4 ms·

It'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 ago
  i dont know why this is downvoted, when in fact people with beards will beard haha
victornomad 4y ago
I 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 ago
  Well-made desktop apps and websites are usable via the keyboard. It's a key requirement for accessibility.
bigpeopleareold 4y ago
For 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 ago
Context 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 ago
  I 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 ago
Are there any terminals that can render different fonts for different parts of the ui?
- dsr_ 4y ago
  Yes, 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 ago
When 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 ago
  IIRC, an auto-magnifying glass is part of accessibility. So it's probably already included and easy to activate.
  - nils-m-holm 4y ago
    Thanks, but I'm using X11, so there is no "accessibility".
    - dsr_ 4y ago
      xmag 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 ago
Just 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 ago
  Yeah I like TUI apps for email, note taking, writing, coding etc but this doesn't make much sense to me!
danjoredd 4y ago
Its not fanaticism. Its preference. You can use GUI apps if you want, but others just find the terminal more comfortable.
VLM 4y ago
GUI means slow and high latency Terminal means fast and low latency

Dalewyn 4y ago

[flagged]

throwaway71271 4y ago
i dont know why this is downvoted, when in fact people with beards will beard haha

victornomad 4y ago

I 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 ago
Well-made desktop apps and websites are usable via the keyboard. It's a key requirement for accessibility.

bigpeopleareold 4y ago

For 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 ago

Context 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 ago
I 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 ago

Are there any terminals that can render different fonts for different parts of the ui?

dsr_ 4y ago
Yes, 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 ago

When 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 ago
IIRC, an auto-magnifying glass is part of accessibility. So it's probably already included and easy to activate.
- nils-m-holm 4y ago
  Thanks, but I'm using X11, so there is no "accessibility".
  - dsr_ 4y ago
    xmag 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 ago

Just 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 ago
Yeah I like TUI apps for email, note taking, writing, coding etc but this doesn't make much sense to me!

danjoredd 4y ago

Its not fanaticism. Its preference. You can use GUI apps if you want, but others just find the terminal more comfortable.

VLM 4y ago

GUI means slow and high latency Terminal means fast and low latency