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I see discussions occasionally about having GUIs replacing command lines. And while I'm all for it, there's a point that I never see discussed. Part of why command lines work so much better than GUIs for some tasks is that GUIs require organization and hierarchy to work.

CLIs meanwhile, all commands are just a big list. But to expose a CLI as a GUI naively wouldn't work because one big list is a terrible way to organize a GUI, and I don't think you *can* expose all possible CLI workflows with a nice unified GUI.

the only possible solution imo is a node editor, iirc there's one for ffmpeg but its paid and not open source so i'm not biting

The problem is node editors are great at helping build tools, but they aren't necessarily helpful at making easy to access processes. And few people want to *have* to build their own dashboards. I'm not sure there's a happy medium here that really gives you the benefits of a GUI + CLI-style control.

Excel is probably the closest thing to it, honestly. Ease of use built in for basic tasks, hilariously powerful tools that are easy to access beyond it. But I wouldn't say excel's UX for that is particularly ideal, just that it seems to work.