TUI (Text User Interface) is a retronym that was coined sometime after the invention of graphical user interfaces, to distinguish them from text based user interfaces. TUIs only use text and symbols available on a typical text terminal, while GUIs typically use high resolution graphics modes.

In the Unix world, TUIs are often constructed using (n)curses.

ANSI standard ANSI X3.64 defines a standard set of escape sequences that can be used to drive terminals to create TUIs.

TUI under MS-DOS

On IBM PCs, the BIOS and MS-DOS system calls provide a way of writing text on the screen; and the ANSI.SYS driver could process standard ANSI escape sequences. However, programmers soon learned that writing data directly to the screen buffer was very much faster, at the same time being much simpler to program and less error-prone. This started the great era of TUI programs under MS-DOS. Some notable programs of this kind were Microsoft Word, MS-DOS Shell, WordPerfect, Norton Commander, Turbo C etc. Most often those programs used blue background for the main screen, with white or yellow characters. Soon the mouse was added, providing additional functionality. Later, the interface became deeply influenced by GUIs, adding the pull-down menus and dialog boxes.

TUI under Win32

Today Microsoft Windows include Win32 consoles as a convenient interface for TUI programs. However, most console applications under Win32 are command-line tools. One notable full-screen TUI program for Win32 is FAR Manager (a clone of Norton Commander).

See Also

• Text mode
• Text mode demos
• Command-line interface