[Feature Request]: Termux Passthrough, Shizuku Integration, ASCII Banners

[TheTearMiser]

Hey, just found T-UI because of the recent update and I'm absolutely in love with it. Wanted to throw some ideas out there that I think could take this from a really cool launcher to a genuine powerhouse. Would love to know if any of this is already on the radar.

Termux Passthrough

So the idea here is pretty simple - if T-UI gets a command it doesn't recognise, instead of just erroring out, hand it off to Termux to deal with.
I run a TUI app in Termux called braindrop (it's raindrop.io as a TUI). Right now if I want it I have to jump over to Termux and type it there. But if T-UI could just pass unknown commands through to Termux, I could type braindrop right here and it pops up. Same for anything else I have installed in Termux - nmap, htop, whatever.
Termux actually has a documented intent API for exactly this (com.termux.RUN_COMMAND) so I don't think this would be a massive lift. Simplest version is just T-UI fires the intent and Termux takes over focus. Getting stdout piped back into T-UI would be sick but that's a whole other thing.
Would be nice to have a config option for the fallback behaviour too - something like unknown_cmd_backend = termux | busybox | error so it doesn't step on the existing BusyBox integration.

Shizuku Integration

I'll be honest, I'm not skilled enough to fully grasp everything this would open up - but I know it's a lot. Shizuku gives you adb shell level access without needing root, through Android's own Binder IPC. I've seen at least one other issue filed about this already.
Off the top of my head it would mean things like:
Silent installs/uninstalls without the system dialog popping up
Actually seeing all installed packages including system apps
Granting and revoking permissions from the command line
setprop and other system stuff
Feels like a natural fit.

ASCII Art / Banners

ASCII is beautiful. Would love some way to render big styled ASCII text - either as a startup banner or a banner command you can call manually. Figlet fonts are just plain text files so there's no real dependency overhead, you could just bundle one font and call it done for a first pass.
Even just being able to put a multiline ASCII block in the greeting config would be something.
I am currently using the notes feature for this. The knly issue with that is that it doesnt maintain spacing so Ive have to use a pattern background to fill the space. Its functional but it could be cool.

These are all independent so no need to tackle them together. The Termux one feels like the lowest hanging fruit to me.

Happy to test any of this - I've got Termux, Shizuku and Dhizuku all set up already. Let me know if there's anywhere useful I can contribute

[imclearlythebest]

Hey, I initially thought this thread would be about a broader roadmap for TUI, and it actually feels like a really good time to have that discussion given the recent activity.

It might make sense to have a separate issue dedicated to overall project direction (things like documentation, open issues, and general priorities), and keep this one focused on specific feature ideas.

Personally, it seems like there may be some housekeeping worth addressing first (e.g., documentation updates, reviewing existing issues), which could help make future feature work smoother, but that’s probably something better discussed in a dedicated roadmap thread.

You’ve shared some interesting feature suggestions here, so maybe renaming the issue to something like “Feature Request: Termux Passthrough, Shizuku Integration, ASCII Banners” could help make its purpose clearer.

I’ll go ahead and open a separate discussion for the roadmap side of things so we can keep both conversations organized.

Edit: A dedicated roadmap thread has been created. Please check out #407 if you’re interested in that discussion.

[imclearlythebest]

The knly issue with that is that it doesnt maintain spacing so Ive have to use a pattern background to fill the space. Its functional but it could be cool.

It would be really nice if something like ncurses was implemented in T-UI. Unfortunately the dev doesn't like that idea (#162).
It would be harder to make something like banners since screen and font sizes are going to be different on everyone's phone. I suppose you can write a function that reads raw files in a directory and regenerates static files for this purpose. The regeneration could happen on restart or refresh.