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Arek Sokol talks about using UI in a Unix world

UI in a Unix World

Arek Sokol made a compelling argument for utilizing the power of the command line via graphical interfaces in his talk "UI in a Unix world." Although universally accepted that scripting is the way to accomplish mighty deeds, Arek lobbied for putting a user interface around those scripts that would help illuminate that the work is being done by IT; i.e. having an organizational icon on it. Arek, a former web designer, declared "You won't be as appreciated if you don't expose your skill." If the magic happens only behind the scenes then it will not show your end users that IT is involved with creating this magic.

One of the main tools highlighted in Arek's toolbox was CocoaDialog, created by Mark Stratman. Customizable dialogs, response triggers and progress bars all make this a versatile tool. Arek explained that the simplicity of having a progress bar can go a long way to showing your users that something is happening in the background. Arek showed how integration with terminal-notifier, by Eloy Duran, provides seamless OS integration for notifications using the Notification Center. Arek showed how the Cocoa app called PleaseWait.app can monitor the values of three temp file and then displays a screen that shows: the phase, progress and install progress. He demonstrated how he took the framework of PleaseWait.app into an impressive OS updater tool with a straightforward yet helpful interface.

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