[HN Gopher] Show HN: Browse Anime from the Terminal
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       Show HN: Browse Anime from the Terminal
        
       Author : Benex254
       Score  : 60 points
       Date   : 2025-01-26 07:36 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | trevorhinesley wrote:
       | Wow, this is an incredibly robust CLI. One of the more feature
       | complete (and aesthetically pleasing) terminal UIs I've seen.
       | Well done!
        
       | nunobrito wrote:
       | I'll very likely never use this because web and android apps are
       | just too comfortably but I've thoroughly enjoyed seeing the level
       | of detail, quality and options available there.
       | 
       | One question (and apologies if it was on the documentation), but
       | is it possible to automate to download and archive series for
       | later watching without internet? This is my number #1 usage
       | scenario, mostly getting the fresh chapters and have them locally
       | because they disappear from the URL after some time or I might
       | want to just watch while travelling without internet somewhere.
       | 
       | Thank you.
        
       | tetris11 wrote:
       | Related tool: ani-cli
       | 
       | https://github.com/pystardust/ani-cli
       | 
       | Has termux builds as well
        
         | Jotalea wrote:
         | FastAnime is ani-cli but on steroids
        
       | ykonstant wrote:
       | Benexl, the person who also wrote the beautiful and featureful
       | yt-x for browsing youtube. You can rely on this guy to make a
       | gorgeous terminal UI.
        
         | CapricornNoble wrote:
         | Thanks for mentioning yt-x, I'll give it a try. I'm so tired of
         | YouTube absolutely crushing my CPU usage in Firefox.
        
       | yoavm wrote:
       | Please consider changing the Gif in the README to a video. Not
       | only it's a half the size (I just checked), it will also allow
       | people to pause, rewind etc.
        
       | etaioinshrdlu wrote:
       | Can someone explain the appeal of cramming what is effectively a
       | GUI into a terminal? This sort of thing has always been popular
       | around here, but I never saw the appeal. The main benefits appear
       | to be usage over SSH, and a certain obscure style due to running
       | in a terminal.
        
         | InkCanon wrote:
         | I think it's a desire for minimalism. In a world filled with
         | websites saturated with ads, clickbait and constant attention
         | grabs, this is like walking from an overcrowded city street
         | into a Zen garden.
        
           | mecsred wrote:
           | It's an app for browsing lists of anime. How is this not a
           | constant stream of attention grabs?
        
             | boterpoes wrote:
             | Well, if someone opens this app their goal probably is
             | browsing lists of anime, so the attention grabs you're
             | hinting at are intentional, and thus not 'attention grabs'
             | in the sense the parent commenter is talking about.
        
               | mecsred wrote:
               | Yeah that makes a lot of sense, my mistake for posting
               | before coffee.
        
             | hombre_fatal wrote:
             | Attention grab here surely means something grabbing your
             | attention away from what you're trying to look at.
        
         | boterpoes wrote:
         | For me personally, it also has something to do with TUIs
         | feeling more 'snappy' and reliable than many GUIs. For example,
         | when I'm scrolling in Slack to get to previous messages, I'm
         | often looking at blank space while messages load. Or when I
         | open a search engine in Safari, often I cannot type in the
         | search box without clicking on it first. Or in a JetBrains IDE
         | I try to type code but the file navigator still has focus and
         | now I'm using the 'file search' modus which I did not intend to
         | use. I almost never have these issues with TUIs. They're mostly
         | fast and behave like I expect. Can't think of how to explain
         | this better right now.
         | 
         | In theory I like GUIs better as you can do a lot more with
         | them, but they disappoint me so often that I often prefer a TUI
         | (or a commandline tool).
        
           | pjc50 wrote:
           | I think this isn't due to the TUI itself (and this one isn't
           | text, it has images in!) but downstream of a whole load of
           | other choices. You rarely have this with game UIs, for
           | example.
           | 
           | It's not just the use of immediate mode, but a whole stack of
           | design decisions to prioritize snappiness.
        
           | marginalia_nu wrote:
           | Modern GUI frameworks are a bit of a dumpster fire. They're
           | unresponsive mess with poor contrast, frequently based around
           | elements designed for a 7" touch screen[1], despite primarily
           | being used with mouse and keyboard input and a full sized
           | monitor.
           | 
           | [1] Like hamburger menus. These make zero sense in a desktop
           | GUI. They make perfect sense on a small vertical screen, but
           | horizontal screen space is just not a scarce commodity on a
           | 27" screen. All these things accomplish is making a button
           | that's harder to accurately click.
        
         | yoavm wrote:
         | For me, it's much more about my workflow. I spend a lot of time
         | in the terminal anyway, and running things there means a
         | lighter context switch. Moving between apps (=panes), zooming,
         | copy-pasting, all works the same.
        
         | nurbl wrote:
         | Apart from the benefits you already mentioned, mainly that TUI
         | applications are usually keyboard driven.
        
         | slightwinder wrote:
         | It's probably because TUIs are inferior and limited in their
         | abilities compared to GUI or WebUI, so the creators are putting
         | more work into polishing them in what they can deliver, ending
         | in an overall better user experience in their specific area.
        
         | weberer wrote:
         | The main benefits are that programs are lightweight, snappy,
         | and cross-platform.
        
         | hombre_fatal wrote:
         | I don't like using them so much as I've gotten older, but they
         | are simpler to build, more fun to build, the design options
         | aren't as open-ended, and the tooling is pretty good and
         | crossplatform.
         | 
         | The idiosyncrasy of a GUI in your terminal is also part of its
         | charm, especially in how it looks.
         | 
         | I think it's similar to the appeal of making a webapp in a fun
         | tech like Elm except it has access to the filesystem and can do
         | whatever it wants, so it's also less limiting.
        
         | jessechang wrote:
         | Same reason I use vim: staying in the terminal with just my
         | keyboard feels efficient, even if it's just for fun.
        
       | Hoefner wrote:
       | I think that viewing from the terminal can be convenient when
       | actively using it with zellij, tmux, etc.-- when in one pane
       | you're developing, in the second the build is running, and in the
       | third you're watching anime.
        
       | 65 wrote:
       | Perfect for Arch users ;)
        
       | wink wrote:
       | Just skimming the README, is there actually something inherently
       | special about anime? Or is there some quasi-standard format how
       | you acquire them these days (maybe something with subtitles?) - I
       | think the last anime I played on a computer was still DivX ;)
       | 
       | I see mpv, so it's basically a file browser for movie files?
        
         | Arnavion wrote:
         | It has some hardcoded ability to download episodes from
         | streaming websites and bittorrent. See references to
         | `AnimeProvider` and the impls under
         | `/fastanime/libs/anime_provider/`. (This might also create
         | problems for hosting this on GH in the first place. Let's
         | see...)
        
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       (page generated 2025-01-28 23:01 UTC)