linux.misc, Lee Sau Dan <danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de> spake unto us, saying: >>>>>> "Richard" =3D=3D Richard Steiner <rsteiner(a)visi.com> writes: > > Richard> It's true that old-school *NIX folks seem quite resistent > Richard> to the idea of putting anything between the user or > Richard> administrator and the good old command line, but the > Richard> concept was quite common in MS-DOS, and dozens of > Richard> different "filemanager" and "menu system" implementations > Richard> were created for DOS over the years, some of them > Richard> relatively sophisticated. > >That's because DOS never had a decent shell. (Well... I haven't tried >4DOS seriously, though.) You should. :-) I just discovered there's a *nix shell called vshnu that seems to be reproducing some of 4DOS's visual selection elements (the 4DOS "SELECT" command is the one thing I really miss on *nix systems), but it's just a start. http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~kinzler/vshnu/ The 4DOS "SELECT" command is the perfect compromise IMO -- it exists as an internal shell command, but it provides a fullscreen point-and-shoot selection interface which can be optionally invoked at will, embedded in shell scripts and aliases where approriate, etc. Adding a visual file selection interface to the unzip command in DOS is as easy as typing "select (*.zip) unzip". Alias that to "tunz" or something and you're all set. >Unix has been having very productive and powerful and useful shells >for decades. Now, with history and completion, those menu systems and >file managers simply look redundant. Try using midnight commander for a while -- I find that there are times when a visual point-and-shoot file selection system beats wildcarding, and I think it's also nice to be able to display the results of a mc find command in a panel and quickly bounce in and out of files living in diverse areas of the filesystem without having to explicitly "cd". "Virtual filesystems" are another thing Midnight Commander does very well. You can traverse the contents of a .tgz file by simply hitting <enter> on the .tgz file and moving around just like any directory, and it also provides a nice visual interface for FTP sites (entering "cd /#ftp:hostname/somedir" at the command prompt takes you there, and you can navigate and manipulate it just like a local filesystem). Of course, I spend most of my time outside of mc, or simple typing normal shell commands from inside it. It's a glorified CLI. -- -Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Mableton, GA USA OS/2 + eCS + Linux + Win95 + DOS + PC/GEOS + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven! WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it! The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
From: Richard Steiner on 22 Nov 2005 02:31 Here in comp.os.linux.misc, Lee Sau Dan <danlee(a)informatik.uni-freiburg.de> spake unto us, saying: >It's not hard to come up with a front-end to 'find'. e.g. > > Command: [find ] > Arg 1: [/home/foo ] > Arg 2: [-name ] > Arg 3: [*.txt ] > [Add More Args] [Go] This frightens me -- it reminds me of an IBM ISPF panel. :-) There are three places where I sometimes find a GUI more useful than a CLI, namely: - Directory tree navigation/exploration - Arbitrary file selection (either history or command arguments) - Cases where I have too many options to easily remember (program launching, or selecting from a large number of related functions of a relatively static nature) Most of the time I don't bother with the above, since I have aliases or simply use normal CLI command history searching or filename completion functions, but there are times it's nice to have a visual selection list present from which I can select one or more items. -- -Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Mableton, GA USA OS/2 + eCS + Linux + Win95 + DOS + PC/GEOS + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven! WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it! The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
From: Richard Steiner on 22 Nov 2005 02:15 Here in comp.os.linux.misc, Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/> spake unto us, saying: >Look here: >http://www.spack.org/wiki/InTheBeginningWasTheCommandLine I've been a heavy CLI user on more platforms than I can remember, and I generally live in fullscreen consoles at home in Linux and OS/2 and at work in Solaris and OS2200, but while I agree with the above article for the most part, it doesn't preclude (and really doesn't address) the use of hybrid interfaces like Midnight Commander and its kind. It also doesn't invalidate the use of menuing systems in appropriate places. Sometimes a finite number of options is appropriate. Thankfully, the UI world isn't quite so black-and-white, and things like ncurses exist to allow programmers to create sophisticated text interfaces (not just ones that use color, but also with optional pull- down menus, multiple display windows, settings dialogs, pop-up help windows, mouse support, etc.) that are keyboard-driven and err on the side of functionality over ease-of-learning but which also have a set of optional visual elements to aid in learning/using the program. Users of the Links web browser, NFTP, FTE, and various other text-based tools know what I mean. Midnight Commander, too. :-) Who else here remembers Telemate and its wonderful multi-windowed UI? -- -Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Mableton, GA USA OS/2 + eCS + Linux + Win95 + DOS + PC/GEOS + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven! WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it! The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
From: Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz on 22 Nov 2005 17:59 In <3u6i17FvgvtjU1(a)individual.net>, on 11/18/2005 at 05:40 PM, blmblm(a)myrealbox.com (blmblm(a)myrealbox.com) said: >Another way to say this (maybe -- or at least it's a point I'd make) >is that GUIs tend to be novice-friendly, ObPorgyAndBess Or at least to be advertised as novice-friendly. I've seen far too many that were user hostile, especially on web pages. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel> Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not reply to spamtrap(a)library.lspace.org
From: Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz on 22 Nov 2005 17:58
In <3u6eglFvkoi2U1(a)individual.net>, on 11/18/2005 at 04:40 PM, blmblm(a)myrealbox.com (blmblm(a)myrealbox.com) said: >Maybe I lack experience with really well-written GUIs -- very >possible since I'm a little fanatical about doing most things from a >command line. I did say that GUIs are good for some purposes. Can >you give an example of a GUI you think is "state of the art" >(whatever that means)? WPS in OS/2, although it could be improved. Possibly OpenDoc, had it not been stillborn. >Also, since some of the earlier post was specifically about the Unix >"find" command and whether it's feasible to build a GUI for it .... >How would you do this? I'd present a panel with al of the options, with subpanels for such purposes as providing help on specific option and displaying selection lists for file names. It would take a fair amount of work to do it right, but I've seen more complicated things. >Perfect programmer response. Guilty as charged ;-) >If you're making a point about poorly worded questions ("do you want >A or B?"), consider it made, and maybe you'd care to say *which* >of the two options you prefer. Both. >Or maybe your point was that it's a false dichotomy? Exactly. Part of good interface design is to make simple things easy without adding to the difficulty of more complicated things. That applies as much to a GUI as to anything else. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel> Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not reply to spamtrap(a)library.lspace.org |