15 ms·

The Hyper Plan

76 points by lhnz 10y ago

chriswarbo 10y ago
Wow, never come across this project before; also never used any of the 'workflow dominating' programs they mention (although I've heard of Slack, WordPress and Atom). Certainly seems to be following a very different approach to the terminal emulator that I use: http://st.suckless.org http://st.suckless.org
- daveloyall 10y ago
  Your 'wow' came out with a more positive tone than mine did. :)
- Rauchg 10y ago
  It's actually very similar goals and look as st, with the difference that it's extensible through a plugins interface. Give it a try :)
  - jrs95 10y ago
    It's also about 1000 times larger ;)
    - daveloyall 10y ago
      I don't think you're counting the dependencies.
      - jrs95 10y ago
        You are correct, I was not. Didn't actually check what was inside the download from st.suckless.org, which was just the source w/o any dependencies.
  - itomato 10y ago
    st has two goals: 1. have a working graphical terminal for terminal application 2. do no reimplement tmux and his comrades Does hyper align with other suckless goals like being a small, statically-linked compiled executable? Does hyper approach 20K LOC? Does st aspire to have a 'wow mode'??
daveloyall 10y ago
Does anybody else frequently immediately close the tab when you find out that idea involves clientside javascript? But, this one is about a terminal.[1] So I read on... and I found this: > Slowly but surely, Electron-based applications > have started to dominate many of our workflows. You have just announced that there is a horde of pod-people roaming the internet. I'm going to go stock up on canned goods. > This is a goal worth pursuing in the interest of sane > window management, agility, built-in logging of launched > applications, engineering exploration but most importantly > the preservation of our freedoms. Wtf? You spawn a shell while sitting on top of a writhing swarm of multithreaded mystery code so thick that stack overflow is a thing, in 2016, and you call that freedom? What the actual f*? > In a world increasingly encumbered by app stores, developer > licenses and approval processes, a hyper reboot is worth > trying out. And who knows, 2017 might by the year of the > Linux desktop! You call starting up 400 MLOC to open a shell a reboot? Have you tried Forth? I am so sorry for the abuse. I truly am. I know that you are a person, doing a thing. But from my point of view, you are trudging blindly further into the swamp, not out of it, and you are carrying a flag and singing along the way. We need to talk! ---- 1: Or something? Note to author: After the first skim, it wasn't clear if your project is a terminal emulator or a shell...[2] The first screen shot looks like a shell, the one with a webpage looks like a terminal emulator. (Spoiler: it's a terminal emulator. It also apparently hijacks the command line to support URLs as commands??) 2. Oh, they have a chat room. I'll just go ask them. Uh-oh, they don't say what protocol I should use to connect to the chat room... That's a bad sign. Ah, it's a web app and I have to provide my email address. No, thank you.
- marmaduke 10y ago
  Agree all around. I recently regressed to the Linux text mode ptty for terminal work. I can't imagine running a browser to have a shell.
  - yladiz 10y ago
    To clear up the confusion about running the browser (I don't like the idea either, but don't want to spread FUD): the terminal is an Electron application, and when you type the URL, it runs it as an Electron process. You don't seem to need a browser because the terminal already supports browsing.
torkable 10y ago
am I the only one that still has no idea what it is after looking at all the about pages lol
rch 10y ago
I lost all interest when I saw the word 'emoji' in a feature item.
- jcoffland 10y ago
  I'm all for Unicode support but definitely do not want emojies invading my terminal. It's bad enough that I have to endure them on my phone. My terminal is an emotional clean room of sorts. There's no allowance for the emotional nuance afforded by the emojie. Only three emotional states are allowed. State 0: Deadpan zero emotion. State 1: White hot anger. State 2: Pure elation.
brianzelip 10y ago
HyperTerm has been great, I've been getting a lot of mileage out of it as my default terminal. Love that I can hack on it so easily! Sorry to see the name change though! Gonna be tough on plugins and lists that made use of the original name. I really liked "HyperTerm".
- jcoffland 10y ago
  I immediately thought of the original but I guess I'm getting long in the tooth.
deadbunny 10y ago
Maybe I'm just a crotchety old admin but I really don't "get" the recent tsunami of everything being written in JS. I mean what is the appeal of node for system applications over something a bit more systems oriented? Is it just an overspill of web developers getting into systems and not knowing any other language? Does JS really offer something different languages don't?
- perlgeek 10y ago
  When I first read about Hyperterm, I was pretty sure I wouldn't use a terminal emulator that uses a browser. Heavy-handed and a security nightmare. But eventually I head a podcast[^1] about it, and it started to make sense. It's nearly all about hackability. If you simply compare the number of people that are comfortable with adding UI elements to a native application in GTK or QT or whatnot, to those that are comfortable with enhancing a web application, it suddenly makes sense. [1]: https://changelog.com/213/ https://changelog.com/213/ Also the design of Hyper is one where everything goes through events, which you can intercept (and possibly re-emit) in extensions, so you don't even need nasty DOM hacking or text parsing to write extensions/plugins. So now I'm still skeptical, but I also see the upsides. I guess my next step should be to actually try it :-) At least when a Linux version becomes available...
