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Rapid Open Source Development for the Unix Console?
Adam Weiss asks: "With Web Interfaces and GUIs being all the rage these days, it seems hard to find much about console application development. Web Interfaces and GUIs look pretty and impress people, but I've noticed that it's awfully hard to beat the speed of a well trained operator on a well designed console interface. Some of the HR folks at work use a console app to access employee records while others use a Windows GUI. The console folk can lookup and update three records in the time it takes the the GUI folk to clicky-clicky through one. So, are there any mature Open Source toolkits that would enable rapid development of console applications. Sure, there's curses, but that's low level pain in the arse. I'm talking like something that is specifically designed for building database applications- kinda like an extensible version of Microsoft Access Forms for the green screen. Something that's pretty easy for the simple stuff, but lets you break out and get complicated if you need to. (unlike Access) I know there's gotta be plenty of obsolete commercial stuff that makes these kinds of projects easy. I just want to know if there are any Open Source alternatives that are somewhat modern and well maintained."
Turbovision was an old Borland library for DOS, with C and Pascal bindings, which addressed the niche you're looking for. There's supposedly a free port to Unix. I can't vouch for it personally, but check out this Freshmeat project page.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
Actually, this isn't far off...
Project Builder does have templates for console applications, and if you don't use cocoa (IE, stick to libc and posix libs) the resulting code is quite portable to a regular unix system (although you'll have to write your own makefile).
The best part about it is that PB can be extended with new templates, including console program templates. I'm sure someone out there has already created a few and released them as a free download. You may need to spend some time developing console templates for separate "RAD" tasks, but in the end it'd save you a lot of time.
- Cloud
The Informix 4gl environment. x4gl is pretty common there's even a GPL version Aubit
Oracle forms
Adabas Natural
I worked for a number of years developing case tools. I saw the tools used to great effect and also saw complete disasters caused by them. As long as you work within the confines of the tool everything will be quick and robust. Try and get clever and you might as well not use a case tool. The important word is TOOL not CASE.
You're kidding. That's a horrible idea. How do you implement keyboard shortcuts in links/lynx? How do you do menus and stuff like that? Not to mention the additional security headaches involved in writing web interfaces...
What this person wants to do is get over his leetness and learn to make a GUI application that behaves how he/she thinks a console app should work. There's no reason you can't bind keys the exact same way in a GUI that you would in a console app. And really, a console app created with something like curses is a GUI. Just not a very sophisticated one. A true command line application accepts lines in and spits lines out without mocking up a pathetic GUI using ASCII.
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