Any future for curses applications/toolkits like rbcurse?

ruby-talk
1

Have apps moved over to the web (or GUI) totally ? Will there be any
development on the terminal/console ?

I am honestly and seriously wondering if its worthwhile to keep working
on libraries/toolkits such as rbcurse ?

Although, many of us do use text editors like vim/emacs, and apps such
as alpine/mutt/mc/vifm, and a lot of other command line utilities, but
is there scope for new apps to be written on the terminal/console.

If yes, what are such apps ?

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

2

Yes, I think this is true. There isn't much room for curses based
console apps anymore. Heck you can even access a web app via a
terminal using lynx. That's not to say there aren't some niche uses
(writing lynx itself for instance). But it is very limited arena at
this point, and not worth the effort (IMHO) unless you have a very
specific need for it.

Console apps that are not curses based, however, are still very useful
and widely used and certainly worth the effort.

···

On May 10, 2:13 am, "R. Kumar" <sentinel.2...@gmx.com> wrote:

Have apps moved over to the web (or GUI) totally ? Will there be any
development on the terminal/console ?

I am honestly and seriously wondering if its worthwhile to keep working
on libraries/toolkits such as rbcurse ?

Although, many of us do use text editors like vim/emacs, and apps such
as alpine/mutt/mc/vifm, and a lot of other command line utilities, but
is there scope for new apps to be written on the terminal/console.

If yes, what are such apps ?

3

imho, the reason we do not see much curses apps is because the curses
api interface and/or the installation itself is terrible.

i like the ui of rbcurse, but i find it very difficult to install.
There is ffi-curses, but its ui calls are crude, ergo too slow for
fast scripting devt, ergo not fit for ruby's oo ease...

let's take a simple example: a simple program that prompts for the ff:

First Name: __________
Last Name:__________
Userid:__________
Password: __________

without curses-based ui interface, i have to rerun the program again
if i want to change one of those fields. wc is really terrible.

that said, any app i can imagine may have a need for text ui. hands
down, administration/mgt program is one. pls don't let me run a webgui
or any gui for that matter. i do not do gui on my servers. i only use
ssh, and i find it not only very secure, but also very fast.

thanks and kind regards -botp

ps: are you kumar, the creator of rbcurse?

···

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:13 PM, R. Kumar <sentinel.2001@gmx.com> wrote:

Although, many of us do use text editors like vim/emacs, and apps such
as alpine/mutt/mc/vifm, and a lot of other command line utilities, but
is there scope for new apps to be written on the terminal/console.
If yes, what are such apps ?

4

I use irssi almost every day. I wish there were a Ruby equivalent.

···

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 12:13 AM, R. Kumar <sentinel.2001@gmx.com> wrote:

Have apps moved over to the web (or GUI) totally ? Will there be any
development on the terminal/console ?

--
Tony Arcieri
Medioh! A Kudelski Brand

5

interface and/or the installation itself is terrible.

i like the ui of rbcurse, but i find it very difficult to install.
There is ffi-curses, but its ui calls are crude, ergo too slow for
fast scripting devt, ergo not fit for ruby's oo ease...

Did you find rbcurse difficult to install, *or ncurses*? Once ncurses is
installed, then you only have to install the rbcurse gem.

I know, I've had a lot of issues installed ncurses gem, most complaints
have to do with that.

The only issue reg. installing rbcurse came when someone had 1.8 and 1.9
on his system, and the gem was installed when he had 1.8 operational,
then he loaded 1.9 and tried to run the programs.

Thanks for your answers.

···

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Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

6

Thomas Sawyer wrote:

Console apps that are not curses based, however, are still very useful
and widely used and certainly worth the effort.

Could you clarify that, i did not understand about "console apps that
are not curses based". Do you mean the general command line programs --
apps without a screen interface - such as ri, or gem, or rake, etc ?

Thanks.

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

7

Yes.

But I think botp makes a fair point about admin consoles. Though I
suspect even that won't last for ever.

···

On May 10, 10:31 am, "R. Kumar" <sentinel.2...@gmx.com> wrote:

Could you clarify that, i did not understand about "console apps that
are not curses based". Do you mean the general command line programs --
apps without a screen interface - such as ri, or gem, or rake, etc ?

8

i'm sure ncurses installed fine since ffi-curses works.

ok, just to be sure, i just installed ncurses-1.2.4.gem, and then
rbcurse (as per doc instruction).
i ran the examples and they all failed w the common error

/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rbcurse-1.1.2/lib/rbcurse/rwidget.rb:29:in
`require': no such file to load -- rbcurse/io (LoadError)

thanks and best regards -botp

···

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 10:28 PM, R. Kumar <sentinel.2001@gmx.com> wrote:

Did you find rbcurse difficult to install, *or ncurses*? Once ncurses is
installed, then you only have to install the rbcurse gem.

9

Thomas Sawyer wrote:

···

On May 10, 10:31�am, "R. Kumar" <sentinel.2...@gmx.com> wrote:

Could you clarify that, i did not understand about "console apps that
are not curses based". Do you mean the general command line programs --
apps without a screen interface - such as ri, or gem, or rake, etc ?