  - maemilius 10y ago
    According to the GitHub page, you can build it on Linux. I haven't tried it myself, as I see no reason to abandon bash just yet.
    - perlgeek 10y ago
      You can use bash inside the terminal emulator. Hyper is just the window in which other programs such as bash, ls etc. run.
- mshenfield 10y ago
  It's just a different (and popular) platform for developing applications. Seems comparable to developing a terminal app with Java swing, or QT, or whatever native Mac apps are written in.
yladiz 10y ago
Why would I want to use this over (Mac) Terminal or iTerm2? The rationale for me using iTerm2 over Terminal is that it has genuine useful features like 256 colors that Terminal doesn't support, but for any major customization, I edit my `.bash_profile`. However, what "killer" feature(s) does this have that would persuade me to use it over the base terminal for my OS? One feature might be that it's extendable. Sure, but what does that really give me that I can't get in Bash/ZSH? Edit: I'm not trying to be snarky, if it came off that way. I'm genuinely curious why this terminal would be better than a really simple terminal and Bash or ZSH.
- lhnz 10y ago
  You can easily unit test the customisations you make to your shell (edit: I meant to write terminal here), and can share them with other engineers in a modular and easy-to-install way. Since JavaScript is a more 'popular' language than Bash, you are also more likely to receive bug fixes and extra features for your plugins from other engineers. JavaScript might not be the best language compared to many others, but compared to a lot of shell scripting languages it's not too bad. I've never thought that the way people currently customise their shell prompts is well-designed.
  - deadbunny 10y ago
    You (as well as the developer) don't seem to know the difference between a terminal and a shell.
    - lhnz 10y ago
      Educate me then. Is Hyper unable to encroach onto the product feature space of the shell due to a particularly rigid terminology? Are the reasons for the current separation of concerns still optimal?
      - yladiz 10y ago
        I would say the separation of concerns is very optimal right now. The terminal emulates the shell, and that's it; there's nothing going on in between or in the terminal besides displaying what the shell outputs. I don't really need mixing of the two, which this looks like it does. For example, if I entered a URL into the terminal, it should be up to the shell to interpret it, not the terminal. This is not to say that I don't mind "magic" -- I removed the `git` prefix from my git commands because I like typing `add .` rather than `git add .` all the time -- but I don't want my terminal to do it, I want my shell to.
morsch 10y ago
I wanted to try out the binary for Hyperterm before I read the grand plan, but the provided download link[1] for Linux does not work: Version not found: latest Does it work for anyone else? Also it's nice that they link to a support chat, but I won't register with my email just to ask a simple question. Makes me nostalgic for the days of half-assed web IRC frontends. [1] https://hyperterm-updates.now.sh/download/linux https://hyperterm-updates.now.sh/download/linux
Mizza 10y ago
Has anybody written a plugin to turn directories in to cd hyperlinks yet? That's the main thing I'm looking forward to being able to do with this project. That, and replace TotalTerminal, which seems to have hit EOL. :( Goodbye, my love..
- daveloyall 10y ago
  Regarding the shell != terminal issue that is mentioned in several other comments... You've named a valid reason to blur the shell/terminal distinction. Nice. Another would be: the ability to manipulate streams (or whatever you'd like to call the content that flows through pipes). As in, replay a stream into some new process without re-executing the original. Another would be to fold terminal output. Removing the shell/terminal distinction opens a door to a world of possibilities. But, the door closes behind you!
  - sime2009 10y ago
    > Another would be: the ability to manipulate streams (or whatever you'd like to call the content that flows through pipes). As in, replay a stream into some new process without re-executing the original. My terminal (https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm) can more or less do that now: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sedwards2009/extraterm/master/docs/from_command.gif https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sedwards2009/extraterm/mas... > Another would be to fold terminal output. I did have something like that, but had to disable it. That feature will make a reappearance sometime as I want it for things like automatically collapsing command (e.g. compiler) output if terminals successfully. I only need to see the output of failed builds, for example.
- deadbunny 10y ago
  So you'd use your mouse to cd into directories after you `ls`? Moving you hand to the mouse, moving the mouse, clicking and clicking is quicker than `cd foo<TAB>`? Or just using a file manager and right click open terminal here?
  - 10y ago
ilaksh 10y ago
Seems like the only way to install it on linux is by cloning the repo? When I click on linux download it says 'version not found: latest'.
ilaksh 10y ago
Seems like the only way to install it on linux is by cloning the repo? When I click on linux download it says 'version not found: latest'.
bfrog 10y ago
Sigh...

