5 ms·

How A Desktop Background Can Improve Productivity

27 points by NathanKP 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago
If my desktop background were red, I would be more productive because I'd want all my windows to cover it up. "My eyes! The goggles do nothing." But actually, I don't have a desktop background. If you can see your desktop, you are wasting space and your window manager is broken.
- city41 17y ago
  > If you can see your desktop, you are wasting space and your window manager is broken. I disagree. I think the sign of a broken windowing environment is when people find they need to maximize everything (like most Windows users do), which really goes against the point of windowed apps in the first place. Having negative space is important psychologically, lets you "breath" a bit, and not to mention, lets you more effectively use your apps together. There's a good reason MacOS has never had a true maximize button on their windows.
  - crux_ 17y ago
    I'm guessing jrockaway was trying to refer to tiling window managers (e.g. xmonad) , only without being too obvious about it. ;)
    - prewett 17y ago
      He did specifically mention Windows, though. Actually, I've also noticed that Windows users maximize everything (maybe from the Win 3.1 days?). Having the dullness of empty app-space makes me feel that same way that living in a sea of concrete buildings does. Having my (dark) desktop image visible is a bit like Central Park for NYC.
    - jrockway 17y ago
      You guessed correctly :)
  - nradov 17y ago
    It's got nothing to do with the windowing environment. I maximize a separate window on each monitor so I can see as much of each file as I can. Until I get a monitor as big as a wall, I want everything maximized.
    - yason 17y ago
      Well, I think the windowing system is to blame. It is vertical space that is precious but your eyes can't find too much use for horizontal space. Think pages of a newspaper that is divided into nice columns and compartments for a good reason. So, there's extra horizontal space on your wall-sized monitor and a good windowing system supports the user in maximizing its usage and not necessarily in maximizing each window. However, systems like Windows make it near impossible to make your windows behave. A typical scenario is having a couple of browser windows open for reading (like having some reference documentation at hand) and simultaneously typing into an active Emacs window partially/mostly underneath them both. If the windowing system insists on popping the active window to the top any of this becomes impossible, and you pretty much have no choice but to fall back to merely flipping between windows, and at this point it begins to feel stupid not to maximize all of them anyway. But the downside is there, too. Going back to books and newspapers for a reference, in opposition web pages can be just horrible to read when the browser window is maximized. You don't read a book in a widescreen aspect ratio either. Your eyes beg for a limited visual region to operate in. As for myself, I've found that I get a nice reading width by stretching the width of the browser window to 2/3 or 3/5 of the width of the screen. If ads are cluttering the sides or the layout flows outside then Readability takes care of it. As for design advice, "p { width: 66em !important }" would be good.
      - jodrellblank 17y ago
        For habitual windows users, the utility KatMouse gives you the ability to use the mousewheel over inactive windows and scroll them without bringing them to the foreground. I recommend it. Also, it can add middle click to push a window down.
      - nradov 17y ago
        The applications I use most heavily, in my maximized windows, make good use of the horizontal space. I do most of my editing in applications built on top of the Eclipse RCP, which allows a lot of flexibility in arranging multiple window panes.
- xenophanes 17y ago
  having a few files and folders visible on my desktop is a useful feature. i don't want to cover all of them.
- shard 17y ago
  I can't stand maximized windows. Everything ends up being justified to the left edge of the monitor, which means I have to turn my head and not be looking straight ahead when I'm working. Bad ergonomics, bad for my neck. I have whichever window I'm using centered, and various folders that I frequently access peeking out on the sides of the main window. Really, the only time I ever maximize a window is when I'm viewing video, or if I'm on my laptop where the LCD is much smaller than my desktop LCD.
whalesalad 17y ago
I think I see my background once a week. It serves almost no purpose to me. I'd probably disable it if I could to be honest. I'm in OS X. ⌘+Tab, my Dock, and Launchbar is all I need. I personally find it odd when people out there have a ton of icons in their OS X dock... I only keep frequently apps in there (http://grab.by/2yZF http://grab.by/2yZF) and then use Launchbar to do everything else. ^+Space lets me launch any app.
- city41 17y ago
  I hide and completely ignore my dock. I'd love to get rid of it altogether, but all the hacks that enable that have some sort of downside to them. What I hate with a vengeance is when I accidentally minimize a window and have to fish it back out of the dock. In OSX I never want to minimize a window (which IMO, is a good testament to how well designed OSX is).
