command line vs gui
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From: carlysle on 15 Nov 2005 23:07 "Robert Heller" <heller(a)deepsoft.com> wrote in message news:cb820$437aadfb$cb248f0$1033(a)nf2.news-service.com > The only sort of 'unifying' interface is going to be an *intelligent* > voice-recognition / natural-language type of interface, ala Star Trek. I downloaded and installed the Star Trek voice recognition software from sourceforge.net, but it indicates a fatal error with "The ship's gonna blow in aboot 5 minutes."
From: Richard Steiner on 15 Nov 2005 23:10 Here in comp.os.linux.misc, "Chris F.A. Johnson" <cfajohnson(a)gmail.com> spake unto us, saying: > There have been other attempts to do this, but there are good > reasons they didn't catch on. It's true that old-school *NIX folks seem quite resistent to the idea of putting anything between the user or administrator and the good old command line, but the concept was quite common in MS-DOS, and dozens of different "filemanager" and "menu system" implementations were created for DOS over the years, some of them relatively sophisticated. I've seen both types of applications under different *nix environments as well. My current ISP provides a little point-and-shoot menu system called MSH for users as an optional initial shell on their Solaris shell server, which is very helpful for novice shell users, and mc (Midnight Commander) is relatively popular among Linux users (being a clone and functional superset of the old DOS-based Norton Commander filemanager). The idea of each is to suppliment the command line, not to replace it, and tools like mc do a very good job of coexisting with a standard shell while providing capabilities that are awkward if one is limited to only using standard shell scripts, aliases, etc. > I just read about two of them in an old (1988) book, Understanding > UNIX, A Conceptual Guide. It mentions ASSIST, "a menu-driven. > forms-based utility that helps the user construct Unix commands", > and Visual Shell in XENIX, "a menu-driven user interface patterned > after the MultiPlan spreadsheet". Heh. I'm afraid a *LOT* has happened in the world of text-based user interfaces since 1988. :-) > In order to be a viable alternative to the command line, a menu > system would have to be huge and unwieldly. Imagine writing a > front-end to a command such as find without emasculating it. Not really. It just has to serve its defined purpose while allowing authorized users to bypass it and use the real shell for more complex tasks. I generally create a sizable selection of shell scripts and aliases on any platform that I use (on the Unisys mainframe environment I work in, I have so many aliases that I had to create my own help system in order to keep them straight!), but there are still times when I find that a visual menu system or a filemanager-type application comes in handy. -- -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 15 Nov 2005 23:39 Here in comp.os.linux.misc, Bill Marcum <bmarcum(a)iglou.com> spake unto us, saying: >If you like DOSShell or Norton Commander, try mc. Another approach is the one used by UnixTree (an XTree clone): http://www.unixtree.org/ -- -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 15 Nov 2005 23:33 Here in comp.os.linux.misc, John Hasler <john(a)dhh.gt.org> spake unto us, saying: >Seb writes: > >> Can we get the best of both worlds with an interface using charts/fields >> of text? > >No. If he's talking about a tool like Midnight Commander, than I strongly disagree. Such tools can greatly enhance a user's (or adminstrator's) productivity, and they provide/combine both CLI and GUI elements. See sites such as http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/ or http://www.XTreeFanPage.org/ for more information. -- -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 15 Nov 2005 22:50
Here in comp.os.linux.misc, silicono2(a)yahoo.com spake unto us, saying: >I've had a Unix-using acquaintance tell me that he much preferred >command lines over GUI, even when using Windows. For all the advantages >of GUI I agree that it's much easier to issue a series of commands in a >command line or do something like "copy *.* a:" as well. Can we get the >best of both worlds with an interface using charts/fields of text? Depends on what you mean. Something like Midnight Commander, as one example, provides a command line plus a number of GUI elements in text mode (mouse support, pull-down menus, point-and-shoot operations, etc) and might fit your definition. >Of course you can argue that a fields/charts interface is in fact a >GUI, with "true" graphics simply replaced by ASCII graphics? You're referring to something like a curses interface (test-mode but with pull-down menus, resizable windows, etc? Yes, one could argue that it's a GUI. It uses graphical elements to define a user interface. -- -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. |