basic UI programming in linux

kristoff@infosec.pub to Linux@lemmy.ml – 57 points –

Hi all,

Perhaps a stupid question. Some time ago, I received a rpi zeroW as a gift, but as I did not have any use for ii I passed it to somebody else in our electronics-group. Now, that person has had a +30 year carreer as self-taught programmer -starting out with BASIC on DOS machines- so he showed of some of his old BASIC applications in dosbox on the pi.

So far so good, but he had an interesting question: Years ago, I wrote a library in BASIC for screen / window applications in DOS. (you know, pop-up text-windows and so on). How do I do that on linux (in C)?

As I myself only do 'backend' coding (so no UI), I have to admit I did not have any answer to that.

So, question, For somebody who has mostly coded in BASIC (first DOS and later Visual Basic) and now switched to C and python, what is the best / most easy tool to write a basic UI application with window-function on linux/unix. I know there exist things like QT and ncurses, but I never used these, so I have no idea.

Any advice?

Kr.

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Wauw! So many answers in such a short time. Thanks all! 👍 (I will not spam the channel by sending a thank you to all but this is really greatly apriciated)

Concerning ncurses. I did hear of it but never looked at it myself. What is not completely clear for me. I know you can use it for 'low-level' things, but does it also include 'high-level' concepts like windows, input fields and so?

The blog mentioned in one of the other posts only shows low-level things.

but does it also include ‘high-level’ concepts like windows, input fields and so

Yes, it allows you build full on TUIs.

does it also include ‘high-level’ concepts like windows, input fields and so?

AFAIK MC uses ncurses for GUI. So I while I don't know if it has the concept of non-modal dialog, for example, for sure it has dialogs, fields, radios, boxes, etc