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Burgr – Books in Your Terminal
- nothinxpersonal 4y agoIt's a good piece of software indeed, but I have a question: why the fanaticism of using a terminal for e v e r y t h i n g
- Dalewyn 4y ago[flagged]
- throwaway71271 4y agoi dont know why this is downvoted, when in fact people with beards will beard haha
- victornomad 4y agoI don't think is fanaticism. It's about easy of use and workflows. Most of the desktop apps and websites don't care about keyboard navigation (and usability) and you have to use the mouse no matter what. When your main workflow is keyboard based, changing to the mouse and back to keyboard is very disruptive. When you use a tiling window manager such as Sway or i3 this is even more important. Also, TUI applications go straight to the point, load extremely fast and barely use any computer resources.
- zozbot234 4y agoWell-made desktop apps and websites are usable via the keyboard. It's a key requirement for accessibility.
- bigpeopleareold 4y agoFor some, I think they reached a state of it being so flexible that other concerns, like proper typesetting in this case, are simply not important. This hasn't happened for me, at least, who tried once or twice to try to use Emacs as a mail client. There was more massive unknown tradeoffs as opposed to just using a dedicated GUI client or webmail, particularly in relation to the type of email people send (heavy HTML emails sent by default from email clients.) Regardless, I do like a lot of things being in the terminal and tend to reach for that first or Emacs dired even for even basic file manipulation instead of the Dolphin (KDE's file manager) just because of habit. It's just easier in a lot of cases.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoContext switching and keyboard skills. Part of me wishes I had those skills, but at the moment I still reach for my mouse frequently. I don't have the time or brain plasticity to learn how to terminal only, and there's always tons of setup-while-learning to do.
- nehal3m 4y agoI had a lot of trouble remembering keybindings for Vim (and I'm still not very good at coming up with incantations to manipulate text at scale) until I installed Tridactyl for Firefox. Vimium is the Chromium-based equivalent. If you touch type it's a great tool, you barely ever need to leave home row anymore.
- totetsu 4y agoAre there any terminals that can render different fonts for different parts of the ui?
- dsr_ 4y agoYes, though if the metrics don't match weird things happen. e.g. rxvt can use different fonts for regular and bold text.
- nils-m-holm 4y agoWhen your vision is not very good, the terminal has one big advantage: the same font size and same contrast for everything (I use VT100 mode, so no colors). I have recently upgraded to a 150-dpi monitor, and now pretty much all graphical programs are unusable, because I cannot even find the menu item to increase the font size without a magnifying glass, and even then most programs do not let you change the UI font size. Terminal for everything is a great remedy for all these troubles.
- zozbot234 4y agoIIRC, an auto-magnifying glass is part of accessibility. So it's probably already included and easy to activate.
- nils-m-holm 4y agoThanks, but I'm using X11, so there is no "accessibility".
- dsr_ 4y agoxmag has been available for at least 22 years, probably five to ten years more than that.
- sgtnasty 4y ago> e v e r y t h i n g is much faster on the terminal
- jbaber 4y agoJust about everything is faster to read, do, and interact with via terminal. One of the few exceptions would be reading a novel, though :)
- benoliver999 4y agoYeah I like TUI apps for email, note taking, writing, coding etc but this doesn't make much sense to me!
- danjoredd 4y agoIts not fanaticism. Its preference. You can use GUI apps if you want, but others just find the terminal more comfortable.
- VLM 4y agoGUI means slow and high latency Terminal means fast and low latency
- wkat4242 4y agoCame here hoping it was a console epub reader. But no such luck :(
- extr0pian 4y agoI occasionally use epr to read epubs in a terminal. Works pretty well. https://github.com/wustho/epr https://github.com/wustho/epr
- farconics 4y agoI’ve been using epy/epr to read novels, and I think it’s great. https://github.com/wustho/epy https://github.com/wustho/epy
- lazzlazzlazz 4y agoGeneralizing this to be an epub reader would be fantastic. I'd use it, no doubt.
- kseistrup 4y agoEspecially if it could also download books from Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ https://standardebooks.org/
- esrh 4y agoI use console emacs and nov.el (https://depp.brause.cc/nov.el/ https://depp.brause.cc/nov.el/) for this. You can then use emacs features like keyboard navigation and dictionaries.
- gandalfff 4y agoI've used bk https://github.com/aeosynth/bk https://github.com/aeosynth/bk
- paulcarroty 4y agoSadly seems like it looks abandoned and has no image support.
- arrakeen 4y agois there a link anywhere to download?