Yes.

But I think botp makes a fair point about admin consoles. Though I
suspect even that won't last for ever.

Thanks for your replies.

Anyway, I will probably keep updating or improving rbcurse to keep in
touch with ruby. I'll try simplifying, cleaning up, and adding more
keyboard power to the components.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

10

botp wrote:

Did you find rbcurse difficult to install, *or ncurses*? Once ncurses is
installed, then you only have to install the rbcurse gem.

i'm sure ncurses installed fine since ffi-curses works.

ok, just to be sure, i just installed ncurses-1.2.4.gem, and then
rbcurse (as per doc instruction).
i ran the examples and they all failed w the common error

/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rbcurse-1.1.2/lib/rbcurse/rwidget.rb:29:in
`require': no such file to load -- rbcurse/io (LoadError)

thanks and best regards -botp

Oh, thanks for that !!! I have had a lot of issues generating gems,
since whenever I am ready to create a new version, the hoe package has
changed. I must have manually done 1.1.2

I have just yesterday, moved over to jeweler, and i checked the gemspec
created, it does contain io.rb. I shall upload the gem created by
jeweler.

Thanks for pointing out.

···

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 10:28 PM, R. Kumar <sentinel.2001@gmx.com> > wrote:

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

11

Thanks, curses interface is nice and certainly useful.

Still I would like to see an extension that supports utf-8, and I am
not sure that is even reasonably possible in ruby 1.8.

Thanks

Michal

···

On 10 May 2010 17:44, R. Kumar <sentinel.2001@gmx.com> wrote:

Thomas Sawyer wrote:

On May 10, 10:31�am, "R. Kumar" <sentinel.2...@gmx.com> wrote:

Could you clarify that, i did not understand about "console apps that
are not curses based". Do you mean the general command line programs --
apps without a screen interface - such as ri, or gem, or rake, etc ?

Yes.

But I think botp makes a fair point about admin consoles. Though I
suspect even that won't last for ever.

Thanks for your replies.

Anyway, I will probably keep updating or improving rbcurse to keep in
touch with ruby. I'll try simplifying, cleaning up, and adding more
keyboard power to the components.

12

Strange. I cant push a gem even after yanking.

gem yank rbcurse -v 1.1.2

Yanking gem from RubyGems.org...
Successfully yanked gem: rbcurse (1.1.2)

Executing "gem push ./pkg/rbcurse-1.1.2.gem":
gem push ./pkg/rbcurse-1.1.2.gem
Pushing gem to RubyGems.org...
Repushing of gem versions is not allowed.
Please use `gem yank` to remove bad gem releases.
rake aborted!
Command failed with status (1): [gem push ./pkg/rbcurse-1.1.2.gem...]

gem yank rbcurse -v 1.1.2

Yanking gem from RubyGems.org...
The version 1.1.2 has already been yanked.

So i've pushed 1.1.3 to gemcutter:

Successfully registered gem: rbcurse (1.1.3)

botp, please try it and let me know. Thanks a lot.

···

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13

i just ran gem update and all samples work like a charm :wink:
thanks for rbcurse. i will study it.
btw, your examples require super user power, i have to use sudo :slight_smile:
best regards -botp

···

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 12:01 AM, R. Kumar <sentinel.2001@gmx.com> wrote:

...
So i've pushed 1.1.3 to gemcutter:

Successfully registered gem: rbcurse (1.1.3)

botp, please try it and let me know. Thanks a lot.

14

btw, could you also register ncurses-1.2.4 in rubygems?

best regards -botp

···

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 12:01 AM, R. Kumar <sentinel.2001@gmx.com> wrote:

Successfully registered gem: rbcurse (1.1.3)

15

Hi, it seems to be working on 1.9.1, but I'm having difficulty on 1.8.7.

I think the problem is that 1.8.7 is installed in
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rbcurse-1.1.3 which doesn't have write access to
view.log
The reason 1.9.1 works is because I use RVM, which places it in
~/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rbcurse-1.1.3 since it's in a subdir of my
home dir, I think it has write access (sorry if this is way off, Unix isn't
my strong point)

Other differences are that when installing for 1.9.1, I had to do "gem
install --local ncurses-0.9.1.gem", but I was able to get it to work
correctly with "sudo gem install ncurses" for 1.8.7

Here was my 1.8.7 session:

Last login: Sun May 9 11:36:45 on ttys001
Now using system ruby.

11:32 AM ~
☭sudo gem install ncurses
Password:
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed ncurses-0.9.1
1 gem installed
Installing ri documentation for ncurses-0.9.1...
Installing RDoc documentation for ncurses-0.9.1...

11:32 AM ~
☭sudo gem install rbcurse
Successfully installed rbcurse-1.1.3
1 gem installed
Installing ri documentation for rbcurse-1.1.3...
Installing RDoc documentation for rbcurse-1.1.3...

