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The execution is really nice! But,there are already browsers and web guidelines to make this possible without specific single purpose apps. Why would I use th

The execution is really nice! But,there are already browsers and web guidelines to make this possible without specific single purpose apps. Why would I use this over for example, Lynx?

0xfafafa 4y ago
I have never used Lynx personally, but just going through the description of it i would say that wik also provide quick introduction lookup to a desired topic. Initially i made this as a personal tool just for this quick introduction lookup feature as i don't wanted to hustle through a browser for a just introduction search on the topic. But when made i made this project public i added full info and search.
capitainenemo 4y ago
I was kinda wondering that myself. There's so many terminal based apps to keep track of, I've gotten into the habit of trying to know a core set fairly well (like bash,awk,sed,grep -P etc). For this sort of thing I have a dozen tabs open in w3m already. $ alias wiki='f(){ w3m -F "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=${1}&title=Special:Search&ns0=1"; unset -f f; }; f' $ wiki pandas This seemed to work well for me. A tab to the wikipedia search page bookmarked would work well too and could be used in existing w3m/lynx session.
- capitainenemo 4y ago
  Oh, BTW, this sort of thing works well with any sort of site that degrades gracefully/is not pure JS. $ alias crate='f(){ w3m -F "https://lib.rs/search?q=${1}"; unset -f f; }; f' $ crate rocket (lib.rs is a crate index using rust as the server instead of javascript, and has advantage of working well with terminal browsers)
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  This is the Unix way. You already have the tools and utilities you need, just pipeline them together and make an alias if it’s something you need frequently.
- Bayes7 4y ago
  hey, off topic but can you explain or link a post which explains what the benefits of the alias -> function definition are over just defining the function directly? Thanks!
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    I am puzzled as well, why not define the function and call it wiki?
    - capitainenemo 4y ago
      I'm just used to keeping all my aliases together for easy location with alias command and I like having ones with arguments with the others. Aside from that, no benefit really that I can think of. So yes, to be clear to anyone else you can just put: wiki(){ w3m -F "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=${1}&title=Special:Search&ns0=1"; } in your .bashrc - and if you're me you just forget how you defined it and you have to cat it every once in a while :) Oh, and you might be entertained by this silly alias adapted from an IOCC entry... $ cstdin printf("Hello World\n"); Hello World alias cstdin='gcc -pedantic -ansi -Wall -o ~/.stdin ~/.stdin.c -lm && ~/.stdin' $ cat ~/.stdin.cc #include <stdio.h> <snip many headers> int main(int argc, char **argv) { #include </dev/tty> return 0; } I'm sure it would also make way more sense as a dedicated script. I have a C++ one in there too.
      - Bayes7 4y ago
        ah I see, cool thanks!

The execution is really nice! But,there are already browsers and web guidelines to make this possible without specific single purpose apps. Why would I use this over for example, Lynx?

0xfafafa 4y ago

I have never used Lynx personally, but just going through the description of it i would say that wik also provide quick introduction lookup to a desired topic. Initially i made this as a personal tool just for this quick introduction lookup feature as i don't wanted to hustle through a browser for a just introduction search on the topic. But when made i made this project public i added full info and search.

capitainenemo 4y ago

I was kinda wondering that myself. There's so many terminal based apps to keep track of, I've gotten into the habit of trying to know a core set fairly well (like bash,awk,sed,grep -P etc). For this sort of thing I have a dozen tabs open in w3m already. $ alias wiki='f(){ w3m -F "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=${1}&title=Special:Search&ns0=1"; unset -f f; }; f' $ wiki pandas This seemed to work well for me. A tab to the wikipedia search page bookmarked would work well too and could be used in existing w3m/lynx session.

capitainenemo 4y ago
Oh, BTW, this sort of thing works well with any sort of site that degrades gracefully/is not pure JS. $ alias crate='f(){ w3m -F "https://lib.rs/search?q=${1}"; unset -f f; }; f' $ crate rocket (lib.rs is a crate index using rust as the server instead of javascript, and has advantage of working well with terminal browsers)
SoftTalker 4y ago
This is the Unix way. You already have the tools and utilities you need, just pipeline them together and make an alias if it’s something you need frequently.
Bayes7 4y ago
hey, off topic but can you explain or link a post which explains what the benefits of the alias -> function definition are over just defining the function directly? Thanks!
- prmoustache 4y ago
  I am puzzled as well, why not define the function and call it wiki?
  - capitainenemo 4y ago
    I'm just used to keeping all my aliases together for easy location with alias command and I like having ones with arguments with the others. Aside from that, no benefit really that I can think of. So yes, to be clear to anyone else you can just put: wiki(){ w3m -F "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=${1}&title=Special:Search&ns0=1"; } in your .bashrc - and if you're me you just forget how you defined it and you have to cat it every once in a while :) Oh, and you might be entertained by this silly alias adapted from an IOCC entry... $ cstdin printf("Hello World\n"); Hello World alias cstdin='gcc -pedantic -ansi -Wall -o ~/.stdin ~/.stdin.c -lm && ~/.stdin' $ cat ~/.stdin.cc #include <stdio.h> <snip many headers> int main(int argc, char **argv) { #include </dev/tty> return 0; } I'm sure it would also make way more sense as a dedicated script. I have a C++ one in there too.
    - Bayes7 4y ago
      ah I see, cool thanks!