Do you still build terminal tools for fun?

Question

Lately I&rsquo;ve been exploring how far we can still push the terminal &mdash; both for fun and for practical tools.I recently ended up writing a small utility that displays images inside the terminal using only ANSI color blocks. It&rsquo;s not fancy, but it made me realize how flexible the terminal still is &mdash; even without GUI libraries or modern frameworks.Just wondering: do others here still build CLI or terminal-based tools for side projects, retro use cases, or just for fun?Would love to hear your favorite hacks or experiments.

jlundberg · Accepted Answer

Yes, our whole customer support is CLI based. We probably have more than 200+ custom internal tools now.Many tools use simple coloring, like this (in Python):print( red( &rdquo;Warning: xyz&rdquo; ) )

FerkiHN · Answer

Here's the image viewer I mentioned &mdash; it&rsquo;s a single binary, written in raw C with no dependencies other than SDL2.Works on Linux, Windows, Termux etc. Demo folder shows some real renders.GitHub: https://github.com/Ferki-git-creator/phono-in-terminal-image...

jjgreen · Answer

That's about the 10th time you've posted this, please give it a rest.

asddfgg55 · Answer

Cool, this is the first time I've seen such a rendering program, I didn't even know that such a high-quality image could be in the terminal.

msgodel · Answer

Unless you need actual bitmapped graphics the VTE is probably the best and most portable graphics API available currently.

gregjor · Answer

Not for fun, but I do build CLI tools for development and production use.

Do you still build terminal tools for fun?

Yes, our whole customer support is CLI based. We probably have more than 200+ custom internal tools now.
Many tools use simple coloring, like this (in Python):
print( red( ”Warning: xyz” ) )

Here's the image viewer I mentioned — it’s a single binary, written in raw C with no dependencies other than SDL2.
Works on Linux, Windows, Termux etc. Demo folder shows some real renders.
GitHub: https://github.com/Ferki-git-creator/phono-in-terminal-image...

That's about the 10th time you've posted this, please give it a rest.

Cool, this is the first time I've seen such a rendering program, I didn't even know that such a high-quality image could be in the terminal.

Unless you need actual bitmapped graphics the VTE is probably the best and most portable graphics API available currently.

Not for fun, but I do build CLI tools for development and production use.