text based User Interface? is it possible?

[david]

In Java, is there any way to display the GUI components (or any of
that kind) in the Linux/Unix/Windows text based environment? ( I am
not sure whether its a reasonable question in the first place)

In the normal GUI environment in Linux or Windows, I can use the
JFrame in Java Swing to display the components.

But I want to represent a table(in text based environment, may be some
other component) and with the cursor moving from one cell to another
based on the key board direction keys in the text based environment.

Initially I thought of drawing the table manually like the figure here
-------------------
| | | | |
-------------------
| | x | y | |
-------------------
| | | | |
-------------------
and then whenever the cursor moves from one cell to another (like
moving from the location 'x' to 'y'), I planned to re-draw the whole
figure again. Actually, I dont even know whether I would be able to
place the cursor in a particular position, if I use the | and -
symbols to draw the figure.

I know this idea sucks. Is there any better way to do this?

Thanks.
--david

 

[Joshua Cranmer]

I know this idea sucks. Is there any better way to do this?

Google for "Java curses".

 

[markspace]

A devious way would be to setup your GUI as a local web server with HTML

By GUI, I'm sure he means desktop, not web app. I don't know of any
way offhand to translate JFrames and their contents to HTML. (GWT is
something else entirely, not Swing.)

 

[markspace]

In Java, is there any way to display the GUI components (or any of
that kind) in the Linux/Unix/Windows text based environment? ( I am
not sure whether its a reasonable question in the first place)

Believe it or not it is. Folks have ported games like Quake to run on
text terminals. I can't find anything recent for this though. Look for
libraries like aalib (text based rendering) and aavga (wrapper for VGA
calls). The only availability I can find is a decade old RPM.

<ftp://ftp.pbone.net/vol7/archive.download.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/6.1/en/powertools/SRPMS/aavga-0.9-2.src.rpm>

Old text mode Quake page:

http://webpages.mr.net/bobz/ttyquake/