the Nexuiz console - explained in GUI

[The mysterious Mr. 4m]

Preface
Several options were taken out of the GUI menu in favour of speeding up the overall loading process. But now it seems to lack options and players won't know about the console unless they are told by somebody or read about it somewhere, which would require an additional initiative for thorough "investigation" that many people seem to lack. (otherwise they wouldn't ask questions that are already covered in a FAQ or forum, for example)
A Graphical User Interface isn't superior to a command line, but it is more intuitive. A large part of the brain is dedicated to visual processing and even blind people seem to use it for spatial cognition. A GUI allows for a spatial orientation by "walking" thru the interface, similar to a walk in the park, while the command line is just input/output, which requires "dry" learning like some people say.

The Nexuiz console, explained in the GUI menu
While a GUI may be more comfortable or intuitive to some, it does have drawbacks and cannot provide as many options as the console.... my idea is to make a console window for the menu or just a description or something, so people know how to use it.... explanation of basic commands, using TAB, etc....

[Pyromace]

one thing that would be very helpful with the console is if there was some sort of built in help system. Unless I'm wrong, there's nothing that will help you find commands you want from within the console. Such as typing "help"

[divVerent]

There is part of that - each cvar and command has a description, and cvarlist or hitting tab will show that.

However, this only applies to those defined by the engine - game defined cvars and aliases can't have a description. I'd be in favor of adding that feature to the engine, if in turn someone else volunteers to describe our cvars.

The engine changes needed for that aren't big, and would also enable making a "cvar list menu" that shows ALL cvars, allows searching for words in the name (and possibly in the description), and allows editing them.

[The mysterious Mr. 4m]

you mean those that have "custom cvar" in their description, right?

there's a list on ouns, so everyone can add to it: http://ouns.wikispaces.com/cvarlist_custom