3 ms·

You're not wrong, I remember a lot of turbo vision apps loved to use the MDI, multiple document interface, paradigm where each application was like a mini OS wi

You're not wrong, I remember a lot of turbo vision apps loved to use the MDI, multiple document interface, paradigm where each application was like a mini OS with unique windows you could resize and place as you please. This was fine when you were in DOS and could only run one application at a time, entirely fullscreen. But nowadays MDI on a multitasking OS with multiple things running at once is a weird anachronism, like you're running an OS inside an OS. It's confusing and not good. You can use turbo vision for good interfaces though. Just have to be careful not to fall into the tropes of 30 year old pre-multitasking OS application design.

zozbot234 5y ago
MDI is completely optional in TUI apps. It only enters the picture if you have multiple documents open within the same terminal/app session, otherwise you simply get the single document view. This applies to Emacs "windows" as much as any TUI in DOS.
digisign 5y ago
This is usually handled by tabs today... not sure that has been ported back to libs like turbo vision yet. I don't think so.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Tab bars are not very TUI friendly though, since the typical TUI has too little space to display a list of usable tab names at all times. Instead there's simply a hotkey which pops up a "window list" for the user to switch to. (There are exceptions when space is genuinely abundant and a side list of "views" or "tabs" to switch to can be kept permanently visible, but they are exceptions.) Here the TUI designer profits from being able to assume that the user can navigate using the keyboard, as opposed to implementing "keyboard shortcuts" as a purely additional feature. (The GUI on the other hand can use design 'tweaks' to minimize the wasted space and perhaps distraction that would normally result from showing an always-visible tab list.)
  - digisign 5y ago
    Hmm, I don't agree, with terminals post 2000 or so. My GUI text editor is currently showing about 8 tabs out of a dozen, with ◂ ▸ at the ends. This is comparable to the number of cells in my terminal now, ~100, i.e.: ◂│doc_one.txt ╲ doc_two.txt ╲ doc_three.tx… ╲ doc_four.tx… ╲ doc_five.tx… ╲ │▸ This is 78 "characters" wide and has extra spaces. This is enough space for typical needs, and could work even on relatively dumb terms like the linux console, DOS of yesteryear. A vte high-color term with utf8, 120+ cells wide could potentially double capacity, in number of tabs, filename length, or bit of both.

zozbot234 5y ago

MDI is completely optional in TUI apps. It only enters the picture if you have multiple documents open within the same terminal/app session, otherwise you simply get the single document view. This applies to Emacs "windows" as much as any TUI in DOS.

digisign 5y ago

This is usually handled by tabs today... not sure that has been ported back to libs like turbo vision yet. I don't think so.

zozbot234 5y ago
Tab bars are not very TUI friendly though, since the typical TUI has too little space to display a list of usable tab names at all times. Instead there's simply a hotkey which pops up a "window list" for the user to switch to. (There are exceptions when space is genuinely abundant and a side list of "views" or "tabs" to switch to can be kept permanently visible, but they are exceptions.) Here the TUI designer profits from being able to assume that the user can navigate using the keyboard, as opposed to implementing "keyboard shortcuts" as a purely additional feature. (The GUI on the other hand can use design 'tweaks' to minimize the wasted space and perhaps distraction that would normally result from showing an always-visible tab list.)
- digisign 5y ago
  Hmm, I don't agree, with terminals post 2000 or so. My GUI text editor is currently showing about 8 tabs out of a dozen, with ◂ ▸ at the ends. This is comparable to the number of cells in my terminal now, ~100, i.e.: ◂│doc_one.txt ╲ doc_two.txt ╲ doc_three.tx… ╲ doc_four.tx… ╲ doc_five.tx… ╲ │▸ This is 78 "characters" wide and has extra spaces. This is enough space for typical needs, and could work even on relatively dumb terms like the linux console, DOS of yesteryear. A vte high-color term with utf8, 120+ cells wide could potentially double capacity, in number of tabs, filename length, or bit of both.