Text-based user interface library

[GypsyPrince]

I have to admit that I am an absolute DOS freak. I wax nostalgic for text-based user interfaces from the old DOS days because I love them. They are simplic and efficient. Yes, GUIs are very handy in most situations, but sometimes they also get in the way. Sometimes too much visual information being taken in by the eyes can, in fact, be too much. In such cases, TUI apps are still the bomb!!

So... does anyone know of a TUI library that works with OP to product TUI apps similar to the Free Pascal editor? A drag and drop WYSIWYG editor to produce TUI apps similar to the way Visual Basic 1 for DOS worked would be the most awesome thing in the world.

But, I'll settle for a decent TUI library that works with OP if anbody knows of one.   

[Awkward]

Is Free Vision which comes with FPC not suitable for you?

[GypsyPrince]

@Awkward

Is Free Vision which comes with FPC not suitable for you?

I don't know. I remember a small discussion sometime back I had with another forum member, but I wasn't aware Free Vision came with FP, or even how functional it is, as I misunderstood and thought it might just be experimental.

Thank you for informing me about it! I will have to do some checking into it now.

[Leledumbo]

I don't know. I remember a small discussion sometime back I had with another forum member, but I wasn't aware Free Vision came with FP, or even how functional it is, as I misunderstood and thought it might just be experimental.

The whole FP IDE is built on top of it, so surely it's production quality library.

[lucamar]

The whole FP IDE is built on top of it, so surely it's production quality library.

Not exactly; it can be used and it mostly works but it needs quite a lot of love and a heavy dosis of DDT for it to be considered  what I would call "production-ready", much less "quality".

It works relatively well for the IDE, which has a relatively "simple" UI, but for more complex ones you've to expend quite some time to work around its bugs and little inconsistencies.

[PascalDragon]

Is Free Vision which comes with FPC not suitable for you?

I don't know. I remember a small discussion sometime back I had with another forum member, but I wasn't aware Free Vision came with FP, or even how functional it is, as I misunderstood and thought it might just be experimental.

FreeVision is definitely not experimental and is what powers the FPC's textmode IDE. It is however not that actively developed (though see below). An additional demo application besides the IDE is provided here.

There is also a variant with Unicode support in the works in a branch.

There also exists an old UI designer from TP times (then for TurboVision) that was open sourced and could be ported to FPC here.