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Description
This idea will probably dive like a broken torpedo, but eh, what the heck... I'm brainstorming here.
Make a new terminal application with dropdown menus for commands.
When you select a command, it shows the -h or --help text in a scrollable field at the top of the window and you get another dropdown for adding in dash "-" arguments or a browse button for adding files to the end of the arguement.
essentially, it would let you build command line strings without fear of misspelling, and with help text there to guide you along the way.
This might make the command line a little less scary for some.
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Cybercod wrote on the 13 Mar 08 at 15:17
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not quite easy enough
The reason for this idea is that the thing that scares most people away from Linux is the CLI. Hotwire is a good start, but it would need to be improved a lot.
Hmmm. I wonder how open the Hotwire devs are to suggestion.
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Cybercod wrote on the 13 Mar 08 at 15:47
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I downloaded hotwire and I joined their Google discussion group. I may have to start a separate project. But I think what I have in mind may just be worth the time and effort involved.
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cheesehead wrote on the 13 Mar 08 at 23:22
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I quite like the idea.
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Cybercod wrote on the 14 Mar 08 at 10:42
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Of COURSE this has a negative vote tally... I mean EVERYONE should have to buckle down and learn the CLI. If you don't learn the terminal, you don't deserve to participate in the awesomeness that is Linux!
NOT.
Have fun wiping and reinstalling your grandma's Windows box, she's definitely not letting you install Ubuntu because from what she's heard, Linux is for geeks only.
And that's how it is obviously going to stay for a long long time.
:-(
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hatdragon wrote on the 15 Mar 08 at 20:26
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I think that in general most Ubuntu (not necessarily other Linux) supporters subscribe to the philosophy that if something can be easily done in a GUI, then there should be a good GUI to allow that.
There are quite a number of things that are not easy or reasonable to represent in a GUI, and these advanced tasks require a terminal, or something like Hotwire.
The point is that [some of] the tasks that people do on the command line are inherently complex. Having drop-down menus containing hundreds of commands and dozens of flags won't make a terminal easier to use, and it might actually make it seem more overwhelming.
We try to ensure that my grandmother doesn't need to learn to use the command line to use Ubuntu just as well as Windows, getting away from the terminal completely for simple and day-to-day tasks. The rest of us who want to compile our own software and endlessly tweak our system find it pretty easy to learn the handful of commands we need.
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Cybercod wrote on the 16 Mar 08 at 01:54
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Well, I see what you are saying. I really do. But the idea that I have in my head merits some effort. And while you may think that what I have in mind would make it more overwhelming, I'm not entirely sure you have the same image in your head as I do.
So I'm going to chalk this up to "creative vision" and go after it.
If it works like I think it can, and it simplifies the command line for people, then awesome. If you're right then it is only my own time that I'm wasting.
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memristor wrote on the 4 Jun 08 at 20:51
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I think you're on to a real winner there Cybercod and I've voted you up, this could be an absolute boon for many users and even save developers of new utilities and wee apps the bother of creating a seperate GUI.
My experience of CLI apps is that they follow a standard:
Command flags strings
with meaning implicit in the positioning of flags and strings.
Where the string is a filepath straight away you save a lot of crap by offering a file dialog, maybe a version 2 can have bookmarks, key locations etc. and saving scripts for later re-use would be more convenient again.
The GUI can show the result of command -h/? and any man page, with full cli as a fallback if necessary, that way it becomes the default interface.
Thinking beyond my own competency here, I see hotwire is written in python which presents a barrier to universal adoption. Also there's the issue of KDE/Gnome/Xfce etc, so I'm wondering could your app be divided in two: a library that does the donkey work, and reference presentation interface which can be ported to other desktop environments?
Anyway the best of luck with this, I'll bookmark this page and check back for updates, consider me an early adopter.
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Endolith wrote on the 22 Aug 08 at 13:41
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Ideally, no one would ever have to use the terminal ever. It's inefficient and non-discoverable. But sometimes it's necessary, and we should make it more safe, more discoverable, and more informative for people who haven't already memorized "-xvcf" or "chmod 007".
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