17 ms·

Burn My Windows

764 points by marcodiego 5y ago

ossusermivami 5y ago
I love the thing you can do with linux! gnome is an exceptional desktop environment, i don't see any other DE letting plug directly into its environment to change every aspect of it, i just wish they are not going to make it more limted with a bunch of limited portals access (like firefox)
georgewsinger 5y ago
Really cool. SimulaVR (simulavr.com) is interested in potentially adding compiz effects like this into its VR window manager. There are some really cool ones you can do in VR, but I won't say more. =]
Tucanix 5y ago
Made in JavaScript HAHAHAHAH
throwaway889900 5y ago
>You should also start your commit message with one applicable emoji I don't think many people will contribute with a rule like that. Project is neat though.
- GaylordTuring 5y ago
  I was thinking the exact opposite actually. I like how easy you can get a feel for the latest commits just by seeing the emoji, which is excellent! More people should enforce rules like this.
- torquemodwanted 5y ago
  Interestingly, this diverges from the more common gitmoji rules: https://gitmoji.dev/ https://gitmoji.dev/
- lobstrosity420 5y ago
  >I don't think many people will contribute with a rule like that Why do you think that is?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    Because emoji are tacky. You want to use them in your commit message? Fine. But if I were ever contribute to a project that enforces such a rule I would start every commit with the middle finger emoji.
    - reaperducer 5y ago
      It's his project. He can be tacky, if he wants to. If you don't like it, fork it. I don't like emojis, but I have even less regard for how boring the internet has become.
    - excalibur 5y ago
      > But if I were ever contribute to a project that enforces such a rule I would start every commit with the middle finger emoji. Ah yes, the Kid Rock aesthetic. Much less tacky.
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      Isn't tackiness heavily context, culture, and timeframe dependent? Besides, computing is far too serious these days . I see no reason for my computing to be a little bit whimsical (especially if it's a hobby project), provided it's also self-consistent.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        > Isn't tackiness heavily context, culture, and timeframe dependent? All the more reason to not require them?
        selfhoster11 5y ago
        I believe the opposite: that there is sometimes the right place, the right project/people, and the right time to be whimsical. So not always, but also not never (as an abolitionist stance would see it).
- billpg 5y ago
  I may start doing that for my own projects.
- matsemann 5y ago
  Gitmoji - Yay or Nay? 2019, 220 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21760021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21760021 If you'd like more thoughts on the matter. (and the original article now lives here: https://www.bekk.christmas/post/2019/11/gitmoji-yay-or-nay https://www.bekk.christmas/post/2019/11/gitmoji-yay-or-nay )
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Simon's a top notch interactive graphical user interface designer and programmer. Not just static pictures, not just fixed animations, not just functional code, but rich interactive animated feedback that's actually useful and helps you complete your task while it's also beautiful. When you can design and program stuff like this all on your own and give it away for free, then you can make up any rules you want about commit messages. Look what else he can do with icons and emojis: https://schneegans.github.io/news/2021/12/02/flypie10 https://schneegans.github.io/news/2021/12/02/flypie10 >More Fly-Pie Updates! >In the last couple of months several new versions of Fly-Pie have been released. In this post, I want to highlight the major new feature. >New features were added in version 8 and version 10. The versions 9 and 11 were released as well, but they contain bug fixes only. Here are two trailers to celebrate the respective releases: Fly-Pie 8: New default dark theme and support for GNOME 3.36, 3.38, 40, and 41! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9t7hfkE_5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9t7hfkE_5w Fly-Pie 10: A new Clipboard Menu, proper touch support & much more! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXtckqhEIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXtckqhEIk
dthul 5y ago
Love the flashback to the old Compiz days! The only thing missing now is wobbly windows.
- anotheryou 5y ago
  wanted to make the same comment :). they were so good
  - canbus 5y ago
    haha, ditto, wobbly windows were awesome, and the geared cube
- pintxo 5y ago
  You mean [1]? [1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2950/compiz-alike-windows-effect/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2950/compiz-alike-win...
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    The GNOME Foundation needs to adopt this.
