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Jef Raskin—who led the Macintosh project for the first year (though apparently the design was changed further later on)—worked afterwards on a concept that inco

by aasasd 6y ago

Jef Raskin—who led the Macintosh project for the first year (though apparently the design was changed further later on)—worked afterwards on a concept that incorporated typed-in natural-language commands. In his Archy, commands were part of an unorthodox GUI system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy Archy clearly hails from the eighties when it was still imaginable to change users' workflow with desktop computers—that users would type a command while holding a special key (also apparently the author wasn't a touch typist). The commands feature, isolated, was later adapted by Jef's son Aza Raskin, first as Enso (if I'm not mistaken), and then as a Firefox extension Ubiquity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox)

ttjjtt 6y ago
This post introduced me to Archy which is exciting to discover. The zoomable interface of Archy addresses something fundamental that always felt off about current desktop GUIs - the inability to get a meaningful overview, that include both folder structure and file contents , and to be the inability to switch from higher to lower levels of perspective in a continuous way. It seems like Archy made the directory structure appear like a topographical landscape. Current desktop GUIs instead feel like navigating an endless Russian doll of drawers.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  In case you aren't aware Eagle Mode [0] (a self-described advanced zoomable interface) exists. [0]http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html
- aasasd 6y ago
  ‘ZUI’ is a general approach, and there were a number of attempts at it. I've seen a bunch of ‘zoomable’ file managers here and there—however, since that's not my cup of tea, I don't actually remember any of them. But they exist, so I guess some googling might point you to them. Also I've heard about some ‘pasteboard’ service as an alternative to a internal corporate wiki: you likewise zoom around and slap content anywhere on the infinite canvas. The trick, of course, is to keep the content organized thematically and tidy it up so it can be found later. Again, chances are slim that I will remember the name of the service now. ‘Rizzoma’, which is a clone of the late Google Wave, may also be seen as ‘zoomable’

by aasasd 6y ago

ttjjtt 6y ago

This post introduced me to Archy which is exciting to discover. The zoomable interface of Archy addresses something fundamental that always felt off about current desktop GUIs - the inability to get a meaningful overview, that include both folder structure and file contents , and to be the inability to switch from higher to lower levels of perspective in a continuous way. It seems like Archy made the directory structure appear like a topographical landscape. Current desktop GUIs instead feel like navigating an endless Russian doll of drawers.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
In case you aren't aware Eagle Mode [0] (a self-described advanced zoomable interface) exists. [0]http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html
aasasd 6y ago
‘ZUI’ is a general approach, and there were a number of attempts at it. I've seen a bunch of ‘zoomable’ file managers here and there—however, since that's not my cup of tea, I don't actually remember any of them. But they exist, so I guess some googling might point you to them. Also I've heard about some ‘pasteboard’ service as an alternative to a internal corporate wiki: you likewise zoom around and slap content anywhere on the infinite canvas. The trick, of course, is to keep the content organized thematically and tidy it up so it can be found later. Again, chances are slim that I will remember the name of the service now. ‘Rizzoma’, which is a clone of the late Google Wave, may also be seen as ‘zoomable’