TUIStudio Editor

Design Terminal UIs. Visually

A Figma-like visual editor for TUI applications. Drag-and-drop components, edit properties in real-time, and export to 6 frameworks with one click. SOON

Apple Silicon Curious how it worked? read the FAQ ↓
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Features

Everything you need
to design TUIs like a pro

All the tools a terminal app designer needs — in one visual environment.

▦
Visual Canvas

Drag-and-drop components onto a live canvas with real-time ANSI preview at configurable zoom levels.

⊕
20+ TUI Components

Screen, Box, Button, TextInput, Table, List, Tree, Tabs, Modal, Spinner, ProgressBar, and more.

⊞
Layout Engine

Absolute, Flexbox, and Grid layout modes with full property control — just like CSS in the browser.

◑
8 Color Themes

Dracula, Nord, Solarized, Monokai, Gruvbox, Tokyo Night, Nightfox, Sonokai — updating the canvas live.

→
Multi-Framework Export

Generate production-ready code for Ink, BubbleTea, Blessed, Textual, OpenTUI, and Tview.

⊡
Save / Load

Projects saved as portable .tui JSON files. Open from anywhere, share with your team.

Command Palette
// Command Palette
Theming
// Theme Switcher
Toolbar
// Component Toolbar

Export

Export to
6 frameworks

Design once, generate production-ready code for your framework of choice. Switch targets without touching your design.

⚠ Alpha notice: Code export is not functional yet. We're actively working on it — check back soon.
Ink TypeScript
BubbleTea Go
Blessed JavaScript
Textual Python
OpenTUI TypeScript
Tview Go

Components

21 built-in components

All the building blocks for a full terminal application.

components — 21 items
Screen
Box
Button
TextInput
Checkbox
Radio
Select
Toggle
Text
Spinner
ProgressBar
Table
List
Tree
Menu
Tabs
Breadcrumb
Modal
Popover
Tooltip
Spacer
+ more soon

FAQ

Common questions

Everything you need to know before hitting download.

A TUI (Text User Interface) is an interactive application that runs entirely in the terminal — like htop, lazygit, or k9s. Instead of a web browser or native window, the UI is built from characters, colors, and ANSI escape codes. TUIStudio lets you design these visually instead of hand-coding every layout.

With no code-signing configured, each platform behaves differently:

macOS
Gatekeeper blocks the app immediately. You'll see either "TUIStudio cannot be opened because it is from an unidentified developer" or "TUIStudio is damaged and can't be opened" on newer macOS after quarantine flags the binary.
To get past it: right-click the .app → Open → Open anyway — or go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → "Open Anyway".

Windows
SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC". Click More info → Run anyway. Less fatal than macOS, but still alarming to non-technical users.

Linux
No such gate. dpkg -i TUIStudio-amd64.deb or double-click in a file manager — just works.

TUIStudio is currently in Alpha — exports are not functional yet. We're actively working on it.

When ready, the following 6 frameworks will be supported:

  • Ink — TypeScript / React for the terminal
  • BubbleTea — Go, Elm-architecture TUIs
  • Blessed — JavaScript, Node.js
  • Textual — Python, modern TUI framework
  • OpenTUI — TypeScript
  • Tview — Go, widget-based

Switch export targets at any time without touching your design.

TUIStudio was an early-access experiment. It is presented here as a case study: the editor, the export flows and the design decisions. The app is no longer distributed.

Yes. Projects are saved as portable .tui JSON files you can open from anywhere, commit to git, or share with your team. No account or cloud required.

Case study

Inside
the experiment

An archived experiment.
Screens, flows and decisions — no downloads.

Apple Silicon