4 ms·
I feel as if this article has a strong tinge of exaggeration (See: ".. ALL desktop ...") and you make some good points too. I haven't tried Gnome3 extensively
by dorian-graph 15y ago
I feel as if this article has a strong tinge of exaggeration (See: ".. ALL desktop ...") and you make some good points too.
I haven't tried Gnome3 extensively and daily I use Snow Leopard (On my MbP while I'm out) and Win7 (Main desktop machine) and Gnome3 and more specifically, Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity, hasn't really caught my attention in any huge way.
The new sidebar on Unity reminds me of the Dock and the new Win7 taskbar with some differences, they've now adopted a similar MacOS top bar, 'Spaces' aren't new, quickly launching applications isn't new or unique (Startbar since Vista and Spotlight on Mac) and so on.
Even with things like Compiz which whenever I use is basically to emulate features available on Win or Mac. For example, the window snapping functionality of Win7 by using the Grid plugin and the Spacebar preview of Mac by another plugin. Actually, most of the default plugins of Compiz I never use, I always seem to be needing to install the extras or rather, the copied/heavily inspired ones.
I absolutely agree in regards to Android too. I do love it (I've had a Samsung Galaxy S since last year) and do suggest it to others but it seems most likely my next phone will by WP7 or an iPhone and not Android.
Linux isn't MacOS or Windows and never will be. I like using both of those OS for different reasons and I like Linux too when I boot into Arch with a nice tiling window manager going and do some work/play.
And I just read the linked Reddit comment by the other guy. Spot on.
- foob 15y ago'Spaces' aren't new They aren't new but they've been fairly common in Linux desktop environments since the 90's while OS X didn't introduce them until 2007. I'm not sure where they first appeared but at the very least they've certainly become a common idea because of Linux.
- juiceandjuice 15y agoThe 80s. Originally out of PARC. Also, while Project Looking Glass (Sun) may have borrowed some stuff from Quartz, Apple borrowed a lot of UI stuff from Project Looking Glass
- Symmetry 15y agoIts true that the Unity UI was influenced by the Mac OS dock, but there have been a lot of UNIX UIs that were using docks all the way back into the 90s. Also, its not true that Compiz stole the Windows 7 snapping feature, that was in Beryl even before Windows Vista came out. They _did_ steal the Windows 7 auto-tiling and MacOS expose though - so you do have a point. Its sort of nice to see all the cross pollination between the different platforms, and nice to think that UNIX is contributing a lot to pushing forward the state of the art.
- username3 15y agoThe first Windows had a dock in 1985. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2008/11/20/happy-anniversary-windows-on-the-evolution-of-the-taskbar.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2008/11/20/happy-annivers...
- Symmetry 15y agoNo, thats just the taskbar. For it to be a dock the icons have to persist when the window isn't open. RISC OS had the very first dock in 1987: http://www.osnews.com/story/18941/pt_VI_the_Dock http://www.osnews.com/story/18941/pt_VI_the_Dock
- StavrosK 15y agoThat's not a dock, that's a taskbar.