76 points by lhnz 10y ago

Wow, never come across this project before; also never used any of the 'workflow dominating' programs they mention (although I've heard of Slack, WordPress and Atom). Certainly seems to be following a very different approach to the terminal emulator that I use: http://st.suckless.org http://st.suckless.org

daveloyall 10y ago
Your 'wow' came out with a more positive tone than mine did. :)
Rauchg 10y ago
It's actually very similar goals and look as st, with the difference that it's extensible through a plugins interface. Give it a try :)
- jrs95 10y ago
  It's also about 1000 times larger ;)
  - daveloyall 10y ago
    I don't think you're counting the dependencies.
    - jrs95 10y ago
      You are correct, I was not. Didn't actually check what was inside the download from st.suckless.org, which was just the source w/o any dependencies.
- itomato 10y ago
  st has two goals: 1. have a working graphical terminal for terminal application 2. do no reimplement tmux and his comrades Does hyper align with other suckless goals like being a small, statically-linked compiled executable? Does hyper approach 20K LOC? Does st aspire to have a 'wow mode'??

daveloyall 10y ago

Does anybody else frequently immediately close the tab when you find out that idea involves clientside javascript? But, this one is about a terminal.[1] So I read on... and I found this: > Slowly but surely, Electron-based applications > have started to dominate many of our workflows. You have just announced that there is a horde of pod-people roaming the internet. I'm going to go stock up on canned goods. > This is a goal worth pursuing in the interest of sane > window management, agility, built-in logging of launched > applications, engineering exploration but most importantly > the preservation of our freedoms. Wtf? You spawn a shell while sitting on top of a writhing swarm of multithreaded mystery code so thick that stack overflow is a thing, in 2016, and you call that freedom? What the actual f*? > In a world increasingly encumbered by app stores, developer > licenses and approval processes, a hyper reboot is worth > trying out. And who knows, 2017 might by the year of the > Linux desktop! You call starting up 400 MLOC to open a shell a reboot? Have you tried Forth? I am so sorry for the abuse. I truly am. I know that you are a person, doing a thing. But from my point of view, you are trudging blindly further into the swamp, not out of it, and you are carrying a flag and singing along the way. We need to talk! ---- 1: Or something? Note to author: After the first skim, it wasn't clear if your project is a terminal emulator or a shell...[2] The first screen shot looks like a shell, the one with a webpage looks like a terminal emulator. (Spoiler: it's a terminal emulator. It also apparently hijacks the command line to support URLs as commands??) 2. Oh, they have a chat room. I'll just go ask them. Uh-oh, they don't say what protocol I should use to connect to the chat room... That's a bad sign. Ah, it's a web app and I have to provide my email address. No, thank you.

marmaduke 10y ago
Agree all around. I recently regressed to the Linux text mode ptty for terminal work. I can't imagine running a browser to have a shell.
- yladiz 10y ago
  To clear up the confusion about running the browser (I don't like the idea either, but don't want to spread FUD): the terminal is an Electron application, and when you type the URL, it runs it as an Electron process. You don't seem to need a browser because the terminal already supports browsing.

torkable 10y ago

am I the only one that still has no idea what it is after looking at all the about pages lol

rch 10y ago

I lost all interest when I saw the word 'emoji' in a feature item.

jcoffland 10y ago
I'm all for Unicode support but definitely do not want emojies invading my terminal. It's bad enough that I have to endure them on my phone. My terminal is an emotional clean room of sorts. There's no allowance for the emotional nuance afforded by the emojie. Only three emotional states are allowed. State 0: Deadpan zero emotion. State 1: White hot anger. State 2: Pure elation.

brianzelip 10y ago

HyperTerm has been great, I've been getting a lot of mileage out of it as my default terminal. Love that I can hack on it so easily! Sorry to see the name change though! Gonna be tough on plugins and lists that made use of the original name. I really liked "HyperTerm".

jcoffland 10y ago
I immediately thought of the original but I guess I'm getting long in the tooth.

deadbunny 10y ago

Maybe I'm just a crotchety old admin but I really don't "get" the recent tsunami of everything being written in JS. I mean what is the appeal of node for system applications over something a bit more systems oriented? Is it just an overspill of web developers getting into systems and not knowing any other language? Does JS really offer something different languages don't?

