4 ms·

I implore you to try to use a 90s-style UI on a touchscreen, and then let's see if you want to revisit that statement...

by md8z 5y ago

badsectoracula 5y ago
I do not use touchscreens for desktop environments (the post is for a desktop environment) and the overwhelmingly vast majority of touch screens are for mobile devices which need and have their own conventions and UX - trying to shoehorn one on another is a disaster (not that some do not try but this is also a major source of modern UI awfulness). Though having said that even with touchscreens i'd rather use a stylus (i do that for my tablet actually) and styluses work fine with 90s style UIs.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Laptops are the new desktops, and many of them (unless Macs) ship with touch screens.
  - alxlaz 5y ago
    Ever seen those used in an office setting? I have, and it was hilarious. Everyone swore at their laptops for two or three days, and then they all scrambled for mice. No screens were touched afterwards. It looks cute in ads but truth is spending eight hours a day poking at your screen all the time just makes your hands sore, and after an hour or so, you spend half that time poking at the Undo button because you poked somewhere else than you meant by mistake. It's just a wet dream of executives who never bothered to ask their underlings how they do their puny underling work. Wherever touch screens provided considerable advantages -- e.g. in touch-operated software for medical, imaging, CNC, SCADA industries -- they've already displaced non-touch devices since the 1990s. Everywhere else, suits have been singing dirges and whining about the post-PC era for ten years now and yet lo, walk into any open-space office, and you'll find nothing but rows and rows of 24" LCDs hooked to laptops with pristine screens.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Yes, when at the desk they are plugged into the docking station and used as regular desktops, when going into meetings they get folded and used as tablets.
      - alxlaz 5y ago
        IMHO it's not at all a good approach to optimize UIs for that one hour of largely unproductive work instead of the other seven hours that actually make the dough.
        pjmlp 5y ago
        Not everyone has your work schedule.
        yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
        And not everyone has yours; maybe CDE is totally fine for plenty of people even if it'd be a pain for you.
        md8z 5y ago
        It really isn't though. I'm honestly getting very exhausted reading these HN comments suggesting that the situation with using Linux on the desktop is okay. I feel like I have been reading those comments for like 10 years (and on Slashdot for another 10 years before that) and nothing has changed and still nobody actually wants to use Linux on the desktop besides programmers and geeks. It's messed up enough if you use one of the popular desktops, never mind if you use an obscure desktop from the 90s like CDE.
  - badsectoracula 5y ago
    Laptops also come with touchpads and mice and laptops with touch screens are a niche in the first place. Forcing everyone to use an interface that is optimized for a subcase of a subcase is the worst way to tackle UI design. Besides even then i'd use a stylus - in fact i have a tablet which is essentially a PC without a keyboard and i use it with one instead of rubbing my fingers against the device. Both cleaner and more precise.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
Okay, just for you I went and installed CDE on my pinephone. It's too small (not really a touch issue; it'd probably be fine if I could figure out how to adjust the DPI), but even so everything seems to work fine. Window bars are big enough to move around, dock icons work fine, menus are okay (albeit, yes, cramped on that screen). What did you expect to break?

I implore you to try to use a 90s-style UI on a touchscreen, and then let's see if you want to revisit that statement...

by md8z 5y ago

I implore you to try to use a 90s-style UI on a touchscreen, and then let's see if you want to revisit that statement...

badsectoracula 5y ago

I do not use touchscreens for desktop environments (the post is for a desktop environment) and the overwhelmingly vast majority of touch screens are for mobile devices which need and have their own conventions and UX - trying to shoehorn one on another is a disaster (not that some do not try but this is also a major source of modern UI awfulness). Though having said that even with touchscreens i'd rather use a stylus (i do that for my tablet actually) and styluses work fine with 90s style UIs.

pjmlp 5y ago
Laptops are the new desktops, and many of them (unless Macs) ship with touch screens.
- alxlaz 5y ago
  Ever seen those used in an office setting? I have, and it was hilarious. Everyone swore at their laptops for two or three days, and then they all scrambled for mice. No screens were touched afterwards. It looks cute in ads but truth is spending eight hours a day poking at your screen all the time just makes your hands sore, and after an hour or so, you spend half that time poking at the Undo button because you poked somewhere else than you meant by mistake. It's just a wet dream of executives who never bothered to ask their underlings how they do their puny underling work. Wherever touch screens provided considerable advantages -- e.g. in touch-operated software for medical, imaging, CNC, SCADA industries -- they've already displaced non-touch devices since the 1990s. Everywhere else, suits have been singing dirges and whining about the post-PC era for ten years now and yet lo, walk into any open-space office, and you'll find nothing but rows and rows of 24" LCDs hooked to laptops with pristine screens.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Yes, when at the desk they are plugged into the docking station and used as regular desktops, when going into meetings they get folded and used as tablets.
    - alxlaz 5y ago
      IMHO it's not at all a good approach to optimize UIs for that one hour of largely unproductive work instead of the other seven hours that actually make the dough.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        Not everyone has your work schedule.
        yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
        And not everyone has yours; maybe CDE is totally fine for plenty of people even if it'd be a pain for you.
        md8z 5y ago
        It really isn't though. I'm honestly getting very exhausted reading these HN comments suggesting that the situation with using Linux on the desktop is okay. I feel like I have been reading those comments for like 10 years (and on Slashdot for another 10 years before that) and nothing has changed and still nobody actually wants to use Linux on the desktop besides programmers and geeks. It's messed up enough if you use one of the popular desktops, never mind if you use an obscure desktop from the 90s like CDE.
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  Laptops also come with touchpads and mice and laptops with touch screens are a niche in the first place. Forcing everyone to use an interface that is optimized for a subcase of a subcase is the worst way to tackle UI design. Besides even then i'd use a stylus - in fact i have a tablet which is essentially a PC without a keyboard and i use it with one instead of rubbing my fingers against the device. Both cleaner and more precise.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

Okay, just for you I went and installed CDE on my pinephone. It's too small (not really a touch issue; it'd probably be fine if I could figure out how to adjust the DPI), but even so everything seems to work fine. Window bars are big enough to move around, dock icons work fine, menus are okay (albeit, yes, cramped on that screen). What did you expect to break?