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Comment by mmahemoff | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to see SSH optimised for touch-based user interfaces.

On mobile, we're stuck with crappy touch keyboards for at least the next few years (until serious haptic feedback or to some extent voice recognition becomes feasible).

I'm not even sure what it would look like. I just know that SSH right now is not a very pleasant experience.

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In my imagination, it would be a touch-optimized way to issue commands. By checking your history file, the program could build a library of your most used commands. So maybe you tap a pleasantly large icon representing the server you want to connect to, it does the authentication for you, and then you get a pleasantly large list of your top 10 commands (scroll down for more). You click "apachectl", and then "restart" from the sublist that pops up. Add the "sudo" modifier and then tap a final pleasantly large button to issue the command.

For actual text editing, it could just drop you into something like ConnectBot or Terminal.

I'm having trouble imagining what role SSH or its replacement has in reinventing the text terminal for touch-based user interfaces. Seems like the whole idea would have to go out the window. VNC would work if the destination were also touch-based, but it's probably mouse-based, and I don't know at what level that's integrated into the protocol (probably too low).

http://acko.net/blog/on-termkit/

I've actually seen this before, and it is awesome, but it doesn't answer the question of how to re-imagine a text console for touch.

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