- npp129 4y ago[flagged]
- mattmar96 4y agoI would love to try this out!
- rizky05 4y agoOP is the only user. I like that mindset.
- synergy20 4y agoif you use kitty,you can read pdf in the terminal via termpdf.py
- windyinu 4y agoIs there somewhere I could install this? I would love to be able to use it!
- myleftfoot 4y agoReally nice article. It's inspiring! I understand that you are the only user but can you share the code on github?
- captn3m0 4y agoDoes this use the Guyenburg OPDS server? That would make it compatible with other catalogs.
- ilaksh 4y agoIt's nostalgic. Reminds me of an old library search terminal.
- actionfromafar 4y agoThose were good (we had DEC Terminals). Fast to start searching, fast results back.
- untech 4y agoI’ve never read books from a computer, it’s always a phone, a tablet, or an eink reader. Somehow reading a long-form text without being able to hold the medium in my hand feels wrong. Am I missing a convenient experience? I’d like to hear stories from computer-using readers.
- benoliver999 4y agoI've tried it on a PC and didn't like it. I think to some extent it's having ereaders and books front-lit that makes them easier on the eyes for me, rather than having it backlit. Ironic I suppose because I stare at a laptop screen all day...
- youngNed 4y agoSure, i use epy[1] and every month i d/l my books from amazon that i have bought, dedrm[2] through calibre and save the epubs to a folder. Its not a particularly arduous task. When i want to read i have an alias setup along the lines of: epy "$(fzf)" its a nice interface ;-) Now i don't often read full books in the terminal, BUT i do like being able to reference bits that i remember at a VERY quick speed. I recently was talking to somoene about biases we bring to statistics and could remember reading a great anecdote about it, using rga[3] i was able to bring up the passage VERY quickly in the terminal Like most great cli tools, its about the workflow [1] https://github.com/wustho/epy https://github.com/wustho/epy [2] https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/ https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/ [3] https://github.com/phiresky/ripgrep-all https://github.com/phiresky/ripgrep-all
- imiric 4y agoThis is a great workflow, and use case for terminal readers. Thanks for sharing!
- anta40 4y agoI have some ebooks on may Mac, they are usually programming books which I read while learning programming. The rest are in my phone.
- stokesr 4y agoPleasantly surprised with the reading mode UI! The dark brown/orange theme is also easy on the eyes. Would love to try it out at some point
- imiric 4y agoThis is neat, but why would you want to read books in a monospaced font? Proportional and serif fonts exist for a reason: they make long paragraphs of text more pleasant to read. Words can be better identified by their shape, which makes them easier to distinguish at a glance. I suppose you could have a separate terminal configuration with a different font for this app, but standalone reader apps or, better yet, e-ink devices, do a much better job of making text easier to read for long periods of time.
- zozbot234 4y agoWe are still quite far from having truly "pleasant to read" long-form text in our computers or browsers. Real typesetting programs use optimized line setting and micro-adjustments in typography to make long stretches of text a bit easier on the eyes, but there's no support for this either in browsers or in most word processors intended for basic office use.
- Dalewyn 4y ago>This is neat, but why would you want to read books in a monospaced font? You might be surprised. For example, Chinese and Japanese very commonly use monospaced fonts. On a less pedantic note, personally I find monospaced fonts slightly easier to see and read. Everything is uniform and organized, which makes eye movements simpler and easier.
- stefncb 4y agoTo be fair, writing systems like those have much more uniform characters. They don't have these immense width differences like with i and m.
- messe 4y ago> Everything is uniform and organized, which makes eye movements simpler and easier. Unless you’re reading one letter at a time, consciously moving your eyes from one to the next, I’m struggling to see how that would be the case.
- claudionaoto 4y ago
- sydro 4y agowhere is the burgr repository???????
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- slackfan 4y agoTo put it bluntly, where the source code at? I realize OP is the only user and probably doesn't want to deal with feadback, etc, but I'd love to tinker with/use this.
- danjoredd 4y agoSame. This looks like a REALLY good program, and I want to try it out
- mxhdrm 4y agoI'd also love to see the code for this project!
- realworldperson 4y ago[dead]
- say_it_as_it_is 4y agoIs there a free-access catalog of book publications, and/or an index that could be downloaded?
- danjoredd 4y agoIf you want books for free legally, project Gutenberg has a lot of public domain books. You can also get ebooks from popular bookstores like Books a Million that give you access to the file directly. There are also...less legal places to find ebooks, but that goes without saying.
- sgraz 4y agoThis is the most "HN" post in a while. Love it.
