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Where can I find resources related to the design and development of text-based user interfaces (e.g. interfaces exported via serial port from embedded devices to VT100 terminals)? I am interested in any material available - best practices, style guides, frameworks, etc.

Note that I am asking about resources related to the design and development of 'TUIs' rather than command-line interfaces (the thrust of Text User Interface Design Reference?). Wikipedia differentiates TUIs from CLIs (and GUIs) as follows:

TUIs are different from command-line interfaces in that, like GUIs, they use the entire screen area and do not necessarily provide line-by-line output. However, TUIs only use text and symbols available on a typical text terminal, while GUIs typically use high-resolution graphics modes.

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Brandon E Taylor
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    Check this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1324056/text-user-interface-design-reference – Shoban Oct 02 '09 at 05:22
  • I saw that post, Shoban. Depite its title, that question is related to the design of CLIs rather than text-based user interfaces (TUIs). I will clarify this in my question. Thanks. – Brandon E Taylor Oct 02 '09 at 05:37

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I don't have any experience with VT100 and that kind of stuff, but I know that Turbo Vision is still around and kicking on quite a few platforms, DOS and Linux included. And back in its day, it was used to write some of the better TUI applications (Borland C++ and Borland Pascal DOS IDEs come to mind), and I've seen it used in LOB applications back then quite often as well.

Screenshot:
(source: sourceforge.net)

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Pavel Minaev
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Perhaps take a look at ncurses? It's a GNU library specifically designed for writing terminal-based UIs.

Amber
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    Amazingly, there's actually a book that's been written about `ncurses` in the last couple of years (I'm actually astonished by that), and it's gotten some good reviews. http://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Guide-NCurses-Dan-Gookin/dp/0470107596 – Michael Burr Oct 03 '09 at 21:20
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For best practices and style guides, the IBM Common User Access (CUA) defines a "text subset" that should be helpful especially if your users are used to GUIs. Details are in Chapter 3 of:

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr/BOOKS/F29BDG00/CCONTENTS

Additional CUA guidelines and standards are in:

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr/BOOKS/F29AL000/CCONTENTS?DT=19921204095534

Michael Zuschlag
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http://petesqbsite.com/sections/express/issue21/tuiseriespart1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface

Hope it helps... I still make programs in TUI (www.harbour-project.org)

Roman C
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Mario
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