5 ms·

Ask HN: What command line interface do you wish had a graphical user interface?

10 points by yanokwa 10y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=11705510 asks the reverse.

Artlav 10y ago
Git, without a question. There is the TortoiseGit on Windows which makes Git USABLE. On *nix there is nothing even remotely as good, unfortunately.
- Zekio 10y ago
  git kraken seems okay, not used it much, but check it out
  - Artlav 10y ago
    Call me odd, but their site trips my billboard filters. I look at it and get the same feeling one gets when some ad pops up - "close the tab". False advertisement - their "with no dependencies" turned into hunting for dependencies with ldd and error messages. Should have said "with no list of dependencies". Then it started, hung at "checking-for-update" and won't budge for 15 minutes already. Not looking good so far.
- smt88 10y ago
  SmartGit. It's way, way, way better than Tortoise.
  - Artlav 10y ago
    Yeah, it's one of the better ones. It's good enough to do stuff, but still leaves a feeling of being severely underfeatured wrt Tortoise. Small things: -File comparison tool is unusable - the relative floating sides make it impossible to see non-trivial changes. -No graph view to see branch dependencies -No exporting a commit from history into a zip file -No changed line count for quick look at where the significant changes are -Maybe more, don't remember the all of it The total on the small things makes it a barely usable tool.
    - smt88 10y ago
      > File comparison tool is unusable - the relative floating sides make it impossible to see non-trivial changes. Up and down arrows. They will take you to the next change, regardless of how small. Start at the top and hit the down arrow until you've reviewed all the changes. > No graph view to see branch dependencies The log does the same thing, just in a different visual format. > No exporting a commit from history into a zip file If you mean as a patch, you can do that in the log. Right-click the commit and select "Format Patch". If you mean the whole repo at the time of that commit, you just have to do it manually by switching to that commit and creating the archive yourself. If you host your code on GitLab, GitHub, or BitBucket, you can just do this through the GUI of the host. I'm sure there are CLI tools that automate the process as well. > No changed line count for quick look at where the significant changes are This is definitely missing from SmartGit. I review 100% of changes and force my team to commit as atomically as possible, so this wouldn't be helpful for me.
      - Artlav 10y ago
        > Up and down arrows. They will take you to the next change, regardless of how small. I meant the whole idea of relatively floating comparison - you can't see the size of the change, just jump over it since the text on both sides is continuous. If the lines are added, then there should be a gap on the opposite size, with fixed text-to-text relation. That, or it's a peculiarity of my perception.
- mcdevhammer 10y ago
  I find gitx is pretty good.
  - Jemaclus 10y ago
    I use GitX as well, and I love it. I've used a couple of others, but GitX is just minimal and gets the job done easily.
- mcdevhammer 10y ago
  I find gitx is pretty good.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  Try GitUp! Very underrated: http://gitup.co/ http://gitup.co/
- silky 10y ago
  IIRC, theres a section on ProGit[0] about GUI Git clients [0]: https://progit.org/ https://progit.org/
twotavol 10y ago
ffmpeg I want to be able to do some basic stuff quickly without having to search for what I need to copy and paste into the CLI or read a bunch of docs. The gui should make things like converting between formats, cropping, stitching, etc straightforward.
LeoSolaris 10y ago
Pipes. It may sound a little odd, but I wish I could automatically pass results from one GUI program to an unrelated one in that sort of hassle-free way.
- tdeck 10y ago
  Interestingly RISC OS had something like this, where graphical programs were composed by dragging and dropping icons representing a document. So for example, to save a file, you open the menu and see an icon representing that file. You then drag it into the file manager, a separate program, to tell it where the file will go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_%28software%29#Pipelines_in_GUIs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_%28software%29#Pipeli...
e1ven 10y ago
Honestly, I really wish my terminal/bash had mouse integration.. Every so often I'll be deeply embedded in a command, and want to go back and edit an earlier part of it. With KB shortcuts I can go to the beginning/end, or forward/back one 'word' at a time, but sometimes it'd be nice to just say 'put the cursor HERE.'
- clevernickname 10y ago
  It would screw with "TUI" programs but I really wish consoles had split input and output panes, where the input pane is just a regular text box that supports standard editing shortcuts.
crispytx 10y ago
I run cPanel (Graphical User Interface Linux Server Administration) on my Virtual Private Server and just love it. It makes things so much easier. I can just focus on programming, and not system administration. So to answer your question: I wish every hosting option had something like cPanel!
stevekemp 10y ago
I'm toying with the idea of writing a GUI on top of my console-based mail-client. This would be interesting to experiment with, because I'd probably decouple the UI from the back-end, allowing others to experiment with unusual layouts and options. The downside is that GUI stuff is hard to do right, and I'm not really sure I could force myself to complete the job. I just don't like any of the existing (linux) mail-clients.
Jemaclus 10y ago
I wish PostgreSQL had better GUIs. There are quite a few of them, but none of them compare to Sequel Pro for MySQL. It's frustrating.
hammock 10y ago
Amazon Echo

10 points by yanokwa 10y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=11705510 asks the reverse.

