TUI over GUI, and we might be onto something unprecedented
Graphical User Interfaces, or GUI, the shiny, most coveted area of the internet and software in general, is always the face of innovation. Some might say that progress is always defined by the visible aspects of the software. Take an example of the latest innovation, like AI, there was almost no noise when it was used as an LLM in a terminal by some academics, data scientists, and developers, quietly prompting away at the terminal or hacking their way through APIs to train the models that underfit or overfit the expected output, depending on the data. Generate some funny responses and images, and suddenly it's the new frontier of modern software engineering.
Take the UI away, what do we have? And how should we make the world care about the advancements in software and/or hardware?
What is TUI?
Terminal User Interface, as the name suggests, is a command-line utility with a user interface for navigation. Each application boasts a keyboard-driven user interface for increased productivity and easy navigation in the app.
Why do we need TUIs?
As developers tend to spend an increasing amount of time in the terminal, the oddly satisfying-looking TUIs combine the everyday commands into a nice, shortcut-filled app.
Using keyboard shortcuts for everyday tasks is highly appealing and increases productivity for any developer spending more than four hours on coding. While I do have a MacBook Pro as my daily driver, I find the overall use of TUIs quite a refreshing and unhindered change while switching between macOS and Linux.
We are all hearing about Linux quite often now, aren't we?
Linux is having its fun in the mainstream sun. Read my article on Omarchy here.
Updates can be easily pushed across
I have been pivoting towards using Progressive Web Apps a lot. They are browser-based, I don't need to install an entire package for one small app, and most importantly, the updates get pushed instantly as the developer pushes any changes.
TUIs are simple CLI commands and can be updated by package managers or directly from source code using GitHub. It takes away the complexity for the user to run an elaborate update & restart process.
Examples of widely used TUIs
There are lots of TUIs used across multiple Linux distros, but I want to highlight some that I use and can be loaded across Linux and macOS.
LazyVim
One of the most popular TUIs and something every seasoned developer swears by, though I am relatively new to it. I am learning the Vim way, and it is not a pretty start.
I use it to update my website with new content. It takes me approximately ten minutes more than it normally would to push changes to my website, but I think it is worth it for the sheer joy of working with keybindings.
What a wannabe move!! I love it!
By the way, I use Go Hugo with the PaperMod theme for my website. It works seamlessly to write content in Obsidian and push it to my GitHub
Check it out here.
LazyGit
As I use lazyvim, obviously, I need something to push my changes to GitHub. Let's see how LazyGit looks to replace the usual four commands I use to push changes to my repository.
As the changes are made to any file, they show up in the files section. A simple (Space)or (a) to stage the changes, (c) to commit them, and (Shift + p) to push the changes makes it a visually striking experience.
I have been enjoying using LazyGit every day.
Check it out here
LazyDocker
One of the other niche TUIs, I was not aware I needed. It just makes for an easy view to look at and maintain all the Docker containers running.
Check it out here
Outro
While I understand these are not meant for everyone, the fact that such applications, beautiful-looking terminal apps, are available for developers and others to use across multiple platforms for free is a testament to the wonderful open source community.
I am sure there are other TUI apps for media consumption and art-related use created by the community.
Until next time!