Introducing the Command Bar

Wow, a command-line interface to a website is something I never thought I'd see.<p>My first reaction was that it's a step backwards because the usual benefits of a command line aren't present here (you're usually <i>already</i> using your mouse, commands can't be piped, no shell scripts to run things in sequence)...<p>But I'm intigued -- maybe it's a possible step forwards? The implementation is very well done. I suppose maybe it functions like traditional keyboard shortcuts in a way? To follow a user, instead of finding their page and clicking follow, you just type "@user follow".<p>Still, all the commands are so basic, and many are infrequently used, I don't really see much of the "shortcut" value. I'm very curious to see if this user interface concept grows. Imagine if this became a standard way to interface with web API's!

Playing with this for a few minutes:<p>* I wish it had vim keybindings (ie, hit esc, then use hjkl to navigate)<p>* It gives me the option to follow myself. (Bug?)<p>* I like how I can learn commands via the autocomplete bar (issue, branch, graph, etc)<p>* I like how the autocomplete bar refreshes after I have control-tabbed away and back. Too many autocompletes lose this behavior<p>* Searching in a repository username/repo &#60;searchterm&#62; doesn't work the way I expect. It just brings up the regular search<p>Overall, very useful though.

Cool toy, but how about letting users just <i>search</i> for code in a repo properly?

Well, we already have a command bar at the top of the window. What about these commands?<p><pre><code> http://github.com/username http://github.com/username/follow http://github.com/username/unfollow http://github.com/me/dashboard http://github.com/me/notifications http://github.com/username/reponame/search/term http://github.com/username/reponame/branchname</code></pre>

The one command-line feature I want most on Github is `git grep`. I have cloned projects locally solely to be able to do that.

This UI concept seems to be gaining in popularity. Jira 5 has a similar (though less powerful) option-completion action bar that you can pull up with a shortcut when viewing an Issue.<p>I've been considering adopting a similar concept for a complex enterprise application that I maintain where the number of possible actions on a certain page is huge.

I really like seeing this UI approach becoming more popular. I find it particularly worthwhile because I think it helps build familiarity without being limiting the way simple autocomplete can. This approach broadens the knowledge of the user — even (I think) in the case of something like GitHub where most users are particularly competent.

To remind everyone how awesome xkcd's commandline is:<p><a href="http://uni.xkcd.com/" rel="nofollow">http://uni.xkcd.com/</a>

I like github for their sweet hosting and easy collaboration. I have no idea who would use this command bar. Do people really want to move the mouse to click on a cli and then guess/remember the syntax?<p>I don't really get why they built this... Anyone?

If you want a command line for your own site, you can use the GCLI project (BSD licensed, use it freely!)<p><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/gcli" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/mozilla/gcli</a><p>This is the command line that's in Firefox 16's Developer Toolbar (final release is coming in early October):<p><a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/08/new-firefox-command-line-helps-you-develop-faster/" rel="nofollow">https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/08/new-firefox-command-line-h...</a><p>I love command lines, personally :)

Nice. I wish more GUIs had this kind of capability.<p>Long live the command line. At least until I get my neural implants.

This is similar to a plugin I have been using in Alfred for quick access to Github (but not nearly as feature complete):<p><a href="https://github.com/KevinSjoberg/github.alfredextension" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/KevinSjoberg/github.alfredextension</a>

This paradigm is very powerful. The only thing I see missing from these types of interfaces is the ability to select part or all of the output and use it as input for a new command.<p>Think of it as an intermediate step of piping where the user has the ability to manually filter content. This UI concept would cover the vast majority of UI needs as almost any workflow could be captured with the following...<p>1.) Issue command that produces 0..N results. 2.) View results in list format. 3.) Select individual results for details view. 4.) Select 0..N results as input to a subsequent command.

Note, Chrome junkies, the Firefox awesome bar already does most of these :)

This seems like a step in the right direction, because GitHub's search remains awful.<p>For example, I can now type in "&#60;user&#62;/&#60;repo&#62; #123" to go to an issue, but if I am already on the Issues page for that repo and I type "#123" in the box labelled "Search: Issues &#38; Milestones..." it <i>still</i> comes up with nothing. And that's not even challenging.<p>I'm desperately hoping that this feature is an indication that they've noticed that finding anything on the site requires either 8 million mouse clicks or manually editing URLs.

I put together a little admin command line that you could bring up with the ~ key that looks like this: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/mq7ko.png?1" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/mq7ko.png?1</a><p>It is built for asp.net but you could easily apply the same concept somewhere else. More info if anyone is interested: <a href="http://lukencode.com/2011/12/11/netbashan-alternative-to-endless-admin-pages-in-asp-net-web-applications/" rel="nofollow">http://lukencode.com/2011/12/11/netbashan-alternative-to-end...</a>

I think it would be even better to have some terminal emulator on github. Even now with so improved UIs I like command line interface.

You only miss one thing:<p>* map the '/' symbol to focus:search box.

Giving the type of people who like command lines a command line -- not a bad idea!<p>The down side is that, I think, this is really only useful for the github power user. The upside is: I'm a github power user!<p>Seriously, though, I hope they don't use this command line as a sort of cop-out for continuously improving their UI.

I want this for every website, and for most of the desktop apps I use. Typing, for me, is so much easier than finding menu items and clicking on them. Imagine Photoshop with an autocompleting command line instead of a maze of menus. I could work <i>so</i> much faster.

It is fantastic that a command interface is now a part of a very public system like github.<p>These things really speed up work for power-users and let maintainers add functionality without adding more complexity to the user experience than is appropriate.

This is awesome. I would love to see the concept of a website command line interface explored a bit further, hopefully Github implement something like Vim keybindings and a few other useful commands. The future is bright, man.

It was already shown here <a href="https://github.com/blog/1252-how-we-keep-github-fast" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/blog/1252-how-we-keep-github-fast</a>. So we could have known it would come.

Am I the only one who thought this was going to let me run git commands?

I wondered why the "search" bar had suddenly got really slow today and caused Firefox to freeze a little bit when using it.<p>Need to juice the performance a bit I think

Great feature - I really like it. My only request is that the suggestions be clickable links so that you can open one in a new tab.

Don't you use the browsers address bar for that?

Now I just need an Alfred extension that talks to the backend URLs

cool, but how about making it context (page) aware, so you could write just "@watch" on a repo's page?

Death to the CLI/GUI religious wars.