- camccann 17y ago
  I actually hide the dock in OS X; it just clutters things up. I do pretty much everything through Quicksilver, or just Finder/Terminal when I need to go poking around. In fact, I've gotten so used to doing it that way that I now use Gnome Do and Colibri as well (yes, I alternate among all three OSes on a near-daily basis... sigh).
  - kellishaver 17y ago
    I do the exact same things. Quicksilver/terminal on the macbook, Gnome Do/terminal on the desktop. If I'm working in the Windows VM, I use Launchy.
petercooper 17y ago
Aha, so Mac users tend to be more creative types because the default wallpaper is blue(ish)? That's my take away point and I'm sticking by it :-)
access_denied 17y ago
Well, a solid background can at least hinder your productivity too: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1061153 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1061153
jff 17y ago
On Plan 9, the default background is a light, solid gray. In fact, the only way to change it is to a) hack the rio source or b) download a pre-hacked version that someone like myself has written to allow starting with a different color. The reason is that quite a bit of care was taken to choose UI colors which work nicely together, and when you throw a brilliant blue background in there the whole thing kind of goes out the window.
- catch404 17y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know that. I've always preferred the same.
klenwell 17y ago
This is mine: http://phosphorusandlime.blogspot.com/2005/11/php-cheat-sheet-wallpaper.html http://phosphorusandlime.blogspot.com/2005/11/php-cheat-shee... Helpful for php projects. I find I use it almost exclusively for the date formatting section.
cgs1019 17y ago
My background is a vertical gradient. I have a script that runs via cron every 5 or 10 seconds that sets the top and bottom colors of the gradient to values that reflect the memory usage (top) and cpu usage (bottom) at any given time. So if my memory usage is low, the top color of the bg gradient is blue and if it's high the top color is red. It varies smoothly in between. Similarly, the bottom color varies between two colors to indicate low/high cpu usage. This way, if I'm executing a long-running, cpu-intensive task, I have a subtle indication of whether it's still running.
- catch404 17y ago
  would you be able to email the script to me? was always a fan of fedoras changing background (based on time of day) but this seems more useful.
noonespecial 17y ago
To make my background I took the best (manual) DSLR camera I could get my hands on, pointed it off my back deck at a view that I found eye wandering to whenever possible, unfocused all the way and took a picture. The only processing I did was to desaturate it a bit before making it my background. This creates the pleasant illusion that my eye is focused on the near tasks in the windows but the outside view is present in the background, and blurred, just as if it were really there.
alexkay 17y ago
Forget the background — install xmonad [1] and never see it again. As a bonus point, you also won't have to worry about arranging your windows ;) [1] http://xmonad.org/ http://xmonad.org/
barrkel 17y ago
I use a black background with a very carefully placed light grey diagonal line that corresponds to the lower left-hand corner of my second monitor, which is to the right of my primary monitor. I use this line to align the bottom-left corners of cascading windows on the secondary monitor. In this way, the corners of the windows themselves form a kind of "spatial taskbar" that lets me switch between console windows, email, documentation, browser, etc. - all usually stuff that's auxilliary to the action on the main screen. Here's a diagrammatic description: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/Svme4EwbLWI/AAAAAAAAAIE/rmTTey5TQ0U/s1600/Cascade.png http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/Svme4EwbLWI/AAAAAAAAAI... Here's a description of how I did it - and how awkward it is to do in Windows 7, for good measure: http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-windows-7.html http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-win...
uggedal 17y ago
"If you're really using your computer, your desktop should almost never be visible" This is even more true if you use a tiling window manager like xmonad, dwm, or awesome.
jamesbritt 17y ago
I have 8 desktops, each a different color. I use particular desktops for specific tasks or projects. If I'm toggling through desktops it's easy to see which is which by color. I know, for example, that ctrl-f5 takes me to where I have Thunderbird running. If I don't see the familiar dark blue desktop I know I've hit the wrong key combo. It's one reason I went with KDE3 over Gnome. Having the same color on every desktop deprives me of useful navigation and organization info. There seems to be a cognitive advantage to having a different color; it's like walking to a different room to do a different task. There's a useful context switch that helps me focus.

