Coder Legion - Recent posts tagged tui

Ditch the Clunky GUIs: Meet ComChan, the Blazingly Fast Rust Serial Monitor

Fri, 15 May 2026 15:58:16 +0000

If you spend any significant amount of time doing embedded systems development, you know the drill. You write your firmware, flash the microcontroller, and then… you stare at a serial monitor.

For years, the options have been a bit of a mixed bag. You have the classic Arduino IDE Serial Monitor (which is functional but basic), bloated GUI protocol analyzers that eat up RAM, or simple CLI tools like minicom that get the job done but lack modern developer quality-of-life features.

As someone who lives in the terminal—relying on tools like Neovim and terminal multiplexers—I wanted a serial monitor that actually fit into a keyboard-driven, modern workflow. I wanted something lightweight, visually clean, and capable of handling complex data without breaking a sweat.

So, I built ComChan (Communication Channel).

What is ComChan?

ComChan is a minimal, blazingly fast serial monitor and plotter built entirely in Rust. It’s designed specifically for embedded systems engineers who want powerful data visualization and logging without leaving the command line.

Because it's written in Rust, it’s memory-safe, incredibly fast, and runs natively across Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Here is a look at the features that make ComChan stand out from the crowd.

1. The Terminal-Based Serial Plotter

Sometimes, raw text isn't enough. When you are debugging an IMU, reading ADC values, or tracking temperature sensors, you need to see the data visually.

Instead of exporting data to Excel or firing up a heavy GUI application, ComChan features a built-in TUI (Terminal User Interface) plotter. You simply pass the --plot flag, and ComChan will automatically parse your incoming numeric data, assign legends, and graph multiple sensor channels in real-time—right inside your terminal.

Found a spike you want to investigate? You can hit Ctrl+S to instantly export the current plot frame as a clean SVG file.

Here is how it'll look like

2. Time Travel with Session Replay

This is perhaps my favorite feature. Debugging intermittent hardware anomalies is a nightmare because you can't always recreate the exact physical conditions that caused the bug.

ComChan introduces Session Replay. You can log your raw serial output to a .log or .csv file during a test run. Later, you can run comchan --replay <file> and the tool will parse the timestamps and play the data back to you in real-time.

It perfectly recreates the exact timing of the original hardware run. You can even replay a log file directly into the visual Plotter to analyze the anomaly visually, without needing the physical microcontroller plugged in.

3. Continuous CSV Streaming

If you are doing data collection for research or analysis, ComChan can automatically parse your incoming numeric telemetry and stream it directly into a clean, multi-column .csv file on the fly.

The best part? This works concurrently. You can stream to a CSV in the background while actively watching the data on the TUI Plotter.

4. Built for the Modern Embedded Workflow

ComChan includes several smaller features designed specifically to remove friction from the embedded workflow:

Auto-Detection: Tired of typing /dev/ttyUSB0 or COM3? Just use comchan --auto and it will automatically find and connect to your active USB serial device.
Zephyr RTOS Support: If you work with Zephyr, ComChan has a dedicated --zephyr shell mode that handles its specific echo and prompt behaviors cleanly.
Auto-Recovery: If you accidentally unplug your device or reset the power, ComChan won't crash. It detects the broken pipe and gracefully waits to reconnect when the hardware comes back online.
Configuration Files: Save your favorite baud rates, data bits, and parity settings in a .toml file so you don't have to pass a dozen flags every time you launch.

The "Brain Made" Philosophy

While AI tools are great for scaffolding tests or micro-optimizations, the core architecture, TUI design, and feature logic of ComChan are entirely human-crafted. It’s built to solve real pain points that I experience daily when working with memory-safe embedded development on ESP32s and RP2040s.

Try It Out

If you are ready to upgrade your embedded debugging workflow, ComChan is incredibly easy to install.

If you have Cargo installed:

cargo install comchan

For Arch Linux users, it's available on the AUR:

yay -S comchan

You can check out the full source code, read the documentation, and contribute on GitHub: Vaishnav-Sabari-Girish/ComChan

Drop a star if you find it useful, and let me know what features you’d like to see next (a Hex Dump mode is already on the roadmap!). Happy debugging!

Send emails from the terminal using pop

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 07:27:15 +0000

Multi-Account Email Sender (pop wrapper)

This script wraps Charm's pop to send emails from multiple accounts directly from your terminal without config edits. Select your email, then use pop's interactive UI or CLI flags.

Features

Switch between multiple SMTP accounts via gum (or fallback menu)
Secure secrets from ~/.zsh_secrets
Exports POP_SMTP_USERNAME, POP_SMTP_PASSWORD, POP_FROM automatically
Passes all pop args through
Shellcheck clean, bash-compatible

Environment Variables

In ~/.zshrc (non-sensitive):

export POP_SMTP_HOST="smtp.gmail.com" # or smtp.outlook.com, etc.
export POP_SMTP_PORT=587

In ~/.zsh_secrets (chmod 600, gitignore!):

export POP_SMTP_USERNAME1="*Emails are not allowed*"
export POP_SMTP_PASSWORD1="abcd efgh ijkl mnop" # Gmail/Outlook APP PASSWORD
export POP_SMTP_USERNAME2="*Emails are not allowed*"
export POP_SMTP_PASSWORD2="ijkl mnop qrst uvwx" # APP PASSWORD (16 chars, no spaces)

⚠️ POP_SMTP_PASSWORDs are app-specific passwords (not your regular login)—generate from Gmail/Outlook 2FA security settings.

Dependencies

pop (Charm)
gum (optional, menu fallback built-in)

Usage

chmod +x ~/.local/bin/send_email
send_email # Interactive pop
send_email --to *Emails are not allowed* --subject "Hi" --body "Test"

Here is the link to the gist https://gist.github.com/Vaishnav-Sabari-Girish/51cbfc493fee25c209c39f0e74a17103

Save your dotfiles workflow!

Note Taking app script

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 14:19:33 +0000

Notes taking script

This script is a small note-taking application in itself where it lets you do the following

Create a new note
Open notes
Preview notes
Search for notes
Delete notes

Dependencies

gum or fzf
glow or bat

The first time you run the script it'll ask you the name of the directory you wanna save your notes in.

Here is the link to the gist

https://gist.github.com/Vaishnav-Sabari-Girish/a75e9c59c268a4c2e93aaad7961df4fa

Advent of Code Interactive

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 10:09:08 +0000

Advent of Code Interactive

This script provides an interactive experience using the aoc-cli too.

Dependencies

aoc-cli : https://github.com/scarvalhojr/aoc-cli
gum : https://github.com/charmbracelet/gum
glow : https://github.com/charmbracelet/glow

With this script you can

View problems (By selecting the days)
Download the problem and input
Submit answer
View calendar
View the leaderboard (Private)

Here is the link to my gist where I have pushed the script

Link : https://gist.github.com/Vaishnav-Sabari-Girish/bc213e8539e666dac74249f25a868dec