[Novalug] Text User Interface (TUI) utilities for Linux and Windows -- WAS: Messed up file title problem

Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org
Sun Mar 21 11:58:51 EDT 2010


[ FYI, I'm about to dump Yahoo mail.  It really sux at this point.
  GMail has its issues and non-standards.  Kinda tired of most, but
  don't want to run my own servers anymore (and haven't for years). ]

Jon -- great post.  I like it when people clarify things after the
posts of others, including myself, offer alternative logic and approaches,
things some of us either assume or didn't think of offering.

With that said, and at the risk of introducing yet another tangent,
maybe it's time I bring up the concept of Text user Interfaces (TUIs)
for Linux and Windows -- ideally those available for both.

Personally I'm lazy.  I don't use Linux because I want to tinker much.
The only time I do is when I just can't ignore my itch any longer.  But
for the most part, I don't.  In fact, I even avoid the command line
regularly.  Yeah, if I need to be an expert on something, I'll put in
my due dilligence.  But many times, I'm lazy.

E.g., 90% of what I use my netbook running Fedora 12 for is just to
get images from SDHC cards in my K20D on-line, preview, etc...  I use
Nautilus for most of that (with some plug-ins for PEF/DNG and other
formats/tools).

I will once again mention the TUI of Midnight Commander.  It's quick'n
easy to pull up.  It's also available for Windows (getting a tad stale,
but does work under Vista natively -- although Cygwin's version is also
an option).

Here's Siegward's version for Windows:  
  http://www.siegward-jaekel.de/mc-gb.html  

On Linux systems, the package is typically "mc" or similar.

So, what other TUIs are people using out there?  I'll sometimes script
something with whiptail.  Whiptail is the slang library replacement
tool for dialog, which is for ncurses.  I believe mc also uses slang
as well (and can be built for ncurses if slang isn't available?).

Jon wrote:  
> Both times I've been to your home you have shown me a large
> book, the linux shell bible I think.  And said you were
> going to start to read it and experiment with its examples
> and exercises.
> Now would be a good time to do so.  And don't be
> surprised by this problem.  One of the most common queries from
> actual newbies (as opposed to you, the "perpetual newbie" :) is
> exactly yours, "how do I remove ...".
> ... cut ...





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