Things I've learned building a modern TUI Framework (2022)

Why do software engineers care so much about TUI? I really don't get it. I love a good command line program. But TUI just doesn't appeal to me.

Each to their own. But running apps over SSH is a big plus. And some folk, like myself, enjoy the snappy keyboards focused experience that perhaps GUI apps could offer, but typically don't.

I guess, mainly because of nostalgia, back from the days TUIs were the only way to interact with computers.

Turbo Vision, curses and dialog were cool back in the 1990's.

Having started with computers in 1986, I really don't get the TUI fetisch, not even remote access is an issue, given X Windows, VNC, RDP, Citrix,... exist for decades.

Its great for running things in a terminal where you want more of a user interface than a CLI. Sometimes a TUI is faster and gives better oversight than a CLI.

It's the other ubiquitously installed cross-platform GUI toolkit other than the web.

Additionally, it has a hacker aesthetic. The styling is aggressively not separated from the content, and the styling knobs are pretty limited, so tui apps kind of converge on a single style. That style reminds us of hacker movies and cool sci-fi shit :)

It's not loved by corporate designers. Companies don't make sales based on their TUIs (to either businesses or consumers). So without those commercial pressures, tuis are designed by developers for developers.

Because of this, the meme of tuis self-reinforces. Developers see and use TUIs, notice that they are usually tools built with developers in mind, and then want to go on to make their own TUIs.

Having run X programs over network connections quite a bit, I'd say that they make sense for graphics stuff, and textual interfaces over SSH are significantly more responsive.

But once a fixed-width text grid stops being the right tool for the job, it's likely better to have a web UI.

I used xterm for such purposes.

Yes, I do agree the browser is the new X Windows / RDP client, on the modern timesharing systems.

There isn't much obvious benefit in using TUIs, but writing TUIs has a big upside: it's easier in most ways. It's trivially cross-platform, you don't have to make pixel-perfect GUIs (because it's impossible), you don't need icons or graphics (because you can't show graphics), etc.

Because you may have no issue using browsers with extended batteries + features.

How about displaying data on cli w/ textualize vs on an admin web interface.

I find it much easier + direct to use some py-orm w/ textualize.

On an admin interface you’d have to worry about auth + some js ui framework that prints your custom html directives to tables… that eventually display text.

Because I don't need a resource-heavy GUI for something as simple as a music player.

GUI is not intrinsically any more resource-heavy than TUI; ultimately you need to render stuff on screen somehow and get user input, and going through tty layer just is extra bloat.

I like TUIs because they are usually the exact opposite of the large range of UX fashions that absolutely suck, and have infected every other GUI app and website I use. The terminal is a breath of fresh “I’m not going to treat you like a moron” “more is more” “you’ll know if it’s a button” high contrast air.

That's the main reason. TUI programs can be created quickly, and they're mostly developer-oriented, so they just need to be useful enough and don't need to be optimized as much as a GUI program.

It isn't extra bloat when you are already using that layer for other things and also doesn't require any extra packages or connections on your side of things.

Specifically when dealing with remote environments where you connect to through ssh anyway it is really awesome when some things can be done through a nice TUI. In that context a GUI would actually be more resource heavy considering that it likely will be web based with much more client side processing happening for the GUI.

I use CLI heavily but some tasks GUI suits better and TUI is a middle ground between GUI and CLI - you can continue using your terminal emulator with you favorite font but have a GUI like interface. Also all TUI applications I've used have low response time. Most GUI apps are also has fast interface (most of the time) but all frustratingly slow apps I've used were GUI apps.

> GUI is not intrinsically any more resource-heavy than TUI

Okay well, maybe you should tell that to the GUI developers :P

> X Windows, VNC, RDP, Citrix,... exist for decades.

Yeah but those are all awful. I mean, okay, they work almost okay with a wired network connection and on the same network.

But as soon as you hit the WAN and you throw wifi in there it's painful. Having noticeable latency and graphical artifacts does, in my opinion, hurt productivity. For those pieces of software where completing tasks as fast and accurately as possible is the most important goal, TUIs are great. Especially when you have comprehensive keyboard shortcuts. If you've ever seen an office worker rip through a TUI underwriting a loan, you'll know what I mean.