Number of unix/Linux programs which offers Text Based User Interface (TUI) is currently is few in number. Here is a Guide on Possibilities of Using Text Based User Interface (TUI) on SSH Environment. Who are not aware of what is TUI, they can look at Midnight Commander like programs. TUI is not backdated, pure text based Command Line Interface (CLI) is used even on quite powerful softwares because at ’80s, ’90s most softwares were proprietary, some are difficult to port to modern system. It is not easy to run very large commands with unix pipe.
Possibilities of Text Based User Interface (TUI) on SSH Environment
TWIN
TWIN is usable application. It is a TUI windows environment. Twin supports a variety of displays including plain text computer terminals, X11 etc. Here is GitHub repo :
1 | https://github.com/cosmos72/twin |
TWIN can be tested on MacOS Sierra or Ubuntu (GUI Terminal) with these commands :
1 2 3 4 5 6 | git clone https://github.com/cosmos72/twin cd twin ./configure make make install twin |
We tested on MacOS Sierra, not bad at all. For using on SSH, some extra steps needed.
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Minicom and Conserver
Both Minicom and conserver are sometimes used. At least you’ll get some usable guides and official appearance on various official distro specific repositories :
1 | https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Minicom |
We have not seen more than these few. Other options like GNU Screen, tmux are not exactly great. For various reasons, Midnight Commander is practical for everyday usage on SSH. Obviously one can develop own Text Based User Interface applications following our guide or use the other existing TUI apps.
There was a program for Windows named Mi-Shell (MSH) which used own scripting language. We could not find the application, question of trying to run somehow under GNU/Linux does not exist. There is no Shell which has a Text Based User Interface. Nowadays with advance of embedded Linux, few projects for library at least progressed or GNU/Linux has direct, default commands. Jed Editor is a good text editor, there are browsers like Links, Lnyx, music player like Herrie, GoAccess is recently developed, others are networking tools. Server OS are somehow distributed with a CLI by community.