Git, without a question. There is the TortoiseGit on Windows which makes Git USABLE. On *nix there is nothing even remotely as good, unfortunately.

Zekio 10y ago
git kraken seems okay, not used it much, but check it out
- Artlav 10y ago
  Call me odd, but their site trips my billboard filters. I look at it and get the same feeling one gets when some ad pops up - "close the tab". False advertisement - their "with no dependencies" turned into hunting for dependencies with ldd and error messages. Should have said "with no list of dependencies". Then it started, hung at "checking-for-update" and won't budge for 15 minutes already. Not looking good so far.
smt88 10y ago
SmartGit. It's way, way, way better than Tortoise.
- Artlav 10y ago
  Yeah, it's one of the better ones. It's good enough to do stuff, but still leaves a feeling of being severely underfeatured wrt Tortoise. Small things: -File comparison tool is unusable - the relative floating sides make it impossible to see non-trivial changes. -No graph view to see branch dependencies -No exporting a commit from history into a zip file -No changed line count for quick look at where the significant changes are -Maybe more, don't remember the all of it The total on the small things makes it a barely usable tool.
  - smt88 10y ago
    > File comparison tool is unusable - the relative floating sides make it impossible to see non-trivial changes. Up and down arrows. They will take you to the next change, regardless of how small. Start at the top and hit the down arrow until you've reviewed all the changes. > No graph view to see branch dependencies The log does the same thing, just in a different visual format. > No exporting a commit from history into a zip file If you mean as a patch, you can do that in the log. Right-click the commit and select "Format Patch". If you mean the whole repo at the time of that commit, you just have to do it manually by switching to that commit and creating the archive yourself. If you host your code on GitLab, GitHub, or BitBucket, you can just do this through the GUI of the host. I'm sure there are CLI tools that automate the process as well. > No changed line count for quick look at where the significant changes are This is definitely missing from SmartGit. I review 100% of changes and force my team to commit as atomically as possible, so this wouldn't be helpful for me.
    - Artlav 10y ago
      > Up and down arrows. They will take you to the next change, regardless of how small. I meant the whole idea of relatively floating comparison - you can't see the size of the change, just jump over it since the text on both sides is continuous. If the lines are added, then there should be a gap on the opposite size, with fixed text-to-text relation. That, or it's a peculiarity of my perception.
mcdevhammer 10y ago
I find gitx is pretty good.
- Jemaclus 10y ago
  I use GitX as well, and I love it. I've used a couple of others, but GitX is just minimal and gets the job done easily.
mcdevhammer 10y ago
I find gitx is pretty good.
sotojuan 10y ago
Try GitUp! Very underrated: http://gitup.co/ http://gitup.co/
silky 10y ago
IIRC, theres a section on ProGit[0] about GUI Git clients [0]: https://progit.org/ https://progit.org/

twotavol 10y ago

ffmpeg I want to be able to do some basic stuff quickly without having to search for what I need to copy and paste into the CLI or read a bunch of docs. The gui should make things like converting between formats, cropping, stitching, etc straightforward.

LeoSolaris 10y ago

Pipes. It may sound a little odd, but I wish I could automatically pass results from one GUI program to an unrelated one in that sort of hassle-free way.

tdeck 10y ago
Interestingly RISC OS had something like this, where graphical programs were composed by dragging and dropping icons representing a document. So for example, to save a file, you open the menu and see an icon representing that file. You then drag it into the file manager, a separate program, to tell it where the file will go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_%28software%29#Pipelines_in_GUIs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_%28software%29#Pipeli...

e1ven 10y ago

Honestly, I really wish my terminal/bash had mouse integration.. Every so often I'll be deeply embedded in a command, and want to go back and edit an earlier part of it. With KB shortcuts I can go to the beginning/end, or forward/back one 'word' at a time, but sometimes it'd be nice to just say 'put the cursor HERE.'

clevernickname 10y ago
It would screw with "TUI" programs but I really wish consoles had split input and output panes, where the input pane is just a regular text box that supports standard editing shortcuts.

crispytx 10y ago

I run cPanel (Graphical User Interface Linux Server Administration) on my Virtual Private Server and just love it. It makes things so much easier. I can just focus on programming, and not system administration. So to answer your question: I wish every hosting option had something like cPanel!

stevekemp 10y ago

I'm toying with the idea of writing a GUI on top of my console-based mail-client. This would be interesting to experiment with, because I'd probably decouple the UI from the back-end, allowing others to experiment with unusual layouts and options. The downside is that GUI stuff is hard to do right, and I'm not really sure I could force myself to complete the job. I just don't like any of the existing (linux) mail-clients.

Jemaclus 10y ago

I wish PostgreSQL had better GUIs. There are quite a few of them, but none of them compare to Sequel Pro for MySQL. It's frustrating.

hammock 10y ago

Amazon Echo