- moses-palmer 5y ago
  it is not missing: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3210/compiz-windows-effect https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3210/compiz-windows-e.... My eldest son has it running on his account, and I predict that later today those wobbly windows will also burn... EDIT: correct extension
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  I miss the fad of Compiz effects. Sure they were silly but it added a little fun to the desktop. I never really got into desktop themes preferring something plainer and smaller (because screen real-estate was still a commodity back then) but wobbly windows and closing effects largely didn't take much away from usability while still adding a little personality.
ogogmad 5y ago
Some of these effects might be useful in a presentation. For instance, if your windows break apart into small shards of shiny glass (making a slight noise when doing so) and then disappear, it might be engaging. This sort of thing is common in films like Minority Report.
- andai 5y ago
  Ahh, you've brought back fond memories of grade school powerpoint presentations :)
  - ogogmad 5y ago
    I was thinking more like a Youtube walkthrough of something that involves clicking around a desktop. But even in a PowerPoint presentation, if it's done in good taste, it can be quite stylish.
  - Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
    I remember I have to do a presentation for a country that I picked to present for my 9/10th grade history class. My first slide have that blue flaming text as a title that I generated from the flaming text generator website back then.
  - rubidium 5y ago
    Me: “There are people who had PowerPoint in grade school!” *googles PowerPoint release date. Answer: 2004. I guess that checks out. I’m old now.
    - andai 5y ago
      It's from the 80s, actually. But yes, I was referring to the early 2000s :)
    - aulin 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure PowerPoint is way older than that. It was already there in basically its current form with all the terrible animations in office97 but it goes back to the late 80s.
canbus 5y ago
compiz effects are probably one of the main reasons why Linux interested me so much growing up, and why I now work in tech!
mediocregopher 5y ago
Compiz was one of those things I could show off to friends to prove that linux was actually way cooler than any of _their_ operating systems, but since then seems to have been completely forgotten about (at least by me). This was a nice blast from the past.
- canbus 5y ago
  Bragging about wobbly windows was the best thing ever. I'm glad I'm not alone!
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    And that multiple-desktop cube thing!
    - rastapasta42 5y ago
      What about the fire effect?
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Multiple desktops on a rotating cube tho. Shit was straight fire
    - reaperducer 5y ago
      I don't see why Apple couldn't introduce this to its desktop switching routine. The cube animation already exists for switching users. It would be nice to have the option when switching desktops.
      - massysett 5y ago
        That's just it. Apple would rather provide One True Way to do it. On Mac, cube = switch user, and slide = switch desktop.
      - rbanffy 5y ago
the_only_law 5y ago
I actually kind of want to use GNOME just for this now. Call me crazy but little novelties like this are part of what make computers fun.
- acidburnNSA 5y ago
  I am so glad I'm on GNOME right now. Click the link, slid the slider, and woo here we are!
- Firehawke 5y ago
  That's really it-- it's a waste of resources, but it's such a tiny amount that all these effects are almost free. There's no point in not having a little fluff that makes the experience a bit more fun.
  - Legion 5y ago
    > it's a waste of resources I always laugh at the people that take this notion way too seriously. If their CPU is only 98% idle, it's a travesty. I imagine the same people driving around in cars stripped of all paneling and upholstery, because every little bit of unnecessary weight hurts performance! > There's no point in not having a little fluff that makes the experience a bit more fun. Well put. Considering how much time we spend staring at these stupid little number boxes, things that makes the experience a little more enjoyable are worthwhile, even if they're dumb and frivolous.
  - babypuncher 5y ago
    I don't consider it a waste. These features provide enjoyment, which has value. As far as software goes, they are no more wasteful than video games or media players. Units of energy expended per unit of "enjoyment" is certainly a factor to consider, but in this case the extra energy consumed is very minimal.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Not really, these effects are nothing to modern graphics cards.
benbristow 5y ago
I was expecting this to be some tool that deleted C:\Windows\System32 or something, but I came out pleasantly surprised with a hint of nostalgia.
