Slashdot Mirror
Which Text-Based UI Do You Code With?
JHWH asks: "I've been asked to design and implement a management software system with text based user interface as the replacement of an older one running on AS/400. Despite my attempts towards a web UI, the customer is actually willing to have a text based UI. The main reasons are the need for a very low bandwidth and the ability to run on serial terminals. All this in the 21st century! Host systems will be Linux, the language will be C or C++. I already thought about the use of text based browsers like lynx or links. So now I have to wipe the dust away from my ncurses manual, or can Slashdot suggest something more effective?"
Compared to web, it has advantages that the original poster enumerated, as well as:
- support for hotkeys and shortcuts (especially big for manual data entry/call centre users)
- ability to easily rescale + resize to fit into available screen real estate.
It's simple for a terminal emulator to scale down fonts when the window is resized. Try that with your average GUI or web page.. not to mention component layout issues when dealing with GUIs. This may sound dumb, but it can be a big issue for call centres having to juggle multiple apps but with only one physical screen.
- simplified deployment (yes, even simpler than web) - no issues with browser versions, plugin conflicts, etc etc.
- SPEED! Compared with the latency of your average web front-end.
Issues like this really add up to a big difference for apps that are used intensively.
You are like the e e cummings of ./ posts.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.