5 ms·

Show HN: termwm: A floating WM of terminals inside your terminal

66 points by jD91mZM2 8y ago

jD91mZM2 8y ago
Getting I/O errors uploading the asciinema cast, but here's a preview: https://streamable.com/4hoqh https://streamable.com/4hoqh
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  You have an interesting setup for your desktop environment, care to share some of the details? I see an XFCE icon but I'm not sure if it's only XFCE being used there.
  - jD91mZM2 8y ago
    I use xmonad but with xfce4-panel. Dotfiles: https://gitlab.com/jD91mZM2/dotfiles https://gitlab.com/jD91mZM2/dotfiles
- akkartik 8y ago
  How are you opening new windows? Keyboard shortcuts? What shortcuts are available?
  - jD91mZM2 8y ago
    I just click anywhere there's not a window. Didn't wanna add shortcuts as I'd need some way to escape them
asdkhadsj 8y ago
This is cool! I wanted to do something similar a while back, but decided I want out of the term, instead of trying to bring more robust UIs into my term. My goal was to have an editor, like Vim/Kakoune, use a window manager like tmux to provide more rich GUI features, such as popups and overlays. All of that in an ideally easy to use dev UX, making scripting information plugins intuitive and easy. As mentioned, in the end I just said I probably want a GUI proper. Very cool! :)
- nitrogen 8y ago
  Some DOS textmode IDEs used to have window management like that.
gitgud 8y ago
The use case is brilliant: > Use case? If you're seriously considering using this I recommend going to a psychiatrist. This program is so pointless, I even needed a mouse pointer to help me out find a point.
- Myrth 8y ago
  It is hilarious. If it has session save/restore, it can compete in the same space as screen/termux/byobu.
  - jD91mZM2 8y ago
    It doesn't. Would be an interesting thing to add perhaps, but then I'd need to add some kind of daemon I believe. I also don't want to compete with the existing software as there's no winning over them.
leowoo91 8y ago
GitLab should collapse that left menu as default, just saying.
- fredley 8y ago
  It is, at a breakpoint. Seems to be plenty of width at the point at which it expands to me.
sanityvampire 8y ago
"Make sure to pipe the output to /dev/null when running this program. This is because the redox ransid ibrary keeps spamming stdout..." Signs of quality software.
- taneq 8y ago
  The readme does make it seem like a super serious project.
hardlianotion 8y ago
This is fantastic. I'm not installing it.
thanksDr 8y ago
I want you to know that I love you for doing this. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now I have to go read Frankenstein, so thanks for that as well. :) https://archive.org/details/frankensteinorm02shelgoog/page/n6 https://archive.org/details/frankensteinorm02shelgoog/page/n...
dleslie 8y ago
Ah, reminds me of the old Turbo UI. A few years back I got RHIDE working again and... Went back to emacs.
philsnow 8y ago
This is neat :) Check out dvtm for a tiling version of this. Some people pair dvtm with dtach to get just the parts of GNU screen that they care about.
tonyztan 8y ago
Sorry for asking something that might be obvious to others, but what is WM?
- lasagnaphil 8y ago
  Window Manager, basically a program that manages your windows. (This is more well-known in linux because you can swap to different window managers regardless of distribution, while in Windows and Mac you’re forced to have one canonical window manager provided by the OS)
HugThem 8y ago
That's cool! Are there other versions of this idea around? Maybe older, more stable and trustworthy solutions?
- em-bee 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_(windowing_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_(windowing_system)
  - HugThem 8y ago
    Searching for it on Youtube brings up videos of a pretty ugly interface. With 80s style text windows. I like OPs version because it just puts a one pixel border around the window and except everything is black.
    - em-bee 8y ago
      that's a good point. i agree. but i never used twin, maybe it's configurable. greetings, eMBee.
- jD91mZM2 8y ago
  tmux is pretty darn neat for having multiple terminals inside one terminal, and it's tiling instead of floating. Also lets you detach sessions.
em-bee 8y ago
> If you're seriously considering using this I recommend going to a psychiatrist. This program is so pointless, I even needed a mouse pointer to help me out find a point. the author makes it sound as if this is an elaborate joke of some sort, but if that's the case, someone else has been laughing for almost two decades: https://github.com/cosmos72/twin/ https://github.com/cosmos72/twin/ greetings, eMBee.