27 points by NathanKP 17y ago

If my desktop background were red, I would be more productive because I'd want all my windows to cover it up. "My eyes! The goggles do nothing." But actually, I don't have a desktop background. If you can see your desktop, you are wasting space and your window manager is broken.

city41 17y ago
> If you can see your desktop, you are wasting space and your window manager is broken. I disagree. I think the sign of a broken windowing environment is when people find they need to maximize everything (like most Windows users do), which really goes against the point of windowed apps in the first place. Having negative space is important psychologically, lets you "breath" a bit, and not to mention, lets you more effectively use your apps together. There's a good reason MacOS has never had a true maximize button on their windows.
- crux_ 17y ago
  I'm guessing jrockaway was trying to refer to tiling window managers (e.g. xmonad) , only without being too obvious about it. ;)
  - prewett 17y ago
    He did specifically mention Windows, though. Actually, I've also noticed that Windows users maximize everything (maybe from the Win 3.1 days?). Having the dullness of empty app-space makes me feel that same way that living in a sea of concrete buildings does. Having my (dark) desktop image visible is a bit like Central Park for NYC.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    You guessed correctly :)
- nradov 17y ago
  It's got nothing to do with the windowing environment. I maximize a separate window on each monitor so I can see as much of each file as I can. Until I get a monitor as big as a wall, I want everything maximized.
  - yason 17y ago
    Well, I think the windowing system is to blame. It is vertical space that is precious but your eyes can't find too much use for horizontal space. Think pages of a newspaper that is divided into nice columns and compartments for a good reason. So, there's extra horizontal space on your wall-sized monitor and a good windowing system supports the user in maximizing its usage and not necessarily in maximizing each window. However, systems like Windows make it near impossible to make your windows behave. A typical scenario is having a couple of browser windows open for reading (like having some reference documentation at hand) and simultaneously typing into an active Emacs window partially/mostly underneath them both. If the windowing system insists on popping the active window to the top any of this becomes impossible, and you pretty much have no choice but to fall back to merely flipping between windows, and at this point it begins to feel stupid not to maximize all of them anyway. But the downside is there, too. Going back to books and newspapers for a reference, in opposition web pages can be just horrible to read when the browser window is maximized. You don't read a book in a widescreen aspect ratio either. Your eyes beg for a limited visual region to operate in. As for myself, I've found that I get a nice reading width by stretching the width of the browser window to 2/3 or 3/5 of the width of the screen. If ads are cluttering the sides or the layout flows outside then Readability takes care of it. As for design advice, "p { width: 66em !important }" would be good.
    - jodrellblank 17y ago
      For habitual windows users, the utility KatMouse gives you the ability to use the mousewheel over inactive windows and scroll them without bringing them to the foreground. I recommend it. Also, it can add middle click to push a window down.
    - nradov 17y ago
      The applications I use most heavily, in my maximized windows, make good use of the horizontal space. I do most of my editing in applications built on top of the Eclipse RCP, which allows a lot of flexibility in arranging multiple window panes.
xenophanes 17y ago
having a few files and folders visible on my desktop is a useful feature. i don't want to cover all of them.
shard 17y ago
I can't stand maximized windows. Everything ends up being justified to the left edge of the monitor, which means I have to turn my head and not be looking straight ahead when I'm working. Bad ergonomics, bad for my neck. I have whichever window I'm using centered, and various folders that I frequently access peeking out on the sides of the main window. Really, the only time I ever maximize a window is when I'm viewing video, or if I'm on my laptop where the LCD is much smaller than my desktop LCD.

whalesalad 17y ago

I think I see my background once a week. It serves almost no purpose to me. I'd probably disable it if I could to be honest. I'm in OS X. ⌘+Tab, my Dock, and Launchbar is all I need. I personally find it odd when people out there have a ton of icons in their OS X dock... I only keep frequently apps in there (http://grab.by/2yZF http://grab.by/2yZF) and then use Launchbar to do everything else. ^+Space lets me launch any app.

