A visual unix shell?

[Jurgen Heymann]

Hi.

 [ I haven't read this news group in a long time. When this posting is all
   obsolete, can you point me to the 'solution'? thanks ...]

Is there a Norton Commander like unix shell somewhere? If not, is anyone
interested and motivated in building one? Maybe we then should have a
discussion about desired features as well? If there is no "visual shell"
out there yet (I'm not aware of any), I want to suggest an effort to
make/get/... one in the discussion below.


Considering the capabilities of the terminfo DB, it seems odd that we
don't have a more screen oriented version of the ksh yet. Of course this
is not that easy on Unix than on DOS, but it seems well feasible. Let's
call the new shell the vsh ("visual shell").

Some ideas:

- Just as in the norton commander, the command line should always be there
  and any normally typed command should not be affected by the vsh.

- Have a 'files window' which shows the files of the current directory. 
  (or more general: a display window with a 'input function': "ls -CF"
   for example).

- Using an appropriately programmable terminal emulator one can define
  Esc sequences for F-key prefix, menu prefix and any other special input/
  selection operation (one might also use the 8-bit char set, but must
  terminal emulators use the alt-chars for local functions; also, the
  shell should of course work on real tty's).
  This can give us a menu line at the top of the screen, and a F-key line
  at the bottom.

- Of course all the menu's and F-key definitions should be user
  extensible. This means that the user can e.g. define a little window
  showing his current env, or the set -o (ksh options) and allowing them
  to be changed.

- Monitoring: If one has jobs running in the background, a window should
  pop up always showing the current status of these jobs. 

- The shell should have a general "escape" mechanism as follows: A
  user definable Esc sequence can cause an shell script (associated with
  that seq.) to be executed. Now imagine the following: We have a terminal
  emulator that allows to (re)define Fkeys etc., and that supports a mouse
  with a menu facility. This mouse support can (in addition to the
  classical pop-up, pull-down and all other great menus) put the current
  (mouse) cursor position into the input buffer, and e.g. the word under
  the cursor etc. 
  Using this combination (emulator with mouse support and the vsh) in a
  smart way, the possibilities are truly great (much more than the Norton
  Commander): help calls for a keyword/name for programming (e.g. C in
  vi), reuse output from the screen, mouse support for vi (or better
  choices of editors), .... 


What do you think? Is it worth it? (or : has someone already done it?).
Considering the fact that most of us poor programmers spent most of their
time with the shell and vi, any improvement in user interface and then
performance is definitely worth while. 

Comments, suggestions, pointers/references?

This was cross-posted to comp.unix.shell and comp.unix.programmer. Please
direct all follow-ups to comp.unix.shell.

I'll summarize any direct mail to me later to the net. 

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Jurgen Heymann            heymann at cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM
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Jurgen Heymann            heymann at cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM