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by em-bee 60 days ago
yes, i can write a program that takes data and displays it nicely. but in order to use graphics i need a second channel to send the graphic instructions, for x11, wayland or even MacOS or wndows. at that point i have two interfaces, the terminal and that graphics display. i want both to be in one. i want the terminal to be that graphical output. that currently is only possible through in-band escape sequences. that is the restriction i want to get rid of.
1 comments
boomlinde 60 days ago
I don't fully understand the request. On one hand you don't want a second channel to send the graphics instructions, but on the other you don't want to use in-band escape sequences.

Maybe you'd be interested to learn about plan9's graphical terminal. Its window manager runs entirely within it, and all windows just represent multiplexed access to limited areas of the terminal.

link
em-bee 60 days ago
On one hand you don't want a second channel to send the graphics instructions, but on the other you don't want to use in-band escape sequences

correct. the in-band sequences are dangerous and unwieldy. they don't convey enough information. they are a hack to work within the limitations if historical terminals. that's what this whole thread is about.

a separate graphics channel creates a separate window. then you have two windows. not good either. it needs to be one window, and considering that this window should be able to support multiple remote connections it needs to be local otherwise i would get a new window for each server i connect to. that works for some people, but not for me. and it needs to work through a single channel like ssh/mosh or another similar protocol and be forwardable.

so i want a third option. one approach is sending semantic data, letting the terminal interpret it and display it graphically. this is interesting because shells are already exploring semantic data. (elvish, murex, nushell, others...)

plan9 sounds interesting. i see several efforts to port aspects of it to linux. they all seem to have stalled. more work needs to be done here. that's what i am advocating.

link