66 points by jD91mZM2 8y ago

Getting I/O errors uploading the asciinema cast, but here's a preview: https://streamable.com/4hoqh https://streamable.com/4hoqh

giancarlostoro 8y ago
You have an interesting setup for your desktop environment, care to share some of the details? I see an XFCE icon but I'm not sure if it's only XFCE being used there.
- jD91mZM2 8y ago
  I use xmonad but with xfce4-panel. Dotfiles: https://gitlab.com/jD91mZM2/dotfiles https://gitlab.com/jD91mZM2/dotfiles
akkartik 8y ago
How are you opening new windows? Keyboard shortcuts? What shortcuts are available?
- jD91mZM2 8y ago
  I just click anywhere there's not a window. Didn't wanna add shortcuts as I'd need some way to escape them

asdkhadsj 8y ago

This is cool! I wanted to do something similar a while back, but decided I want out of the term, instead of trying to bring more robust UIs into my term. My goal was to have an editor, like Vim/Kakoune, use a window manager like tmux to provide more rich GUI features, such as popups and overlays. All of that in an ideally easy to use dev UX, making scripting information plugins intuitive and easy. As mentioned, in the end I just said I probably want a GUI proper. Very cool! :)

nitrogen 8y ago
Some DOS textmode IDEs used to have window management like that.

gitgud 8y ago

The use case is brilliant: > Use case? If you're seriously considering using this I recommend going to a psychiatrist. This program is so pointless, I even needed a mouse pointer to help me out find a point.

Myrth 8y ago
It is hilarious. If it has session save/restore, it can compete in the same space as screen/termux/byobu.
- jD91mZM2 8y ago
  It doesn't. Would be an interesting thing to add perhaps, but then I'd need to add some kind of daemon I believe. I also don't want to compete with the existing software as there's no winning over them.

leowoo91 8y ago

GitLab should collapse that left menu as default, just saying.

fredley 8y ago
It is, at a breakpoint. Seems to be plenty of width at the point at which it expands to me.

sanityvampire 8y ago

"Make sure to pipe the output to /dev/null when running this program. This is because the redox ransid ibrary keeps spamming stdout..." Signs of quality software.

taneq 8y ago
The readme does make it seem like a super serious project.

hardlianotion 8y ago

This is fantastic. I'm not installing it.

thanksDr 8y ago

I want you to know that I love you for doing this. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now I have to go read Frankenstein, so thanks for that as well. :) https://archive.org/details/frankensteinorm02shelgoog/page/n6 https://archive.org/details/frankensteinorm02shelgoog/page/n...

dleslie 8y ago

Ah, reminds me of the old Turbo UI. A few years back I got RHIDE working again and... Went back to emacs.

philsnow 8y ago

This is neat :) Check out dvtm for a tiling version of this. Some people pair dvtm with dtach to get just the parts of GNU screen that they care about.

tonyztan 8y ago

Sorry for asking something that might be obvious to others, but what is WM?

lasagnaphil 8y ago
Window Manager, basically a program that manages your windows. (This is more well-known in linux because you can swap to different window managers regardless of distribution, while in Windows and Mac you’re forced to have one canonical window manager provided by the OS)

HugThem 8y ago

That's cool! Are there other versions of this idea around? Maybe older, more stable and trustworthy solutions?

em-bee 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_(windowing_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_(windowing_system)
- HugThem 8y ago
  Searching for it on Youtube brings up videos of a pretty ugly interface. With 80s style text windows. I like OPs version because it just puts a one pixel border around the window and except everything is black.
  - em-bee 8y ago
    that's a good point. i agree. but i never used twin, maybe it's configurable. greetings, eMBee.
jD91mZM2 8y ago
tmux is pretty darn neat for having multiple terminals inside one terminal, and it's tiling instead of floating. Also lets you detach sessions.

em-bee 8y ago

> If you're seriously considering using this I recommend going to a psychiatrist. This program is so pointless, I even needed a mouse pointer to help me out find a point. the author makes it sound as if this is an elaborate joke of some sort, but if that's the case, someone else has been laughing for almost two decades: https://github.com/cosmos72/twin/ https://github.com/cosmos72/twin/ greetings, eMBee.