11:33 AM ~
☭cd `rvm gemdir`

11:34 AM /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8
☭cd gems

11:34 AM /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems
☭cd rbcurse-1.1.3/

11:34 AM /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rbcurse-1.1.3
☭cd examples/

11:34 AM /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rbcurse-1.1.3/examples
☭ruby test2.rb
#<Errno::EACCES: Permission denied - view.log>
"/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/logger.rb:525:in
`initialize'\n/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/logger.rb:525:in
`open'\n/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/logger.rb:525:in
`create_logfile'\n/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/logger.rb:520:in
`open_logfile'\n/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/logger.rb:487:in
`initialize'\n/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/logger.rb:263:in
`new'\n/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/logger.rb:263:in
`initialize'\ntest2.rb:26:in `new'\ntest2.rb:26"
test2.rb:495: undefined method `debug' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

11:35 AM /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rbcurse-1.1.3/examples
☭cd ~

11:36 AM ~
☭cd deleteme

11:36 AM ~/deleteme
☭ruby /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rbcurse-1.1.3/examples/test2.rb
/Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in
`gem_original_require': no such file to load -- qdfilechooser (LoadError)
    from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rbcurse-1.1.3/examples/test2.rb:16

11:36 AM ~/deleteme
☭ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2009-06-08 patchlevel 173) [universal-darwin10.0]

Hope that helps
-Josh

···

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 11:01 AM, R. Kumar <sentinel.2001@gmx.com> wrote:

Strange. I cant push a gem even after yanking.

>gem yank rbcurse -v 1.1.2
Yanking gem from RubyGems.org...
Successfully yanked gem: rbcurse (1.1.2)

Executing "gem push ./pkg/rbcurse-1.1.2.gem":
gem push ./pkg/rbcurse-1.1.2.gem
Pushing gem to RubyGems.org...
Repushing of gem versions is not allowed.
Please use `gem yank` to remove bad gem releases.
rake aborted!
Command failed with status (1): [gem push ./pkg/rbcurse-1.1.2.gem...]

>gem yank rbcurse -v 1.1.2
Yanking gem from RubyGems.org...
The version 1.1.2 has already been yanked.

So i've pushed 1.1.3 to gemcutter:

>Successfully registered gem: rbcurse (1.1.3)

botp, please try it and let me know. Thanks a lot.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

16

of the samples, the viewtodo.rb fails.
it says Errno::ENOENT: No such file or directory - todo.yml

thanks and best regards -botp

···

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 12:24 AM, botp <botpena@gmail.com> wrote:

thanks for rbcurse. i will study it.

17

botp wrote:

...
So i've pushed 1.1.3 to gemcutter:

Successfully registered gem: rbcurse (1.1.3)

botp, please try it and let me know. Thanks a lot.

i just ran gem update and all samples work like a charm :wink:
thanks for rbcurse. i will study it.
btw, your examples require super user power, i have to use sudo :slight_smile:
best regards -botp

Drat !!! Is that because of the log file being generated ?
Any ideas ?

I test it from my local development folder (under github), my examples
folder is in my User.

I will add todo.yml to the gem, currently the filelist was generated by
jeweler, and it was my first gem from there.

Will check the last issue also. Maybe examples will have to be copied to
a User directory ? Thanks a lot for feedback.
Learning: In future, when i create a gem, i need to install it and test
against it before releasing !

···

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 12:01 AM, R. Kumar <sentinel.2001@gmx.com> > wrote:

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

18

11:34 AM /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rbcurse-1.1.3/examples
☭ruby test2.rb
#<Errno::EACCES: Permission denied - view.log>

for the moment, pls do

sudo ruby test2.rb

since view.log is being created. Or else, you could copy the examples
folder to a writable area (/Users/xxx/tmp).

☭ruby /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rbcurse-1.1.3/examples/test2.rb
/Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in
`gem_original_require': no such file to load -- qdfilechooser
(LoadError)
    from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in

Pls `cd` to the examples folder. In this case, there is a local file
called qdfilechooser.rb (quick dirty filechooser).

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

19

botp wrote:

···

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 12:24 AM, botp <botpena@gmail.com> wrote:

thanks for rbcurse. �i will study it.

of the samples, the viewtodo.rb fails.
it says Errno::ENOENT: No such file or directory - todo.yml

thanks and best regards -botp

botp.
I think after all the changes, viewtodo.rb is not functional, and i
thought i had marked that somewhere, perhaps in the readme on github.
Strangely, todo.yml is there in the same folder. Hope you 'cd' to the
examples folder.

I'll try fixing the viewtodo.rb soon.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

20

Hi Kumar,
yes. the viewtodo error should be:
#<NoMethodError: undefined method `keys' for #<Array:0x86104f4>>
"viewtodo.rb:31:in `get_categories'\nviewtodo.rb:93:in `convert_to_text'\...

no worry though. the examples are more than enough to keep me busy
tinkering w rbcurse.
thanks and best regards -botp

···

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 3:24 PM, R. Kumar <sentinel.2001@gmx.com> wrote:

I think after all the changes, viewtodo.rb is not functional, and i
thought i had marked that somewhere, perhaps in the readme on github.
Strangely, todo.yml is there in the same folder. Hope you 'cd' to the
examples folder.
I'll try fixing the viewtodo.rb soon.