city41 17y ago
I hide and completely ignore my dock. I'd love to get rid of it altogether, but all the hacks that enable that have some sort of downside to them. What I hate with a vengeance is when I accidentally minimize a window and have to fish it back out of the dock. In OSX I never want to minimize a window (which IMO, is a good testament to how well designed OSX is).
camccann 17y ago
I actually hide the dock in OS X; it just clutters things up. I do pretty much everything through Quicksilver, or just Finder/Terminal when I need to go poking around. In fact, I've gotten so used to doing it that way that I now use Gnome Do and Colibri as well (yes, I alternate among all three OSes on a near-daily basis... sigh).
- kellishaver 17y ago
  I do the exact same things. Quicksilver/terminal on the macbook, Gnome Do/terminal on the desktop. If I'm working in the Windows VM, I use Launchy.

petercooper 17y ago

Aha, so Mac users tend to be more creative types because the default wallpaper is blue(ish)? That's my take away point and I'm sticking by it :-)

access_denied 17y ago

Well, a solid background can at least hinder your productivity too: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1061153 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1061153

jff 17y ago

On Plan 9, the default background is a light, solid gray. In fact, the only way to change it is to a) hack the rio source or b) download a pre-hacked version that someone like myself has written to allow starting with a different color. The reason is that quite a bit of care was taken to choose UI colors which work nicely together, and when you throw a brilliant blue background in there the whole thing kind of goes out the window.

catch404 17y ago
Interesting, I didn't know that. I've always preferred the same.

klenwell 17y ago

This is mine: http://phosphorusandlime.blogspot.com/2005/11/php-cheat-sheet-wallpaper.html http://phosphorusandlime.blogspot.com/2005/11/php-cheat-shee... Helpful for php projects. I find I use it almost exclusively for the date formatting section.

cgs1019 17y ago

My background is a vertical gradient. I have a script that runs via cron every 5 or 10 seconds that sets the top and bottom colors of the gradient to values that reflect the memory usage (top) and cpu usage (bottom) at any given time. So if my memory usage is low, the top color of the bg gradient is blue and if it's high the top color is red. It varies smoothly in between. Similarly, the bottom color varies between two colors to indicate low/high cpu usage. This way, if I'm executing a long-running, cpu-intensive task, I have a subtle indication of whether it's still running.

catch404 17y ago
would you be able to email the script to me? was always a fan of fedoras changing background (based on time of day) but this seems more useful.

noonespecial 17y ago

To make my background I took the best (manual) DSLR camera I could get my hands on, pointed it off my back deck at a view that I found eye wandering to whenever possible, unfocused all the way and took a picture. The only processing I did was to desaturate it a bit before making it my background. This creates the pleasant illusion that my eye is focused on the near tasks in the windows but the outside view is present in the background, and blurred, just as if it were really there.

alexkay 17y ago

Forget the background — install xmonad [1] and never see it again. As a bonus point, you also won't have to worry about arranging your windows ;) [1] http://xmonad.org/ http://xmonad.org/

barrkel 17y ago

I use a black background with a very carefully placed light grey diagonal line that corresponds to the lower left-hand corner of my second monitor, which is to the right of my primary monitor. I use this line to align the bottom-left corners of cascading windows on the secondary monitor. In this way, the corners of the windows themselves form a kind of "spatial taskbar" that lets me switch between console windows, email, documentation, browser, etc. - all usually stuff that's auxilliary to the action on the main screen. Here's a diagrammatic description: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/Svme4EwbLWI/AAAAAAAAAIE/rmTTey5TQ0U/s1600/Cascade.png http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/Svme4EwbLWI/AAAAAAAAAI... Here's a description of how I did it - and how awkward it is to do in Windows 7, for good measure: http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-windows-7.html http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-win...

uggedal 17y ago

"If you're really using your computer, your desktop should almost never be visible" This is even more true if you use a tiling window manager like xmonad, dwm, or awesome.

jamesbritt 17y ago

I have 8 desktops, each a different color. I use particular desktops for specific tasks or projects. If I'm toggling through desktops it's easy to see which is which by color. I know, for example, that ctrl-f5 takes me to where I have Thunderbird running. If I don't see the familiar dark blue desktop I know I've hit the wrong key combo. It's one reason I went with KDE3 over Gnome. Having the same color on every desktop deprives me of useful navigation and organization info. There seems to be a cognitive advantage to having a different color; it's like walking to a different room to do a different task. There's a useful context switch that helps me focus.