

CssConsole - easily make terminal-styled forms - reion
https://github.com/michalkow/cssConsole

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bpatrianakos
This is really cool and useful and I'd be disappointed to see many more
comments condemning this for allegedly being skeuomorphic or some such.

Even with all the great new ways we have to style forms they're all still not
too different from the default inputs that come with browsers in the end. This
puts together a number of really neat ideas that I plan to totally pick apart
and use individually.

It's all the little details that makes a form either dull and predictable or a
total joy to use. You may not even notice it but the design and interactivity
of a form really makes a big difference when it comes to your use of it. I
truly believe the right form design makes a big impact on conversions and a
person's impression of a site, especially one that makes heavy use of text
input.

A lot of people neglect the typography of form inputs. The cursor is also
something I've really been interested in changing. The shape and/or the color
of it is something that can really delight a user.

Think of the text editors and word processors we use. Many are fairly
consistent but you see much more variation of the editable area in desktop
software than on the web. Apps like iA Writer, Mou, and others make the act of
typing text so inviting that just having them open, at least for me and I
assume many others, compels you to fill that space with text.

I love writing and I'm fascinated by the design of text input fields whether
they be normal one line inputs or text areas so this project is something I'm
excited to explore.

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btipling
The code for this thing needs a work:

[https://github.com/michalkow/cssConsole/blob/master/cssConso...](https://github.com/michalkow/cssConsole/blob/master/cssConsole.js#L141)

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pdenya
Better examples would make this better eg: if you applied the terminal style
to the rest of the login page for example so it looked like logging into linux
looks.

It's cool that this exists and hopefully someone will have a use for it.

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aaronbasssett
Have you disabled the ability to select text on purpose? Because that is
really annoying.

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reion
I guess you are talking about quasi-console example? You cannot select text,
because I set auto-focus on input field.

~~~
aaronbasssett
none of the examples allow you to select text within the input field. (Chrome
22.0.1229.94 on OS X 10.6.8)

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ezl
very cool. wish this had come out 2 weeks ago. we hacked together something
from github borrowed code for www.cereal-and-code.com admittedly not pretty,
functional enough for our audience.

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hnriot
I'm not sure what the point of this is, it's more skeuomorphism that is
becoming more and more misplaced in a digital age.

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tptacek
Console interfaces to console systems aren't "skeuomorphic".

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KaoruAoiShiho
Yes it is...

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tptacek
No, when the system you're interfacing to is itself a console, it is not
"skeuomorphism" to present the user with a console interface.

Skeuomorphism is an aesthetic strategy for making software appear familiar or
comfortable (or "retro" and stylish) by evoking parallel hardware/real-world
solutions to the same problem. A console, on the other hand, is a way of
interacting with software using typed commands.

An overlay for HN that presented it as a Renegade BBS instead of a series of
web pages and web forms might be skeuomorphic, because that Renegade BBS
interface would exist for aesthetic reasons only. But aesthetics aren't the
reason you make a web SSH prompt look like a console.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
>No, when the system you're interfacing to is itself a calendar/moleskin-
notebook/radioknob, it is not "skeuomorphism" to present the user with a
calendar/moleskin-notebook/radioknob interface.

That's the precise definition of skeuomorphism.

It's skeuomorphism not because it's a command line interface but because it's
green and black, which is a nostalgia based design decision not a ux based
one.

I can't remember exactly but there was some CRT based decision for earlier
consoles to be green and black, that this console is aping it just screams
skeuomorphism.

~~~
tptacek
The example I looked at wasn't green-and-black; it was a monospace font, cool
light grey on warm dark grey, with a colored directory listing. In other
words, an xterm.

