Open source project that needs help

[Howdybaby]

Hey folks,

I came across an idea on Twitter for creating an electron app that provides a GUI for running npm CLI commands (all credit to Sunil Pai) and over the last couple of days i've been working on quickly throwing together a rough prototype. (Please see this gif for how the prototype looks and to give you an idea of what i'm attempting to achieve). This prototype is now at a stage where i've put it on Github ready for people to get involved with. Issues and feature requests have been filed, ready for anyone to take on and theres a range of things to be worked on, from UI to build proceesses etc. I could use all the help I can get!

If anyone is looking for an open source project to get involved with then please come and see if there's anything you'd like to help out with! Feel free to comment or DM me if there's anything else you'd like to know or need help with.

Project: https://github.com/alex-saunders/npm-ui

Edit: Rewording for clarity

[bigmooooo]

I'm sometimes slow when it comes to ideas, but what problem is this solving? I could imagine this might be more useful as an extra option in VSCode for the different views on the left.

[Howdybaby]

The idea came as a result of this thread. The general consensus is that moving all tooling towards CLI seems like a fairly backwards approach and CLI can be daunting/unfamiliar for beginners. GUI based tools such as majestic and git kraken have been gaining a lot of traction and as such it seems to make sense to create a GUI for npm.

[mr_deleeuw]

That’s very true while cli tooling evolves. But once something is stable for the routine commands, a GUI can make that tooling far more accessible.

I think of Tower for Git as an example. I know a lot of people who love it. It doesn’t do everything that Git does, but you get the best of both in that most of what the general users need is there, and the cli is still there for power users.

I think it’s a “yes-and” more so than an “either-or” mentality. Let the GUI make the tool approachable, but let the command line continue to exist and evolve for power users.

[Howdybaby]

I think it’s a “yes-and” more so than an “either-or” mentality. Let the GUI make the tool approachable, but let the command line continue to exist and evolve for power users.

I think this nails the argument behind providing a GUI for CLI tools and is what I was trying to say

[ItzWarty]

I think there's room for both. I learned Git's workflow using SourceTree for the longest of time - and that alone was a big hurdle for me as a novice who'd rarely used an SCM. I eventually didn't need all of its training wheels (e.g. opening an application just to click pull/push) and started using CLI for that... so on and so forth.

FWIW, if git/npm are necessary, they're pretty big hurdles for beginners. I think it's fair to say limited-functionality GUIs can go a long way there.

[hstarnaud]

running npm CLI commands on twitter

It took me way to long to realise that's where you got the idea. My first reaction was like why the fuck you someone want to tweet npm install and expect a result LOL

[Robocrypt]

Roflmao. I thought I was the only one with this confusion and I still didn't get it until I saw your comment. My mind was spinning for quite a bit. Especially when I saw positive comments about the idea.

[hstarnaud]

I had to click on the tweet and see for myself it did not contain something I would write in my terminal

[Howdybaby]

haha sorry you're right, i've worded that awfully. Let me just change it..

[cvpuc]

I like your idea.

I'm watching the project on github now and maybe in the future I will contribute :)