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My personal site is a terminal

193 points| madchops1 | 8 years ago |karlsteltenpohl.com

133 comments

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mijoharas|8 years ago

So, because it was a terminal, to exit it I automatically hit Ctrl+D, which bookmarked the page.

Well played Karlsteltenpohl, well played.

ake1|8 years ago

Less well played: Ctrl+w

Granted this does happen a lot on all other sites when typing but being in a terminal much instantly triggered it.

laumars|8 years ago

Nice idea. I really wanted to like this but I'm not so sure you've pulled off the execution. Just after a couple of minutes of usage I found so many compatibility differences between that a real shell that navigating around your site became rather frustrating:

    * Tab completion was glitchy
    * Deleting characters mid line was glitchy
    * Commands don't follow common idioms:
        - `ls *` would fail
        - `ls -l` would fail
        - `ls ` (space char after `ls` command) would fail
    * I couldn't select the output from `ls` to paste into the prompt
    * Symlinks don't behave link symlinks:
        - I cannot `cat` them, have to click with a mouse
        - Yet they are still displayed as a file in `ls`
    * Common readline shortcuts like ^U don't work
    * It barely works on mobile / tablets:
        - Scrolling is all over the place
        - Screen doesn't resize to use the full screen
        - Pain to type commands on mobile keyboard because they auto-capitalise first characters
Also there seems to be some latency between keypress and the character appearing which makes the experience a little jarring too.

Given this is your main way to navigate the site rather than a secondary navigation system, I think it's something you either need to go full out or not bother at all as the novelty of a partially compatible - inspired by Bash - approach wears off very quickly resulting an in frustrating overall experience.

digitalsushi|8 years ago

I enjoyed the hell out of it. It was like seeing something familiar from my world, in cake form at a restaurant. I flicked it with my spoon, had a chuckle, and moved on. It's a toy, not a tool.

59nadir|8 years ago

Your `cat` command doesn't take multiple arguments, which is ironic since it's supposed to concatenate multiple files.

akuji1993|8 years ago

The cat command doesn't do anything for me right now.

pX0r|8 years ago

Karlsteltenpohl's cat.

c256|8 years ago

Followed the link on a mobile device; saw a blinking bar but no way to use the site.

JepZ|8 years ago

And I thought cat would concaternate the input (e.g. file) to the output (e.g. screen).

hprotagonist|8 years ago

The effects during typing are a little distracting.

Do you plan to allow the usual string navigation shortcuts that my hands are apparently unable to type without? (^-a ^-e ^-k, etc.) ?

cyberferret|8 years ago

Yeah, the one thing that made me click away from the site was the particle effects when typing. It really broke that 'suspension of disbelief' moment for me. I know it is not a real terminal, but if you are going to go to the effort of making people feel they are interacting with a terminal, then don't break that illusion with fancy chrome.

travisl12|8 years ago

I really like the particles.

wolco|8 years ago

The cursor effects with the exploding after each letter typed makes the site cool and not really usable.

navyad|8 years ago

I too feeel they are distracting.

nextstep|8 years ago

Hey I just wanted to point out that this really cool site you built doesn’t have some of the features of a full terminal on Linux.

mmphosis|8 years ago

I am especially annoyed that little exploding color circles don't appear when I type on a full terminal on Linux.

meitham|8 years ago

I'm specifically annoyed that readline binding of open editor, ctrl-x ctrl-e doesn't work. Please fix, never visiting your site again. (Tongue in cheeks).

romanovcode|8 years ago

If the point of the site is to find clients/recruiters/etc.. then you should scrap this idea.

While technically this is somewhat impressive nobody who this site is aimed at will type commands to see your work/cv/etc.. They will just close the tab and move on.

1k|8 years ago

I disagree. There are too many negative comments in this thread. This is an awesome site that will resonate well with clients and recruiters. It has exactly what they looking for and yet presented in such a refreshing way. It show cases your creativity, ambition and dedication to do something like this. Great job!

flanbiscuit|8 years ago

I started making my personal site as terminal just like this one and eventually scrapped the idea because it's a terrible experience on mobile, but also it's just gimmicky on desktop and will only be mildly interesting to other devs.

rampage101|8 years ago

Sad but true. I spent some time building a personal site mostly for fun, but also to get back into industry. Many companies view a blog as a liability... better off studying for a few months to get some extra certifications.

spocklivelong|8 years ago

I had mine for a while now http://chandrabhavanasi.com/ which was based off of jquery and a bunch of hardcoding. I haven't updated it in a while though. The new ones I see once in a while on hn like these are pretty nice though.

diegoperini|8 years ago

Mine too. Completely useless but fun to create. (dperini.com)

commenter1|8 years ago

I guess it works as an art project, but as a website, it's a complete failure.

lulzury|8 years ago

Your personal site doesn’t work on Safari Mobile.

