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I've thought of some of these independently. (It's good to see somebody else did too.) We could probably make more progress if we all kept a list like this publ

I've thought of some of these independently. (It's good to see somebody else did too.) We could probably make more progress if we all kept a list like this publicly. Or even privately, with snippets shared where appropriate. I know if I went through some old journals I could scrounge up a decent list myself. One I had: Bash scripting in the style of hypercard. Hypercard was described to me as a system that had a set of functions and let the user make programs out of them. Bash syntax is simple enough that making an interface that gives you the power of shell without degenerating from the original should be possible. The output should be a regular text based bash script, allowing others to edit without the program and the user to see what's going on underneath. EDIT: A second idea to go with the first: A utility that allows you to create a GUI window from the command line. This could be used in conjunction with the Bash script editor to make graphical programs that the user can easily incorporate into their (presumably window based) workflow.

klibertp 13y ago
> A utility that allows you to create a GUI window from the command line. Defunct now, but it lets you easily create windows without all that event-basedness that is annoying and unfit for scripts: http://easygui.sourceforge.net/ http://easygui.sourceforge.net/
ville 13y ago
> A utility that allows you to create a GUI window from the command line. In Gnome there is Zenity (https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/stable/ https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/stable/) that allows creating simple dialogs from command line.
mtrimpe 13y ago
> Bash scripting in the style of hypercard. It sounds like the Clojure library Stevedore [1] does what you're looking for there. [1] https://github.com/pallet/stevedore https://github.com/pallet/stevedore
- unimpressive 13y ago
  Is it a graphical interface? There aren't any screenshots. Or do you mean the library would be useful in building the tool?
  - mtrimpe 13y ago
    Ah; I forget that Hypercard was a visual interface and replied as though you were just looking for a higher-level shell creation utility. But yeah; maybe LightTable + Stevedore could get you halfway there...
cdcarter 13y ago
> Bash scripting in the style of hypercard. This feels like what Automator is. It's definitely not as powerful as Hypercard was, but just for shell stuff its very cool. Not text based, but it can help accomplish A LOT of bulk processes.
jodrellblank 13y ago
A utility that allows you to create a GUI window from the command line See PowerShell with ShowUI, on Windows. http://huddledmasses.org/showui-tutorial-walkthrough/ http://huddledmasses.org/showui-tutorial-walkthrough/
- jmspring 13y ago
  PowerShell takes a lot of what I dislike about cmd.exe and makes things worse. Many cmdlets assume some form of hidden state that isn't documented. Despite needing to use it, I often do so holding my nose. I really wish Windows would adapt the unix paradigm for command line...
salgernon 13y ago
Check out NeWS, circa 1990. Or Arthur Van Hoffs HyperNeWs around the same time. Edit: or Apples MPW shell back in the late 80s had a posixy set of command line tools that came with a shell called "commando". When invoked, it presented a dialog of all the tools options and constructed the command line from your choices. Kind if like training wheels, and it was smart enough to disable conflicting options, or to prompt for paths as appropriate. It showed the command syntax being built up. Eventually, I think it made its way to a/ux in 1992 or so.
- SupremumLimit 13y ago
  I guess the interesting question is, why aren't similar things popular today? I'm guessing the apps you mentioned didn't really become popular in their day either.

klibertp 13y ago

> A utility that allows you to create a GUI window from the command line. Defunct now, but it lets you easily create windows without all that event-basedness that is annoying and unfit for scripts: http://easygui.sourceforge.net/ http://easygui.sourceforge.net/

ville 13y ago

> A utility that allows you to create a GUI window from the command line. In Gnome there is Zenity (https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/stable/ https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/stable/) that allows creating simple dialogs from command line.

mtrimpe 13y ago

> Bash scripting in the style of hypercard. It sounds like the Clojure library Stevedore [1] does what you're looking for there. [1] https://github.com/pallet/stevedore https://github.com/pallet/stevedore

unimpressive 13y ago
Is it a graphical interface? There aren't any screenshots. Or do you mean the library would be useful in building the tool?
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  Ah; I forget that Hypercard was a visual interface and replied as though you were just looking for a higher-level shell creation utility. But yeah; maybe LightTable + Stevedore could get you halfway there...

cdcarter 13y ago

> Bash scripting in the style of hypercard. This feels like what Automator is. It's definitely not as powerful as Hypercard was, but just for shell stuff its very cool. Not text based, but it can help accomplish A LOT of bulk processes.

jodrellblank 13y ago

A utility that allows you to create a GUI window from the command line See PowerShell with ShowUI, on Windows. http://huddledmasses.org/showui-tutorial-walkthrough/ http://huddledmasses.org/showui-tutorial-walkthrough/

jmspring 13y ago
PowerShell takes a lot of what I dislike about cmd.exe and makes things worse. Many cmdlets assume some form of hidden state that isn't documented. Despite needing to use it, I often do so holding my nose. I really wish Windows would adapt the unix paradigm for command line...

salgernon 13y ago

Check out NeWS, circa 1990. Or Arthur Van Hoffs HyperNeWs around the same time. Edit: or Apples MPW shell back in the late 80s had a posixy set of command line tools that came with a shell called "commando". When invoked, it presented a dialog of all the tools options and constructed the command line from your choices. Kind if like training wheels, and it was smart enough to disable conflicting options, or to prompt for paths as appropriate. It showed the command syntax being built up. Eventually, I think it made its way to a/ux in 1992 or so.

SupremumLimit 13y ago
I guess the interesting question is, why aren't similar things popular today? I'm guessing the apps you mentioned didn't really become popular in their day either.