Re: [SLUG] TUI? (was: KDE vs. Gnome)

From: R P Herrold (herrold@owlriver.com)
Date: Fri Feb 08 2002 - 14:47:59 EST


On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Tina Gasperson wrote:

> Textual User Interface??
>
> > >emacs - / - majordomo v MailMan - / - TUI v GUI - /
> > - combo --
> > >no right answer, and there is the prospect of
> > convergence with
> > >the Qt-kde compatability API work --
> > >
> > What the heck it TUI?

TUI -- ... oops; I've used the term for a long time, and
picked it up in a context where I am under an NDA.

... as the initial poster, TUI is, to me, a Textual User
Interface -- Console is a subset term, and not really
descriptive, in that X and Web UI's can have Text boxes in
them ...

GUI is much easier to teach, after many years of CUA
'training' of the populus -- but also much harder to do
un-anticipated tasks in. Windows is an example, as is, say, a
turnkey Motif or Qt application -- if the rught button is not
there, you are stuck; TUI is 'closer' to the bare metal of
the operating system, and correspondingly harder to learn and
(I think, always) more powerful once mastered.

CUA is another -- the IBM OS/2 usability document is at least
15 uears old at this point, and was adopted by the Motif folks
in building the CDE X worktop, as a formal document ..
Keyboard accelerators are a subset topic in CUA as well; I
have a linkfarm on the topic somewhere. If people are
intersted, let me know and I'll find it.

Neither is "right" as an absolute matter -- but either might
be a "better" solution for a given userset.

-- Russ herrold



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