- intrasight 5y ago
  Or moving to a warmer climate - and burning my windows
marcodiego 5y ago
Compiz was probably the single most impactful event for desktop linux of the mid 2000's. Not that it itself made much of a difference, but the ripples affect many areas we take for granted today. A few reasons: - it put linux ahead of windows and mac in terms of appearance; - it brought many new users and most were a good mix technical and enthusiasts; - it showed the advantages of modular software; - many plugins were useful and these useful plugins influenced desktops to this day; - it was fast, stable and cool enough; - it brought many new developers; - it was an incentive for vendors to improve 3d linux drivers; - it made X.Org developers improve redirection, - it came by default on the most popular distro from 2006 to 2012. Yes, most of the effects were useless but even they helped developers and designers to decide what not to include or do in the future. It pioneered useful things like selecting an area of the screen and saving it directly to a file, useful zoom and quick visualization of non-visible windows. It also showed how important compositing was on the desktop. Although probably not in direct influence, there is a reason android, wayland and whatever comes with ChromeOS all have compositing features. At the time, there was some interesting developments and experimentation: métisse, sun's looking glass, bumptop, deskgallery... none of them was as successful as compiz. I'm proud I was myself part of it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X9bcrJ3TjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X9bcrJ3TjY) and have my name written in some of its source files to this day, even if almost nobody use it anymore.
- hammock 5y ago
  I dont know what Compiz is (not a linux user), but I seem to remember something like this mod existed for Windows in the 90s/00s
  - mr_cyborg 5y ago
    Are you remembering Desktop Destroyer[0] perhaps? 0: http://stressreliefpig.com/games/downloadable-desktop/desktop-destroyer.html http://stressreliefpig.com/games/downloadable-desktop/deskto...
  - jchw 5y ago
    WindowBlinds had some similar features, but I’m pretty sure Compiz almost immediately did far more. The state of the art third party software on Windows in the 2000s tended to try to emulate Vista Aero on XP, or skin Vista/7 differently but with similar functionality. The Molten theme from WindowBlinds 6 is somewhat reminiscent of burning windows, but I don’t think it actually did that. Maybe at some point you could burn the start menu down, I can’t remember. Some stuff, like the desktop cube, could be emulated, but not too well. On Compiz, everything was drawing during the animation, showing off the modular compositing that it enabled, whereas most desktop cube toys didn’t update the screen while rotating, making it less impressive.
de6u99er 5y ago
Wow, that's really cool. I think I am going to use the Matrix shader on my private workstation. Will do a code check before I install it on my work laptop tho. TIL: Gnome Extensions can be written in JavaScript.
- Phrodo_00 5y ago
  The Gnome desktop shell is written in javascript. (or at least it was in 3.0, although I don't expect it to have changed)
  - tcit 5y ago
    Only small parts of it.
gedw99 5y ago
have to add this to my wides pc ...
legrande 5y ago
This would be great when doing live demos during a talk at some conference. People would be entertained by these effects, even if they are just for show and 'purely for aesthetic purposes'.
indymike 5y ago
This is really cool! Typed from my KDE desktop, with wobbly windows and desktop cube effects. Desktop computing should be fun.
__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
I love Linux because it creates a space for stuff like this to take place. That said, i3 is enough glitz for me (and it's pretty much none).
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  Somewhat ironically, now hosted on a Microsoft-owned closed platform.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Fortunately, Git itself is "open" and the source code can be migrated to another host without much difficulty. Migrating bug/issue tracking, PR management, and CI will be more difficult, but not impossible. That said, I don't quite understand why no viable alternative has arisen. Gitlab was a good attempt, but its interface turned out to be kind of clunky and more "team-oriented" than makes sense for general open source projects. I strongly believe that if it had a "slick" interface like Github, it'd be more popular. Sourcehut is fantastic, but lacks the same "issues" and "pull requests" system. Mailing lists honestly kind of suck, if only because there's zero semantic markup in email (excluding HTML-in-email which is a clusterfuck that nobody should use), making it difficult to track comment replies, embed code blocks, etc. And submitting patches over email is a chore compared to making a PR, viewing diffs, etc. on a platform like Github. Also the social networking features of Github are unobtrusive and fun. Following other users has introduced me to a variety of interesting projects, starring projects is a fun way to show support, and the ability to watch a repo for releases is useful (although I wish it were an RSS feed instead).