- sussexby 4y agoThere's a beauty in people finding and fixing these seemingly tiny gaps in their daily lives. It reeks of the serenity in someone's world where 1) this is a problem they're willing to invest time in, 2) they have the time to resolve the problem, and 3) they seem to really enjoy it. It's in my mind akin to the master craftsperson perfecting their work over the years. True vocation.
- asjdflakjsdf 4y agoI really like this idea. Is it possible for other users to install this (or something similar)? On mac preferably.
- gorgoiler 4y agoI love it! The double spaced text looks very easy on the eye and it will work especially well on a phone / tablet with a shell. Is burgr published and can I install it? Ship it with some free books too!
- shortrounddev 4y agoI wrote something similar in sophomore year of college. It didn't work quite as well as this does because I was a noob and wrote it in C/ncurses. Got me a job because it impressed the interviewer. Read all of Kevin mitnick's Ghost in the Wires on it https://github.com/shortrounddev/books https://github.com/shortrounddev/books
- danjoredd 4y agoI primarily program in Python and C# so pardon my ignorance...whats wrong with ncurses? I am currently writing a text editor in it and it seems like a decent framework
- jason_slack 4y agoAs the other of a once popular text editor. I have been writing a new generation editor. Perhaps we could talk about important features and design ideas together and each use one another as a sounding board?
- danjoredd 4y agoWhen it comes to C/C++ I am a total noob lol. I am mostly trying to learn it on my own right now since those two languages have mad staying power, so I was trying to write a text editor in ncurses
- gulabjamuns 4y agoVery neat project, would love to install it and give it a try. I was reading your post on software that will run 20 years from now. What about perl? My perl scripts, and maybe awk, too, are the only ones running after 25 years!
- devnulltty 4y agoI had an ex-coworker who would read books in their terminal. they had no idea how to complete their job. The optics to management: “they are always at their desk in their terminal, they’re getting work done!” They ended up “departing” shortly after a new person joined and called it out in a meeting.
- andai 4y agoPerhaps they should have alternated reading with sessions of HackerTyper ;)
- djha-skin 4y agoWe live in a time of a Renaissance of terminal tools. I recently discovered Himalaya[1], a command line tool for email, and I really like it. I'm also interested in exploring a new tool for calendar called qcal[2]. I'm kicking around writing a chat client for GroupMe for the terminal right now. That way I could finally ditch pidgin. Like the OP, I spend all day in tmux these days, which is in many ways the most superior UI[3]. As a bonus, CLI tools are often cross-platform and very easy to write. 1: https://github.com/soywod/himalaya https://github.com/soywod/himalaya 2: https://shttps://sr.ht/~psic4t/qcal/r.ht/~psic4t/qcal/ https://shttps://sr.ht/~psic4t/qcal/r.ht/~psic4t/qcal/ 3: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer....
- zozbot234 4y agoThe terminal tools of today are still extremely primitive compared to the TUI-based apps of the 1980s and early 1990s, not to mention networked BBS's that could be just as complex as any modern website. They came with entire UX interaction paradigms based on the terminal that have yet to be replicated on modern machines.
- pitched 4y agoLooks like the qcal link got double-pasted. Here it is if anyone else is interested: https://sr.ht/~psic4t/qcal/ https://sr.ht/~psic4t/qcal/
- rakoo 4y agoIf you like Himalaya, you'll probably like mblaze as well (https://github.com/leahneukirchen/mblaze https://github.com/leahneukirchen/mblaze) I also find fzf to be very good for building simple UIs. In fact I saw ways to do 80% of burgr with a few lines of fzf; composable tools really are the bee's knees
- danjoredd 4y agoThats fantastic, but where do I get the program? I would like to try it out but as far as I can tell there isn't a link to your github anywhere on your blog unless I overlooked it, and I don't see it in Ubuntu's repository either.
- dcchambers 4y agoAFAICT from a previous post[^1], they won't be sharing the source code publicly. Maybe you could email and ask :) [^1]: https://blubsblog.bearblog.dev/i-am-the-only-user/ https://blubsblog.bearblog.dev/i-am-the-only-user/
- wrycoder 4y agoThe last line of which is You may find you have you actually created a MVP of something that would be appreciated by many users even though I Am The Only User?! So there's hope. I'm reminded of my favorite Zappa quote: The crux of the biscuit is: If it entertains you, fine. Enjoy it. If it doesn't, then blow it out your ass. I do it to amuse myself. If I like it, I release it. If somebody else likes it, that's a bonus.
- turbobooster 4y agoNo thanks, I'll stick to my Kindle