Text User Interfaces

Related to Command-Line Interface
🤖explains
Perplexity AI
explains
Text User Interfaces
Libraries or applications that live entirely within the terminal, such as
Yazi
or
Neovim
, are typically referred to as
Text User Interfaces (TUIs)
or
Console User Interfaces (CUIs)
. These applications provide a user interface that is rendered using text characters, often using libraries like
ncurses
,
blessed
, or
Ratatui
to manage the display and input within the terminal environment.

Key Features of TUIs:

  • Text-based interface: The entire user experience is presented using text characters.
  • Terminal control: These applications often use terminal control libraries to manage the display and input.
  • Interactive: Users can interact with TUIs using keyboard and sometimes mouse input.

Examples of TUI Applications:

  • Yazi: A terminal file manager written in Rust.
  • Neovim: A text editor that runs in the terminal.
  • htop: A system monitoring tool that provides a text-based interface.

Libraries Used for TUI Development:

  • ncurses: A classic library for creating TUIs, widely used in C applications.
  • Ratatui: A Rust library for building TUIs.
  • blessed: A Node.js library for creating TUIs.
These libraries and applications are designed to provide efficient, text-based interfaces that can be used directly within terminal emulators or windows.

Citations:

  1. https://github.com/rothgar/awesome-tuis
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curses_(programming_library)
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_emulator
  4. https://github.com/sxyazi/yazi
  5. https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/134z4s8/what_programming_language_libraries_are_terminal/
  6. https://theari.dev/blog/helix-vs-neovim/
  7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command-line_interface
  8. https://www.reddit.com/r/neovim/comments/1aypx83/except_neovim_and_terminal_what_other_programs_do/
  9. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/439799/whats-a-good-java-curses-like-library-for-terminal-applications
  10. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28306266/how-to-set-a-program-to-run-in-linux-terminal-only-with-program-name
  11. https://itsfoss.com/terminal-file-managers/
  12. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400997/can-anyone-explain-to-me-the-difference-between-terminal-apps-cli-clt-and-prom
  13. https://github.com/agarrharr/awesome-cli-apps
  14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKb3cHDD9hw
  15. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8547033/how-to-write-an-application-that-uses-the-terminal-as-gui-in-c
  16. https://www.reddit.com/r/commandline/comments/yplty5/help_me_understand_command_line_applications/
  17. https://tonisagrista.com/blog/2024/on-neovim-and-helix/
  18. https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/cli/
  19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXu428tLhdE
  20. https://undinealmani.com/terminal-for-beginners/
Answer from Perplexity: pplx.ai/share