- dopeboy 5y ago
  We all go through phases. I was on Cinnamon for the past six years and see myself returning to GNOME. I find myself wanting less cruft out of a DE as I get older. And more keyboard friendly too.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    Also on Gnome for the minimalistic experience, but wobbly windows have a physicality that just clicks.
mro_name 5y ago
they've got emojiquette!
silisili 5y ago
Excellent. Longtime Gnome desktop user, former Compiz user...I had no idea this even existed. You better believe I now have burning windows :), despite how childish it may seem.
gbrindisi 5y ago
I still remember the feeling when I managed to run the cube desktop with compiz on ubuntu 06.
StillBored 5y ago
This is cool, but the fact that its written in JS tells me just about everything I need to know about gnome... JS has its place, using it for systems programming isn't one of them IMHO, since I prefer to have the core of my computation stack slim and fast. I can almost forgive the electron apps their piggyness given the desire to build cross platform, but gnome? Yah, no thanks.
- jeff_vader 5y ago
  I find it interesting since JavaScript in this case is only "glue" language. Actual effects are hardware (?) shaders: https://github.com/Schneegans/Burn-My-Windows/blob/main/src/extension/FireShader.js#L45-L153 https://github.com/Schneegans/Burn-My-Windows/blob/main/src/... .. Had no idea this is possible.
  - StillBored 5y ago
    IMHO, its less about where the work is done (and yes i'm aware that gjs tends to be used mostly as glue, and the same with KDE) and more the fact that I don't want a big heavyweight garbage collected language deciding to garbage collect and glitch some part of the system, or JIT pass recompiling a bunch of code when I first click it. I despise latency in human computer interactions and everyone whines about how its worse on pretty much every common PC/etc vs older devices, yet they go an install hooks written in JITed/garbage collected languages all over the system. Having those hooks written in compiled languages/etc is bad enough, I found myself regularly cleaning the runas & windows explorer context menus of loads of cruft because the click latency was noticeable, and now not only can one plug in a ton of stuff but it needs to thunk though to JS to do it (and not picking particularly on JS, because it would be just as bad in java or python or whatever other scripting language one chooses). Its just a waste of cycles, and for projects I work on, engineering time is "cheap". That applies to most system programming if one spends 1/2 a second considering that the code forms the foundation for hundreds of millions of devices all burning energy and the time of their users.
    - ratboy666 5y ago
andrew_ 5y ago
The emoji-commit-message spec absolutely drives me batty. Why. Just why.
- chungy 5y ago
  Youth maybe? Worse though is the dependence on the plain ASCII codes, limiting their utility (if you even call them that) to GitHub's display. On a terminal (at least where I'm likely to use "git log"), it's just a bunch of dumb ASCII codes taking up line space. I don't really get it. Why not just use the real emoji? At least it'll display properly outside of GitHub.
  - aflag 5y ago
    I liked the idea, but I agree with you that they should just have used emojis.
nvr219 5y ago
I use Mate with all the animations turned off and this kind of stuff makes me realize I am an elderly, soulless fuck
- kleer001 5y ago
  Same, but KDE fwiw. Yuck. I don't need it, I don't want it, get it away from me. But I'll be the last to yuck someone's yum. Have at it y'all. It's just not for me.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Yeah KDE's configurability is exactly what I want. 5.23 was again a great release. This is really the power of Linux... You can make it what you want it to be.
schmookeeg 5y ago
Wow did this ever take me back. Arguably my first "public code release" was a plugin ("mod" back then I think) for the WWIV BBS system -- a screensaver called "Bubbles" that would draw random circles on the idle screen instead of the dead blinky cursor at top left. BBS owners would basically need to code it as a diff in their own system and recompile the thing. I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. It was probably 50ish lines of C code, and I made some serious assumptions about what video card and modes were present. I really really loved computers and coding back then. Reading the comment below about being elderly and soulless also resonates for me at the moment. I miss the romance of it all. :) I've been married to computers for nearly 40 years now, and all of the spice is gone. It's just comfortable and regular and routine. Oh well, on to another 2-hour interminable sprint planning sesh (sigh) -- "yes dear, I'll be right there"
- rd07 5y ago
  I am interested on how did you learn programming and even create a functional program when you were that young. I was 14 years old when I write my first "hello world" program, and after that, for the next 5 years I basically just fiddling with Visual Basic 6 UI builder and programming. Most of my script come from books or the internet, and I don't understand the complicated stuff at that time, especially where the program interacted with Windows API. Maybe the lack of teacher and access to materials also has a role for my lack of understanding back then. So, I am interested on how did you learn programming on such a young age?
