Very cool. Just a suggestion for the demos in the README though. Maybe have the code shown statically, then a gif of the GUI. Watching all the typing gets long when I just want to see the resulting GUI.
Taking me to another website to look at the same clip — and then make me skip to the end myself and then manage having to pause the video — is lipstick on a pig.
Thanks for this. My plan is to open source it eventually, but I just ran out of time to get it into shape for launch day. I've removed the PR comment so as not to confuse any more people.
Awesome, I welcome any tools that simplify the GUI deployment process.
I've built quite a collection of scripts that clean and process my company's domain-specific data. I once needed to share that with a data-scientist/computer-Luddite (sadly too common) who wasn't comfortable running CLI scripts. The solution I came up with used Platypus[0] to generate a lovely app wrapper where files could be dragged in.
I've used this to create a little muxer for opening URLs, which routes some to safari and some to Firefox, based on domain. Platypus allows to associate the app as a URL handler with the OS, which is very nice.
Who else remembers Commando in the Macintosh Programmer’s Workshop? That was a long time ago, but then the world moved in a different direction. It’s interesting that this sort of thing has been out of fashion for so long. I wonder if it will come back.
Mac Quick Actions and Automator can be used for the simplest cases. I've build several file processing Quick Actions, which I can run by pressing buttons in Finder.
macOS Quick Actions (formerly called Services) are great, but I've always found them very cumbersome to use due to being relegated to the submenu. And having no icons, and a severe lack of customization and control over their order.
I recently released an indie Mac app to bring your Applications and Scripts to the top of the Finder right-click menu, customized exactly how you like.
One of the major features Service Station advertises is "Open Terminal by right-clicking the Finder!", but isn't this functionality already available in macOS via System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services > checking "New Terminal at Folder" under "Files and Folders"?
A feature that might make Service Station even more useful would be adding "New Text File" and "Rich Text Document" options, similar to the app "New File Menu"[0].
This is the second time today[1] I've seen a closed source project hosted at GitHub[2]; I had mistakenly assumed GitHub was for open source projects (like SourceForge).
"New Terminal at Folder" does work if you right-click a folder... but NOT if you right-click the background of a Folder you already have open. That's the primary way I want to open Terminal.
But more importantly it's the UX difference between these two images:
You can definitely already launch applications and scripts in macOS via "Open With" or the "Services" submenus.
Service Station moves them to the top of your right-click menu, gives them icons, and lets you completely customize the menu including targeting menus to show for only very specific selected file types.
Thanks for explaining the difference. I have so few services enabled that “New Terminal at Folder” is in the top level of my context menu[0], hence my misunderstanding.
Built in "New File" functionality is definitely on the to-do list, and a very popular request from Windows users.
Running a support/issues website on GitHub without hosting the code is perhaps slightly weird, but it has been working well for me. GitHub does not mandate any licensing requirement.
Really cool but I’m wondering why have the user input args in as a command line arg? Seems very arduous and shell is just... shell. IMO, I would love something like this
Maybe you could start a script with a shebang. Call it something more descriptive like a Windowing Shell - wish for short. Put it on top of a command language and make whole thing cross-platform.
I don't really use GitHub but, if possible, please change the GIFs to MP4. Besides being sharper and way smaller, one can control the playback to rewind/fast forward.
This will date me, but when I think of Suitcase for the Mac, I think of the font manager application that predated OSX... which surprisingly, still exists.[1]
I’ll just add that I liked Font/DA mover. Need to set up a laser printer? That’s your tool! (what we tolerated because we didn’t have better at the time - yikes!)
Read through the documentation... awful documentation, but the project looks cool.
Looked for the source... no source, that's weird, isn't this Github?
Found the binary... crashes without Combine.framework. That's funny... nothing about requirements in the docs...
Looked through the comments... couldn't get the source ready for "Launch Day"? Nor, apparently, any of the above.
So what is the point of a launch day?
Maybe I'll try a sample app at the Bazaar... It says it's for sharing, right? So I can see some demos there... Nope.
Got 234 upvotes at this point, though, so people seem to be finding something worthwhile here. Wish I knew what it was.
Anyone know something similar to this, but with help generating a web front end?
I'd love to generate a small UI for my team to help with openssl commands, being able to input data would be a bonus.
I could probably cook something up with node fairly fast, but I'm a remedial programmer.
Does anyone know of something like this for Windows? Would be nice to build a small UI around some powershell scripts I have, without having to resort to a full WinForms application.
Shameless plug: checkout Gooey. Works on Win/OSX/Linux
While it won't bootstrap your GUI straight from powershell, it can give you a pleasant GUI that calls your powershell stuff with just a few lines of Python (no actual GUI code required!) ^_^
"Xdialog is designed to be a drop in replacement for the "dialog" or "cdialog" programs. It converts any terminal based program into a program with an X-windows interface. The dialogs are easier to see and use while adding even more functionalities (e.g. with the treeview, the file selector, the edit box, the range box, the help button/box). Because Xdialog uses GTK+, it will also match your desktop theme."
It's not open source yet, but I am planning on making it so. Watch this space. In the mean time I'm open to feedback and bug reports via GitHub issues.
As of now this is not actually open source - though that’s the default expectation of a repository being on GitHub. I don’t like the pattern of doing that because I feel GitHub will become a very slick SourceForge.
One more experience like this and I’ll uninstall the GitHub apps from my devices because I can’t trust them to not be warez themselves or some sort.