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> TUIs are an abomination of design that poorly mimic actually beautiful UIs My mother used to have an early "digital company" back in the 90s in Argentina. We

> TUIs are an abomination of design that poorly mimic actually beautiful UIs My mother used to have an early "digital company" back in the 90s in Argentina. We are from a small town in the "Patagonia region"[0] and there was only 1 programmer in the whole town. The guy was a huge nerd that had spent some time studying in Buenos Aires. Long story short, my mother hired this kid to build software for him. This is around 1992 so it was all DOS. This guy built a full TUI software with CRUD operation, reporting, "cron jobs" (some stuff that I never understood but would run every night), printing, etc. Until this day I remember the people working at my mother's company how they just FLEW over the software. It was all keyboard and hotkeys. They'd just go back and forth, print stuff, enter data, connect with the Fax machine, all with their keyboard in this black screen full of green, white and orange glyphs. I NEVER found any other software that is SO powerful and efficient and user friendly as TUIs. [0] The "true" Patagonia region in the East of Arg.

imiric 2y ago
That's great, but keyboard shortcuts are not exclusive to TUIs. GUIs can be just as powerful in that sense, and most advanced web apps support keyboard navigation. My objection is mainly to the claim that TUIs are beautiful, and to the effort of bringing their design to the web. But this is ultimately down to personal preferences, and others may disagree.
- santiagobasulto 2y ago
  Yes, GUIs and Web interfaces can support keyboard navigation. But I have NEVER found one fully exploiting this. Linear (ticket tracking app) is maybe the only one that comes to mind as a good alternative, but nowhere close to the fluidity achieved by TUIs. I think the reason is "limitation", if you have to design an app that CAN NOT use a Mouse, you'll be darn sure it'll work well with the keyboard.
- graemep 2y ago
  Its true in theory, but it does not work well in practice because: 1. Developers have to make an extra effort (and require time) to do it right 2. People are much less likely to learn the keyboard shortcuts If you designed a GUI to be keyboard first then it might work as you say, but I cannot think of any real life examples of that. I think people need to TUI look to push them to use keyboards.
  - queenkjuul 2y ago
    Every graphical PoS system i used in retail was a keyboard-first GUI
- trollied 2y ago
  You’re correct that modern web apps support keyboard shortcuts just fine. Unfortunately the reality of it is that the modern web is bogged down by the mess that is npm modules, react etc, and the majority of web apps are slow. Oldschool terminal apps you can just type away, and you know your keystrokes will just happen. The modern web? Urgh. Don’t get me wrong, you can do it right, but most don’t bother with non- functional requirements “this should take 5ms” etc, so you just end up with pointless animations and transitions that stop useful work being done. This is often simple things like the tab order being wrong, or an AJAX request blocking the next thing you want to do.
pjmlp 2y ago
Except my laptop isn't something bound to 1 MB RAM, with luck having a VGA card able to do 256 colors, running at about 20 MHz with turbo button and a whooping 40 MB hard drive.
- jen729w 2y ago
  Except it’s quicker to navigate an interface using keystrokes than it is using a mouse regardless of how much RAM you’ve got. Compare a proficient travel agent who speaks Sabre to you booking a flight on Skyscanner. They’d whup your ass. https://youtube.com/watch?v=G8n0_3t-EhI&pp=ygUPc2FicmUgY2xpIHF1ZXJ5 https://youtube.com/watch?v=G8n0_3t-EhI&pp=ygUPc2FicmUgY2xpI...
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    GUIs have keyboard shortcuts for decades, blame the developer that wasn't up to their stuff, not providing keyboard navigation. Heck, there are even Win32 and X Windows APIs designed with the exact purpose for keyboard navigation and shortcuts. Maybe instead of doing TUIs one should better spend their time learning the tools of their craft. Skyscanner failure to adopt such tooling, which browser also have due to accessibility requirements, has nothing to do with technical issues, all about skill and willingness where to spend budget.
    - nikau 2y ago
      The difference is keystroke buffering - the agent in sabre can type ahead while the system is processing a transaction, the web/gui user has to wait for each screen to load.
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        First of all, keyboards have limited size buffers, secondly the same is available on GUIs, and I go back to mastering the craft and OS APIs. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/inputdev/keyboard-input https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/inputdev/key... https://tronche.com/gui/x/xlib/events/keyboard-pointer/keyboard-pointer.html https://tronche.com/gui/x/xlib/events/keyboard-pointer/keybo...
graemep 2y ago
I saw similar in the 90s in a bank branch that was still on an old system. People who new it were very, very fast.

