TUI

An acronym for both Text and Textual User Interface.

In the first meaning is used to denote a user interface that simply mimes a GUI. An example is:

Turbo Vision port to the GNU compiler.

In the second meaning, Textual UI, its peculiarity is the ability to embed, into an ordinary text precisely, commands which can be executed at user wish, usually positioning the cursor onto a word, which correspond to a command, and tapping a special key on the keyboard or clicking on it with a mouse (like an hypertextual link).

The output of this command could be shown in another frame/window or near the word/command itself. In the latter case you can think to a TUI as a free-form spreadsheet which evaluate on demand. Examples of TUI are:

Archy - It was The Humane Environment (THE), is a very well thought out Textual and Zoomable User Interface (TUI & ZUI), implemented in Python
CoSy - CoSy (Coherent Systems) is an environment, by Bob Armstrong; it was based on APL, then on K and now on Forth
Oberon - (now system 3, with the older V4 still available) is the latest modular OO programming language by Nicklaus Wirth (the author of Pascal and Modula-2)
Plan9 - Plan9 OS, or what Unix should have been (originally by Bell Labs from where Unix came)
Vital - A TUI-based (document-centered user interface) implementation of Haskell which features: document-centered presentation of Haskell programs and results, demand-driven evaluation of expressions, diagrammatic representation of data structures and ADTs using styles, graphics (including animation and interaction), direct manipulation of data structures and of abstract datatype values, persistence
Wily - Wily is a TUI style of user interface for Unix-like OSes inspired by the Plan9 Acme TUI

See, from the Oberon FAQ:

CLI compared to TUI.

Here is a fragment of their quote from comp.lang.oberon:

[..] At the base level a CLI offers absolutely nothing over a TUI (Textual User Interface). What do I mean by "base level"? Does anybody here, besides me, go back far enough to remember CP/M? That's a "base level" CLI. It has little, if any, scripting, no piping or redirection, etc. A CLI means that when you press "ENTER" the command is executed. With a TUI you can do pretty much the same thing, except that the command isn't executed until you click on it. Someone raised the issue of "when" can you type in a command in a TUI. Answer? Anytime you feel like it! You don't have to open up a "blank window" and type your new command in. You don't have to put the new command into the log. You can put it in any document you happen to be working on. Say if you're editing a module and you want to test a new command. Just type it in and click on in the that same window. It's just that simple. Sure, it takes more to type in:
System.DeleteFiles file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt ~
than:

del file1.txt
del file2.txt
del file3.txt
But if that's all you can see, you're missing the point. Names in typical CLIs are short (and cryptic) because you're likely to type them again, and again, and again. The Oberon TUI saves on typing, hence command names can be longer and more meaningful. [..]
-- J. M. Drake

Pages in this topic: Archy CoSy Oberon Plan9 Vital Wily

Also linked from: CLI