> If we had a cross-platform usable GUI framework

I could swear there once was a (n)curses or otherwise text based GTK+ implementation / backend. It didn't do everything of course, and this was, I don't know, about 2003-2007, but you could compile a GTK application and run it in the console.

I tried finding a link, but unfortunately could not, can't even remember the name, I only remember building a piece of software that way that did GUI or TUI depending on how it was linked.