perlgeek 10y ago
When I first read about Hyperterm, I was pretty sure I wouldn't use a terminal emulator that uses a browser. Heavy-handed and a security nightmare. But eventually I head a podcast[^1] about it, and it started to make sense. It's nearly all about hackability. If you simply compare the number of people that are comfortable with adding UI elements to a native application in GTK or QT or whatnot, to those that are comfortable with enhancing a web application, it suddenly makes sense. [1]: https://changelog.com/213/ https://changelog.com/213/ Also the design of Hyper is one where everything goes through events, which you can intercept (and possibly re-emit) in extensions, so you don't even need nasty DOM hacking or text parsing to write extensions/plugins. So now I'm still skeptical, but I also see the upsides. I guess my next step should be to actually try it :-) At least when a Linux version becomes available...
- maemilius 10y ago
  According to the GitHub page, you can build it on Linux. I haven't tried it myself, as I see no reason to abandon bash just yet.
  - perlgeek 10y ago
    You can use bash inside the terminal emulator. Hyper is just the window in which other programs such as bash, ls etc. run.
mshenfield 10y ago
It's just a different (and popular) platform for developing applications. Seems comparable to developing a terminal app with Java swing, or QT, or whatever native Mac apps are written in.

yladiz 10y ago

Why would I want to use this over (Mac) Terminal or iTerm2? The rationale for me using iTerm2 over Terminal is that it has genuine useful features like 256 colors that Terminal doesn't support, but for any major customization, I edit my `.bash_profile`. However, what "killer" feature(s) does this have that would persuade me to use it over the base terminal for my OS? One feature might be that it's extendable. Sure, but what does that really give me that I can't get in Bash/ZSH? Edit: I'm not trying to be snarky, if it came off that way. I'm genuinely curious why this terminal would be better than a really simple terminal and Bash or ZSH.

lhnz 10y ago
You can easily unit test the customisations you make to your shell (edit: I meant to write terminal here), and can share them with other engineers in a modular and easy-to-install way. Since JavaScript is a more 'popular' language than Bash, you are also more likely to receive bug fixes and extra features for your plugins from other engineers. JavaScript might not be the best language compared to many others, but compared to a lot of shell scripting languages it's not too bad. I've never thought that the way people currently customise their shell prompts is well-designed.
- deadbunny 10y ago
  You (as well as the developer) don't seem to know the difference between a terminal and a shell.
  - lhnz 10y ago
    Educate me then. Is Hyper unable to encroach onto the product feature space of the shell due to a particularly rigid terminology? Are the reasons for the current separation of concerns still optimal?
    - yladiz 10y ago
      I would say the separation of concerns is very optimal right now. The terminal emulates the shell, and that's it; there's nothing going on in between or in the terminal besides displaying what the shell outputs. I don't really need mixing of the two, which this looks like it does. For example, if I entered a URL into the terminal, it should be up to the shell to interpret it, not the terminal. This is not to say that I don't mind "magic" -- I removed the `git` prefix from my git commands because I like typing `add .` rather than `git add .` all the time -- but I don't want my terminal to do it, I want my shell to.

morsch 10y ago

I wanted to try out the binary for Hyperterm before I read the grand plan, but the provided download link[1] for Linux does not work: Version not found: latest Does it work for anyone else? Also it's nice that they link to a support chat, but I won't register with my email just to ask a simple question. Makes me nostalgic for the days of half-assed web IRC frontends. [1] https://hyperterm-updates.now.sh/download/linux https://hyperterm-updates.now.sh/download/linux

Mizza 10y ago

Has anybody written a plugin to turn directories in to cd hyperlinks yet? That's the main thing I'm looking forward to being able to do with this project. That, and replace TotalTerminal, which seems to have hit EOL. :( Goodbye, my love..

daveloyall 10y ago
Regarding the shell != terminal issue that is mentioned in several other comments... You've named a valid reason to blur the shell/terminal distinction. Nice. Another would be: the ability to manipulate streams (or whatever you'd like to call the content that flows through pipes). As in, replay a stream into some new process without re-executing the original. Another would be to fold terminal output. Removing the shell/terminal distinction opens a door to a world of possibilities. But, the door closes behind you!
- sime2009 10y ago
  > Another would be: the ability to manipulate streams (or whatever you'd like to call the content that flows through pipes). As in, replay a stream into some new process without re-executing the original. My terminal (https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm) can more or less do that now: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sedwards2009/extraterm/master/docs/from_command.gif https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sedwards2009/extraterm/mas... > Another would be to fold terminal output. I did have something like that, but had to disable it. That feature will make a reappearance sometime as I want it for things like automatically collapsing command (e.g. compiler) output if terminals successfully. I only need to see the output of failed builds, for example.
deadbunny 10y ago
So you'd use your mouse to cd into directories after you `ls`? Moving you hand to the mouse, moving the mouse, clicking and clicking is quicker than `cd foo<TAB>`? Or just using a file manager and right click open terminal here?
- 10y ago

ilaksh 10y ago

Seems like the only way to install it on linux is by cloning the repo? When I click on linux download it says 'version not found: latest'.

ilaksh 10y ago

Seems like the only way to install it on linux is by cloning the repo? When I click on linux download it says 'version not found: latest'.

bfrog 10y ago

Sigh...