Const-me|8 years ago

And has major layout & script problems on MS Edge.

na85|8 years ago

Or Firefox mobile.

codazoda|8 years ago

And is quite terrible with Chrome on Android.

pvsukale3|8 years ago

https://vishaltelangre.com/

Checkout this one. It's built using Elm and is responsive.

aq3cn|8 years ago

Would you mind if I use your source code to set up my own similar personal website? Of course, I will give the credit to you. By the way, I am impressed with this novel idea. I will tinker around the code to add my own features.

https://github.com/vishaltelangre/vishaltelangre.com

Sverigevader|8 years ago

Heh, the clear screen hotkey (ctrl+l) also jumps to the address bar. I think he needs a "return false" somewhere

fimdomeio|8 years ago

problem with the site is that since it only implements a subset of what one would expect from a shell you're constantly inputing things that do not work.

yeahdef|8 years ago

no the problem with the site is that music :)

JonRB|8 years ago

I love it, but my minor nitpick is that if you press tab for auto-complete it jumps up and back down again (in Firefox, anyway)

skrebbel|8 years ago

Obligatory for HN: here's a VC whose site is a terminal: http://neuvc.com/

seedie|8 years ago

I realized it got me when I typed "exit", trying to leave the website

thepratt|8 years ago

Breaks after the first input is submitted. Won't let you type further.

tschwimmer|8 years ago

Similar, but with no input lag: http://www.clarkduvall.com/

aq3cn|8 years ago

How do I make onscreen keyboard pop up in android os? I am using Firefox.

drawnwren|8 years ago

Interestingly, this one doesn't register as text input with vimium so it's completely incompatible. OP's does register.

harshil9968|8 years ago

I liked the whole thing, I would like to see alias like `ll` preconfigured in any good terminal.

there are some issues with errors some of the places it doesn't show that.

When changing directory (going back to home) it doesn't work and doesn't even show the error.

harshil9968|8 years ago

command `cd ~/` doesn't work.

ipsin|8 years ago

It'd be interesting to collect stats on all the commands people try to run, and to implement all the ones Linux users are likely to have wired into muscle memory.

synicalx|8 years ago

I bet there would be A LOT of 'rm -rf /'-ing going on. I'll admit it was about the second thing I tried.

koenigdavidmj|8 years ago

I make sure to type 'sudo make me a sandwich' on all of these.

synicalx|8 years ago

Cool site that doesn't run like a dog, I'm impressed! I actually spent a few minutes fiddling around trying to see what I could do on the terminal, can't say that for many other sites.

If I could offer one little bit of feedback; some labels on the menu at the top would be kind of handy, a few icons are easy to recognize but some aren't (at least for me).

ntht8|8 years ago

Looks pretty broken for tab completion... Also you can't cat the .ai file? or open it? Whats the point.

apthnz|8 years ago

It took me a sec to realise duchess.ai was a folder, not a file, and then another second to realise tab completion was trying to send me to duchess.air for some reason. Cool concept, just a couple of little things to iron out.

irrational|8 years ago

So... I can just view source and see all the available data. That is a lot faster then typing in commands.

reustle|8 years ago

You could also just run tree on your computer instead of navigating directories

throwanem|8 years ago

My personal site works on a phone.

cordite|8 years ago

I also can’t interact with it on my iPad. No keyboard comes up or a button like backup.

keithnz|8 years ago

really "jumpy" when using Firefox Quantum.

I found it frustrating, I didn't actually end up seeing anything other than the terminal I tried changing into folders, but it didn't seem to work. Seems broken.

a3_nm|8 years ago

Interesting, but Tab completion seems broken:

    cd Foosball/
    cat r<tab>
Selecting text (on Firefox) doesn't seem to work either.

hk__2|8 years ago

> Selecting text (on Firefox) doesn't seem to work either.

