I'm sure you're being sarcastic, but no - i mean a TUI.
Hypothetically some simple restrictions for variable font sizes could keep the simplicity of TUI while also empowering the UX. Similar to how variable colors didn't suddenly make this a "GUI".
Hypothetically some simple restrictions for variable font sizes could keep the simplicity of TUI while also empowering the UX. Similar to how variable colors didn't suddenly make this a "GUI".
The only way variable font sizes work without being isomorphic to a GUI is if the sizes are a series of power-of-N multiples of some base size for some integer N. (Realistically, N=2 is the most likely, though N=3 might sometimes make sense.)
The reason for power of N is that it assures that any set of available sizes used still fit on a grid of the smallest size actually used.
It does seem to add reasonable complexity to the implementations, but i imagine it's opt-in.
Like, a variable font size such that a letter can be just one pixel high and wide? Yeah, that's a GUI. But I rather prefer GPU accelerated GUIs ;-)
Instead, this is the largest failing in my mind to TUIs. As eyesight goes, font sizes increase, and if you use a TUI so do your borders, pads, etc. You have no way to keep a reasonably consistent border size in a TUI if you also want larger fonts.
As it stands i'd prefer my "UI" elements in my TUI to be half the size they are currently. Gutters for things like line numbers or error indicators are obscenely wide due to this notion that they must be a full block size.
If instead you put restrictions on the division, such that font blocks would have to evenly divide then, hypothetically, misalignment would be less of a concern.
So many cool new TUIs are being born today but without very small font sizes they are made nearly useless imo. Popups in https://zellij.dev/ are another great example of something severely inhibited by old fashioned limitations.