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Description
There are thousands of commands without a GUI and not everyone is comfortable with the command line. It would be a huge undertaking to create a GUI for all the command line utilities unless you had a way to automate it.
My idea is to create a program that reads man pages and automatically create Glade XML GUI files. Essentially converting one mark-up, nroff to another, XML. The translation would be intelligent and it could generate a HIGified GUI, input validation and provide a file selection dialog when the command accepts a file name as a parameter for example.
Along with the translator, there would be a helper program that would display the GUI and run the commands with the appropriate switches and provide user feedback on the execution of the command.
Man pages could be updated to provide hints to the translator and we could have a GUI translation specification that man page authors would follow for compliant man pages.
Not only would we be able to have a GUI that works exactly as advertised in the man page but it would automatically be documented.
Creating and Formatting Man Pages
http://www.fnal.gov/docs/products/ups/ReferenceManual/html/manpages.html
The Glade project
http://glade.gnome.org/
(H)uman (I)nterface (G)uidelines
http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/
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glibik wrote on the 23 Jun 08 at 01:50
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> > and not everyone is comfortable with
When I wasn't comfortable with driving a car on a public road, I went to get driving lessons so that I could L-E-A-R-N to drive.
I don't understand what is happening with people in recent years. It seems that very few people are prepared to look at something and be prepared to _learn_ about it. It seems everything must be dumbed down to the maximum possible extent so that use requires no intellectual effort at all.
Is this a valid observation, or am I just having a bad day?
As for using the end product of this 'idea'; It seems to me that using these GUIs would be horribly slow compared with the original command line tool. :-(
Seems also that shell scripts would become completely unusable. Or am I reading it wrong? :-\
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Tree MendUs wrote on the 23 Jun 08 at 02:28
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Hi Flammon.
I fully support your concept, and largely support your suggested approach.
See my similar concept about 5 days before;
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/9988/
@glibik
You might find how shell scripts would not only be ensured of not becoming "unusable", but how they would become "more usable", and also more used.
I fully appreciate how unpopular this genre of idea is, because its THE most unpopular idea that I have submitted.
Never the less - I think it is very good.
==================
On the matter of the metaphor of cars,
and this could apply to many advancements.
Car - horse drawn, steam, petrol, diesel, alternative fuel, or electric?
Transmission - manual (crash-box, or clutch) or automatic?
Cab - open, soft or hard top, enclosed with glass, wind down windows (electric).
Comfort - foot rest, sprung seat, glove box, cigarette lighter, heater, air conditioner, radio, tv, nav unit.
Safety - handkerchief and scarf, raincoat, handle to hold on to, safety belt, safety glass, dash board padding, flexible steering wheel.
If manufacturers stuck to the concept - a car is a car - it gets you from A to B - how many of these very convenient advancements would have been made. They all help make driving "easier" And "more enjoyable".
In case it may have gone without noticing, some people treat the modern transport systems as a form of recreation.
Say lets go for a drive.
I agree with needing to learn how to drive.
But there' not many people get asked to tune their engine as part of their license.
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flammon wrote on the 23 Jun 08 at 11:33
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Hi Tree MendUs, I can't believe I missed your idea. I guess this is a dupe with a couple of tweaks. Seems like my shorter description is getting more votes, but you're right, it is not a very popular idea in this corner of the woods. I'm itching to write this thing as a proof of concept.
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flammon wrote on the 23 Jun 08 at 12:05
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@glibik: Going along with your analogy, I prefer to take the train and work on my laptop or read a book than to drive.
Ubuntu has already attracted the technical crowd and now is trying to attract the rest which is mostly made up of people who are more interested in getting something done than learning how to get it done.
You can still learn all the parameters of the command from the GUI. I envision the GUI will allow you to see the composed command and let you edit it as you would from the command line. You could also save the command for later and perhaps generate scripts from the new composed commands.
I think that for rarely used commands, the GUI would be faster because of the integrated help. Flipping between the man page and the command line is really not that fast unless you have a large monitor and can run terminal side by side.
None of the commands would change so no script would be affected. The GUI would need to be called explicitly. For example the name of the program could be called "gui" and to see the GUI of a command, you would run
$ gui mencoder
or
$ gui convert
The /usr/bin/gui program would display the GUI interface of the command.
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glibik wrote on the 26 Jun 08 at 04:46
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... or even
$ gui scp
For simple commands, this could work quite well, possibly better than "man scp". Do I assume that when the user has finished with /usr/bin/gui and is ready to actually execute the command, /usr/bin/gui would disappear and drop the command onto the line in the shell?
Am now wondering, how would /usr/bin/gui handle not-so-simple commands? For instance, I often use a combination of ssh and tar to backup file systems on a remote computer to another because the remote computer doesn't have enough disc to store the backup.
Vote = +1
@Tree MendUs
Not sure I quite follow the metaphor. I only wanted to learn to drive the car, I already knew how to tune it. :)
On the subject of transmission: Manual only, far too much control is lost with automatic.
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flammon wrote on the 27 Jun 08 at 01:43
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@glibik - Yes, once the command completes, you would be brought back to the shell.
Redirection and piping could get interesting. On the GUI you could have a pipe/redirect button that when clicked would open a frame containing the glade gui of the command that you want to pipe/redirect to and it would give you a nice visual representation of the data flow. The redirection could be to another file as well so a drop down would see appropriate here to either select another command or a file. It would also be cool to be able to save the whole pipeline of commands and be able to reload it at a later time.
Please, don't stop the brainstorming for this idea, I think that it has potential. I'm really enjoying the feedback so don't hesitate to post your vision.
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pierrem-m wrote on the 8 Aug 08 at 16:04
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Re glibik's post -
"When I wasn't comfortable with driving a car on a public road, I went to get driving lessons so that I could L-E-A-R-N to drive.
I don't understand what is happening with people in recent years. It seems that very few people are prepared to look at something and be prepared to _learn_ about it. It seems everything must be dumbed down to the maximum possible extent so that use requires no intellectual effort at all.
Is this a valid observation, or am I just having a bad day?"
I regret to say that it might be the "bad day" option and it certainly would be if you were talking to my Partner. Her philosophy is "I just want computers to work".
Any suggestion to her that she had to learn command line to use her computer (Running Hairy quite satisfactorily for her by the way!) would result in a very rude suggestion as to where you could put the computer.
And she is just the sort of person who needs to be wooed over to the Linux (and preferably Ubuntu) camp.
It's all very well to point out that the command line is faster and more powerful than a GUI (both true I suspect) but this will only make the "I use Windows and it works for me" people (i.e. the great majority of PC Users) eyes glaze over and then make them walk away with another potential Convert lost to the rich and wonderful world of Linux.
I should point out that I'm no stranger to CLI myself. Having a CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) means I'm all too familiar with it but I also know that the human brain is hard-wired to work best with pictures not words. (Which is why most people find it easier to watch TV rather than read a book for instance)
If we in Linuxland ever want to knock the evil empire off it's perch then we have to adopt the GO GUI approach because if we don't then Windoze will continue on top!
To continue glibik's learning to drive metaphor let me pose the following question -
If it was mandatory not only to learn to drive (and learn the road law etc) but also mandatory that we each had to have a comprehensively setup vehicle repair and servicing centre built at our homes and we all had to do the relevant Manufacturer's Mechanics Servicing Course for our vehile(s) (and keep it up to date) would any of us bother learning how to drive?
I somehow doubt it very much indeed!
This idea of flammons's is a bloody marvellous one and worthy of a lot of support and please count me in!!!
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