CLI

What is CLI?

CLI = Command Line Interface and GUI = Graphical User Interface. These two ways of interacting with one’s computer are often thought of as opposites or at least exclusive of each other.

However, in modern operating systems, one can have both simultaneously, with any number of terminal windows surrounded by GUI applications. Various scripting languages and utilities such as QuickSilver give even casual users the ability to bridge the CLI and GUI in new and creative ways.

Strangely enough for those accustomed to flashing lights and zooming windows, the simple, austere nature of the Command Line has its aesthetic appeal as well, with none of the “bells and whistles” typical to the GUI — which, for users trying to minimize distractions, is definitely a bonus.

osnews.com: The Command Line - The Best Newbie Interface?

Raggle and Elinks

Arky over at Playing With Sid posted a few months ago on “Reading RSS/XML feeds in Elinks Line Browser”, which he does by running raggle in server mode, inside a screen session. Then he directs Elinks at that via http://localhost:2222 (the default Raggle web UI port). Clever idea — I expect you could do that over SSH and have Raggle running centrally on a server you could access from wherever.

Advanced Bash Scripting Guide

From Mendel Cooper comes the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide: An in-depth exploration of the art of shell scripting.

This tutorial assumes no previous knowledge of scripting or programming, but progresses rapidly toward an intermediate/advanced level of instruction … all the while sneaking in little snippets of UNIX® wisdom and lore. It serves as a textbook, a manual for self-study, and a reference and source of knowledge on shell scripting techniques. The exercises and heavily-commented examples invite active reader participation, under the premise that the only way to really learn scripting is to write scripts.

This book is suitable for classroom use as a general introduction to programming concepts.

Making Raggle use your default browser on Mac OS X

screenshot of Raggle

Raggle is a swell console/terminal-based RSS client I mentioned a while ago (nearly two years ago to the day — weird!). Like any RSS program, it will allow you to open a link or feed item in a regular web browser. Since it’s in the terminal, that may not work as desired, opening them in a console web browser like ELinks or not opening them at all.

On Mac OS X, getting Raggle to open up those links in your default web browser is easy thanks to the /usr/bin/open command.

Raggle preferences and other files are stored under ~/.raggle so navigate there in your terminal. It doesn’t create your custom configuration file automatically, so just start a new text file there called “config.rb” (Raggle is a Ruby program, thus the .rb).

(You can change pretty much any behavior you want using this file; check out the doc/default_config.rb that came with your Raggle download for full examples.)

Customizing the browser is really simple. Here’s all you’ll need in the config.rb file:


$config = {
    'browser_cmd' => ['/usr/bin/open', '%s'],
}

And that’s it!

Apple2Forever TrueType Fonts

I could have sworn I linked to these on the site before, but I couldn’t find it last night. Check out the old-school vibe in your terminal using Michael Hurwood’s Apple2Forever TrueType Fonts:

I like to remember those old days by using the various Apple Emulators that are available. Using these emulators involves working with “Disk Images” and I’ve written a few little utilities for myself to look at and manage those images.[…] Anyway, I sometimes I wanted/needed to view the images in their “natural” form, that is, in the Apple ][ Font. (Inverse text was a particular requirement.) So I created two fonts based on the Apple ][ screen display, called Apple2Forever, and Apple2Forever80.