imiric 2y ago

That's great, but keyboard shortcuts are not exclusive to TUIs. GUIs can be just as powerful in that sense, and most advanced web apps support keyboard navigation. My objection is mainly to the claim that TUIs are beautiful, and to the effort of bringing their design to the web. But this is ultimately down to personal preferences, and others may disagree.

santiagobasulto 2y ago
Yes, GUIs and Web interfaces can support keyboard navigation. But I have NEVER found one fully exploiting this. Linear (ticket tracking app) is maybe the only one that comes to mind as a good alternative, but nowhere close to the fluidity achieved by TUIs. I think the reason is "limitation", if you have to design an app that CAN NOT use a Mouse, you'll be darn sure it'll work well with the keyboard.
graemep 2y ago
Its true in theory, but it does not work well in practice because: 1. Developers have to make an extra effort (and require time) to do it right 2. People are much less likely to learn the keyboard shortcuts If you designed a GUI to be keyboard first then it might work as you say, but I cannot think of any real life examples of that. I think people need to TUI look to push them to use keyboards.
- queenkjuul 2y ago
  Every graphical PoS system i used in retail was a keyboard-first GUI
trollied 2y ago
You’re correct that modern web apps support keyboard shortcuts just fine. Unfortunately the reality of it is that the modern web is bogged down by the mess that is npm modules, react etc, and the majority of web apps are slow. Oldschool terminal apps you can just type away, and you know your keystrokes will just happen. The modern web? Urgh. Don’t get me wrong, you can do it right, but most don’t bother with non- functional requirements “this should take 5ms” etc, so you just end up with pointless animations and transitions that stop useful work being done. This is often simple things like the tab order being wrong, or an AJAX request blocking the next thing you want to do.

pjmlp 2y ago

Except my laptop isn't something bound to 1 MB RAM, with luck having a VGA card able to do 256 colors, running at about 20 MHz with turbo button and a whooping 40 MB hard drive.

jen729w 2y ago
Except it’s quicker to navigate an interface using keystrokes than it is using a mouse regardless of how much RAM you’ve got. Compare a proficient travel agent who speaks Sabre to you booking a flight on Skyscanner. They’d whup your ass. https://youtube.com/watch?v=G8n0_3t-EhI&pp=ygUPc2FicmUgY2xpIHF1ZXJ5 https://youtube.com/watch?v=G8n0_3t-EhI&pp=ygUPc2FicmUgY2xpI...
- pjmlp 2y ago
  GUIs have keyboard shortcuts for decades, blame the developer that wasn't up to their stuff, not providing keyboard navigation. Heck, there are even Win32 and X Windows APIs designed with the exact purpose for keyboard navigation and shortcuts. Maybe instead of doing TUIs one should better spend their time learning the tools of their craft. Skyscanner failure to adopt such tooling, which browser also have due to accessibility requirements, has nothing to do with technical issues, all about skill and willingness where to spend budget.
  - nikau 2y ago
    The difference is keystroke buffering - the agent in sabre can type ahead while the system is processing a transaction, the web/gui user has to wait for each screen to load.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      First of all, keyboards have limited size buffers, secondly the same is available on GUIs, and I go back to mastering the craft and OS APIs. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/inputdev/keyboard-input https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/inputdev/key... https://tronche.com/gui/x/xlib/events/keyboard-pointer/keyboard-pointer.html https://tronche.com/gui/x/xlib/events/keyboard-pointer/keybo...

graemep 2y ago

I saw similar in the 90s in a bank branch that was still on an old system. People who new it were very, very fast.