You can type in 'fir' and hit TAB and probably 'firefox' gets completed depending what's installed on your system. Now it would be sweet to key in a dash (-) to indicate you wish to input a switch and then either hit TAB to see all available switches for the command or type in, say 'prof' and then hit TAB to have it complete the wanted switch. (i.e. just like it now does with commands or file names)
I feel like terminal doesn't have to be so un-user-friendly.
When something in terminal is misspelled, or I accidentally leave off a number or something, the entire command is wrong. What's worse, leaving off a letter or number can dramatically change the entire meaning of the command.
(For instance, one time while trying to mount my iPod, the command was misinterpreted and the iPod was reformatted to Fat16)
I feel like I'm still in the '80s here, and it doesn't have to be this way. If a command is entered in wrong and it's a really long command, several minutes of proofreading must be spent going over the code. With this idea, I feel like the terminal would not only be easier to use, but a whole lot more interactive.
Idk any suggestions or comments?
Anything like this already out there?
When using the up arrow to use a command previously used in the terminal, it can take a long time until you finally get it. This is mainly a problem if you are not sure of the command syntax (and that is why you are looking for it in the history).
There is an on-going battle between the hard-core linux users and the newbies migrating from windows about the usability of the terminal. One camp maintains that if you're gonna migrate then you gotta learn, the other camp has spent a lifetime using an OS that hasn't required anything of the sort. Each has a valid opinion, and until there is an easy way to learn the terminal there will not be a large influx of users from the GUI world, and until those users learn the terminal they will never get the help they really need from the purists.