Inser the input parameters directly on terminal instead of the TUI-based approach

[tapyu]

Although it is pretty, inserting the input parameter in this TUI approach

is quite ineffective for me. I see no advantage in this boxed layout. I would propose that, after the snippet selection, its template should be directly prompted on the terminal. For example, after the snippet selection we would have

$ if [[ | ]]; then
    <then_cmd>
else
    <else_cmd>

where | is the cursor. Then, hitting Tab would go over the placeholders. When, all placeholders are filled up, Esc could exit the "snippet mode".

This is much more effective as

• Allows the usage of other terminal-related features
• We could break lines as Enter would be free.

Do you think this idea is feasible?

[RamiAwar]

Yeah that would indeed be the most optimal way of using it.

It's not possible to write the line to your terminal stdout then have behavior like tab to jump, for obvious reasons as you can imagine cause then it's like you not just printed to stdout but also somehow hijacked the terminal itself and can do custom things.

So the next best thing is have some gui that allows you to do this before you print the final command (that's filled in) to the terminal. And that's what Pet does.

I've also had this same question at some point, totally get your frustration with it.

I hope I'm missing some really clever solution, but I don't know what I don't know :) Looked into this once and couldn't find anything..

[tapyu]

cause then it's like you not just printed to stdout but also somehow hijacked the terminal itself and can do custom things.

I wish it were straightforward to do so :( Pretty frustrating, in fact.

[RamiAwar]

Correct me if I misunderstood your point, I feel like you could have meant to stay in the TUI but do something different?

[tapyu]

Correct me if I misunderstood your point

Your last answer really grasps my idea: get rid of the TUI approach and work directly at the terminal prompt line.

I feel like you could have meant to stay in the TUI but do something different?

Based on your previous answer, a possible improvement would be maintaining the TUI stuff, but allows break lines. That is pretty useful when we have a if/elif/else/fi-like snippet, where you want to put many commands in each conditional block. In this case, we should free Enter, and add another shortcut to leave the TUI environment.