Better UI/UX for Polaris CLI

[Yong Zheng <yz...@apache.org>]

Hello,

I would like to get some feedback from the community if we should provide a better UI/UX for Polaris CLI. Details had been captured in https://github.com/apache/polaris/issues/4090 along with current and sample revised UI.

What do you think? Should we proceed with those more modern libraries or stick with what we currently have and use plain text only.

Thanks,
Yong Zheng

Re: Better UI/UX for Polaris CLI

[Yufei Gu <fl...@gmail.com>]

Hi Yong,

I think having a "pretty" option is a great idea :-). We can still keep the
raw output. I’m supportive, as long as the rich library is license
compatible and well maintained.

Yufei


On Tue, Mar 31, 2026 at 9:02 AM Dmitri Bourlatchkov <di...@apache.org>
wrote:

> Hi Yong,
>
> I do not think CLI STDOUT was ever meant for piping into other tools... At
> least I guess there was no conscious decision on that.
>
> So, using rich output from current CLI commands sounds good to me.
>
> I hope with new console libraries it should not be too hard to obtain raw
> JSON too (if we ever need it).
>
> Cheers,
> Dmitri.
>
> On Tue, Mar 31, 2026 at 12:22 AM Yong Zheng <yz...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I would like to get some feedback from the community if we should provide
> > a better UI/UX for Polaris CLI. Details had been captured in
> > https://github.com/apache/polaris/issues/4090 along with current and
> > sample revised UI.
> >
> > What do you think? Should we proceed with those more modern libraries or
> > stick with what we currently have and use plain text only.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Yong Zheng
> >
>

Re: Better UI/UX for Polaris CLI

[Dmitri Bourlatchkov <di...@apache.org>]

Hi Yong,

I do not think CLI STDOUT was ever meant for piping into other tools... At
least I guess there was no conscious decision on that.

So, using rich output from current CLI commands sounds good to me.

I hope with new console libraries it should not be too hard to obtain raw
JSON too (if we ever need it).

Cheers,
Dmitri.

On Tue, Mar 31, 2026 at 12:22 AM Yong Zheng <yz...@apache.org> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I would like to get some feedback from the community if we should provide
> a better UI/UX for Polaris CLI. Details had been captured in
> https://github.com/apache/polaris/issues/4090 along with current and
> sample revised UI.
>
> What do you think? Should we proceed with those more modern libraries or
> stick with what we currently have and use plain text only.
>
> Thanks,
> Yong Zheng
>

Re: Better UI/UX for Polaris CLI

[Jean-Baptiste Onofré <jb...@nanthrax.net>]

Hi Yong,

Thanks for starting this thread.

I believe the direction depends on the type of CLI experience we want to
provide. I see two main options:

1. Improving the "look and feel" of the existing CLI without adding
significant interaction.
2. Transitioning from a CLI to a full shell (similar to the Karaf Shell I
worked on, which utilizes jline for features like completion and binding
https://karaf.apache.org/manual/latest/#_using_the_console).

These options cater to different personas. At this stage, I am more in
favor of the first option, as you described in the GitHub issue.

Just my two cents.

Regards,
JB

On Tue, Mar 31, 2026 at 5:22 AM Yong Zheng <yz...@apache.org> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I would like to get some feedback from the community if we should provide
> a better UI/UX for Polaris CLI. Details had been captured in
> https://github.com/apache/polaris/issues/4090 along with current and
> sample revised UI.
>
> What do you think? Should we proceed with those more modern libraries or
> stick with what we currently have and use plain text only.
>
> Thanks,
> Yong Zheng
>