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This is because of the failure of the modern GUI environment. They want a GUI, but, instead, they have to resort to something like this. A GUI in a TUI. They

This is because of the failure of the modern GUI environment. They want a GUI, but, instead, they have to resort to something like this. A GUI in a TUI. They want something portable. They want something that can run remotely. They want something they can run more safely than having to expose a socket. They don't want to have to bring up an entire desktop. Rootless windows are effectively dead. That leaves web interfaces (and all of their issues) or doing a TUI, where all you need is an SSH connection that everyone already has. In the past you could slap something together with Tcl/Tk, and just launch the window over X Windows. That's not so easy today, and no one is running remote X anyway. The LCD is SSH, and these are the only things that fit.

cedws 6mo ago
Agreed. I dread GUI development, hence I never build GUIs. If there were a library for my language of choice that worked multi-platform and used native components then I’d be interested.
tonyarkles 6mo ago
> That's not so easy today, and no one is running remote X anyway. I was quite recently, but even then remote X is missing a really big usability piece: keeping a long-running application open on the host and periodically connecting to it from a remote node (concretely: connecting to my server from my laptop). VNC/RDP/etc all do this at the desktop level, but they're pretty mediocre experience-wise. tmux gives me this for terminal applications without really any compromises. I run tmux for local terminals as well as remote terminals; the hotkeys are all deep muscle memory at this point. It just works.
einpoklum 6mo ago
> That's not so easy today, and no one is running remote X anyway. If you: 1. Have a low-latency connection to a decent machine, and 2. Are on a machine that's weak, or isn't yours, or that you don't fully control (e.g. employer forces you to run Windows) ... then you live in remote X apps my friend.

cedws 6mo ago

Agreed. I dread GUI development, hence I never build GUIs. If there were a library for my language of choice that worked multi-platform and used native components then I’d be interested.

tonyarkles 6mo ago

> That's not so easy today, and no one is running remote X anyway. I was quite recently, but even then remote X is missing a really big usability piece: keeping a long-running application open on the host and periodically connecting to it from a remote node (concretely: connecting to my server from my laptop). VNC/RDP/etc all do this at the desktop level, but they're pretty mediocre experience-wise. tmux gives me this for terminal applications without really any compromises. I run tmux for local terminals as well as remote terminals; the hotkeys are all deep muscle memory at this point. It just works.

einpoklum 6mo ago

> That's not so easy today, and no one is running remote X anyway. If you: 1. Have a low-latency connection to a decent machine, and 2. Are on a machine that's weak, or isn't yours, or that you don't fully control (e.g. employer forces you to run Windows) ... then you live in remote X apps my friend.