It seems to be intentional. It works if you deactivate JavaScript.

acobster|8 years ago

hmm tab completion is working for me in FF 56

giancarlostoro|8 years ago

I don't mind this but I wonder what it would take to make it so you could SSH to the same domain and make it somewhat interactive. Letting anyone connect with any username (and based on their username allow them to open files personalized to that) I often wonder the effort it would take to make custom shells for people to connect to without giving too much access to a server for personal reasons.

FruityFaiz|8 years ago

I love it!

Just one thing though, when hitting tab it seems to be getting the root file and it doesn't work then.

E.g cd Photo-Video cd Sunrise<tab>

eih|8 years ago

Pretty neat, but those particle effects are strange for me. Similarly, I've never used yet but Unixstickers has a terminal like interface on their website: https://www.unixstickers.com/terminal You can use it for shopping.

AlphaWeaver|8 years ago

Nice! I made a site where information was primarily exposed via keyboard input (my personal site as well[0]) but I had to make sure mobile worked okay so I made a static version for mobile users.

[0]: http://me.thatcoolidea.com

animesh|8 years ago

I cannot type in Firefox as I have the 'Search for text when you start typing' setting enabled.

rafaqueque|8 years ago

I understand what others are saying: there's a lot going on at the same time. Getting rid of the effects while typing would be a major plus.

I've also done something similar, but way simpler: https://rafael.pt

p4bl0|8 years ago

In the same vein, try out https://desfontain.es/ it's the personal website of a friend and you can navigate it like if you were playing nethack.

ellyagg|8 years ago

What a cool idea! I was hoping there was going to be a directory of blog posts I could `cat`. I feel like there's some fun potential here if you keep fleshing it out, but of course who has the time?

alexpetralia|8 years ago

I enjoyed how many people are quick to criticize that this doesn't work as well as an actual terminal. Because that was definitely, absolutely the point.

AmitJS|8 years ago

Nicely done. You have mentioned ` Daytrader w/ Machine Learning ` How is that going on for you ? Can you guide me on how to get started.

MR4D|8 years ago

Anyone know how to get this to work on an iPhone?

No idea how to bring up the keyboard (and it doesn’t happen automatically in case someone asks).

deusofnull|8 years ago

This is pretty awesome. Youre gonna get a lot of attention, what with your resume being on the front page of hackernews...

philjackson|8 years ago

The completion doesn't work properly. It's a super fun little project, but, very frustrating to use.

aq3cn|8 years ago

How do I make onscreen keyboard pop up in android os? I am using Firefox in android.

erikbye|8 years ago

I'm unable to start Vim.

scalablenotions|8 years ago

"Just one thing" - I'm sure Karl knows this is not fully-fledged, bug-free terminal.

Great concept Karl, I think you're a no-brainer hire for anyone who wants to add out-of-the box problem-solving to their team, since you just hacked your personal brand publicity very creatively :)

reificator|8 years ago

This kind of site has been around for a long time. Amusingly enough there were even image boards with this approach.

yosyp|8 years ago

$ cd Labs/

$ cd ../Projects <-- this does not work, the cwd remains Labs/

bolololo1|8 years ago

I like the idea!

Finally an interesting website - don't listen to the moaners.

ForFreedom|8 years ago

That concept is f*ing cool... love the idea

Lapsa|8 years ago

first command I tried: `rm / -rf`

ggchappell|8 years ago

Cool.

Also, figlet sighting, "large" font. :-)

gnulinux|8 years ago

Those visual effects are annoying beyond comprehension. You should find a way for users to disable them easily.

aynawn|8 years ago

how do you open the resume?

ambewas|8 years ago

rm: command not found

:(

cat199|8 years ago

if you call yourself a hacker, you aren't one.

hasenj|8 years ago

The concept is cool, but I'd like to point out a couple of issues.

The explosion/flashing thing is somewhat annoying. Honestly comes off as childish.

Tab-completion _deletes_ word under cursor if no match is found? Why?

Why is the terminal built on angular? Seems like an overkill. Partly because I think Angular is a terrible abomination, but in general there's not much going on there to even warrant a framework.

LASR|8 years ago

Nice work. But honestly, you're making it incredibly hard to quickly see your accomplishments.