A text editor as a user interface
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Original article
Ratfactor
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
This is a card in Dave's Virtual Box of Cards. A text editor as a user interface Page started: 2026-04-27 Page published: 2026-04-29 A huge difference in effort lies between making a utility that takes a few command-line arguments versus a full-blown text-based user interface (TUI). Good user interfaces are hard work to make. And yet, sometimes I want something in between. Something I’ve been experimenting with lately is using a text editor as a user interface for my programs. Having a program launch your text editor (as specified in environment variable $EDITOR) for you is a well-known idea.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Ratfactor.
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