January topic: Un-plain text apps
In the beginning, we interacted with computers through the command line. It was simple, it was straightforward. Now and then we spiced it up with a little ASCII art. But, when graphical desktops became common, and then web apps, plaintext was largely relegated to the back burner.
Here’s the thing, though. The simplicity of command-line applications never went away; and now plaintext is enjoying a renaissance with some new packages for building TUIs - Text User Interfaces. These offer much of the snazzy functionality of GUIs and webapps, but combined with the simplicity and portability of text applications.
Textual by Textualize is one such package, now booming in the Python world. We’ll dive in and have some fun with it!
Also featuring
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Design principle of the month
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Why I can’t present on Microsoft Playwright (yet?)
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PyDay
Location: Innovation Hub
We’ve begun to meet in the Innovation Hub,
a gorgeous new facility that’s part of the renovated Dayton Arcade complex.
Enter through the doors that face the Wright Stop Plaza bus hub.
Street parking is free in the evening. I usually park on Ludlow Street.
or
if for any reason coming downtown doesn’t work for you (for instance, you’ve been exposed to COVID, or you’ve converted yourself to purely digital format and now exist as a set of cloud-hosted algorithms), we’ll be online as well!
Join us at 7 PM EDT on the PyFri Discord channel, discord.gg/9SgTh3T, and click on the General voice chat link. You may need to install the Discord desktop app rather than just using the web interface.