Interactive TUI

Interactive TUI

Run dots with no arguments to open the interactive terminal UI. It's built on ratatui, with shared chrome (header/footer/description bars, theme, flash messages) provided by the tui-core crate.

Dashboard

The main screen is a dashboard of panes. Each pane summarizes one area and drills into a full-screen view:

Pane	Shows	Drills into
Symlinks	Status of your declared links (ok / missing / broken / wrong target)	Health
Tools	Which dependencies are installed vs missing	Health
Plugins	Status of shell plugins (zsh-autosuggestions, zsh-syntax-highlighting, zsh-history-substring-search, fzf-tab)	Health
Configs	Premade app configs and their state	Health
Update	Whether a newer version is available	Update
Network	Live network status (latency, name, DNS, VPN)	(informational — stays on dashboard)

Screens

Beyond the dashboard, the TUI has dedicated screens for:

• Health — the detailed view behind the Symlinks / Tools / Plugins / Configs panes, where you can repair links and install missing tools.
• Aliases — browse built-in and user aliases; add or remove your own.
• Profile — export/import your personal configuration.
• Theme — pick a theme.
• Settings — toggle update checks, greeting, developer mode, and set the update frequency (see Configuration).
• Update — check for and apply updates (see Updating).

Navigation

Standard TUI conventions apply: arrow keys / hjkl to move, Enter to select or drill in, Esc to go back, and q to quit. The footer bar always shows the keys available on the current screen.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
1	Open Aliases screen
2	Open Profile screen
3	Open Theme screen
4	Open Settings screen
Ctrl+C	Quit (works on any screen)

Mouse support

The TUI supports mouse input:

• Scroll wheel — vertical navigation (up/down) on any screen.
• Left-click on a dashboard pane — focuses and opens that pane (same as pressing Enter on the focused pane).

Description bar

Below the dashboard grid, a contextual description bar shows a one-line hint for the focused pane — for example how many items are broken, or the live network status. Flash messages (info, success, error) also appear here.

The TUI restores your terminal cleanly on exit — even on a panic, raw mode and the alternate screen are torn down by a guard so you're never left with a broken prompt.