  - schmookeeg 5y ago
    My dad was a DBA and did a lot of C code for his work. He got me a PC clone for my 7th birthday and a copy of Borland Turbo C. I made all sorts of strange code widgets and ascii animations, and also ran a BBS which put me in a lot of nerdy circles. Learning coding by osmosis I suppose. I did dad's homework up into my mid teens, so it was a good payoff for him! :) I never asked him if he liked the book Tom Sawyer. I bet he did.
    - rd07 5y ago
dhosek 5y ago
I wonder if it's possible to do things like this with Windows or MacOS. I love the idea of cool effects like this (even if the first thing I did after OSX introduced the genie effect was to turn it off—nowadays the hardware is fast enough for it to not be annoying and the split second of the window shrinking away is a nice visual cue as to what's happened especially if one accidentally hides the window via cmd-H).
- _zzaw 5y ago
  macOS has gotten a lot less fun, starting with X. I remember no end of UI-customization utilities for pre-X Macs, some of which were really powerful, like Kaleidoscope. I loved being able to make the system look like an NeXT box (there was even an Irix theme) or design my own UI entirely. Even Apple briefly considered the idea of building theme support right into the OS. But they didn’t, and the few quirky things that OS X did, like the puff-of-smoke effect, have been quietly removed. I hate how sterile Apple’s products have gotten. Sure, they’re beautiful, but they don’t have the kind of character the old ones did. I wish something like Kaleidoscope (or Burn My Windows) existed for Macs.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    I remember one, "Out of Context Menus" that allowed things like adjusting the vertical and horizontal settings of windows, as well as applying a gaussian blur to them. You can read more about Eric Trout's extension here: https://tidbits.com/1999/07/12/the-machack-hack-contest-1999/ https://tidbits.com/1999/07/12/the-machack-hack-contest-1999...
  - dhosek 5y ago
    On the flip side, I remember in the late 80s that pretty much every Mac disk had a virus on it thanks to fairly loose OS security in those days. I'm guessing that no more talking moose is the price we pay for not having to worry about getting a virus anytime something is put in the computer.
    - _zzaw 5y ago
resoluteteeth 5y ago
The matrix one is nice; maybe a star trek teleporter effect would be a nice addition?
pengaru 5y ago
Anyone happen to know what gnome shell version added the ability for extensions to run arbitrary glsl shaders like this?
harles 5y ago
So many neat things going on with Linux desktops. It’s unfortunate high DPI/mixed DPI support lags so far behind Windows and Mac. This has essentially killed Linux as a daily driver for me.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
Very neat. Works perfectly so far.
pmarreck 5y ago
Is there anything like this that works in KDE Plasma?
DonHopkins 5y ago
I love Simon's work and artistic sensibility! I posted this earlier about his amazing work with pie menus for Gnome. Here's done even more amazing pie menu stuff since then, including Fly-Pie -- why don't all web browsers and window managers support this yet??? This stuff is extremely useful, practical, easy to use, and deeply customizable, not just beautiful window dressing, eye candy, and fancy effects. More Fly-Pie Updates! https://schneegans.github.io/news/2021/12/02/flypie10 https://schneegans.github.io/news/2021/12/02/flypie10 Fly-Pie 8: New default dark theme and support for GNOME 3.36, 3.38, 40, and 41! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9t7hfkE_5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9t7hfkE_5w Fly-Pie 10: A new Clipboard Menu, proper touch support & much more! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXtckqhEIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXtckqhEIk Pie Menus: A 30 Year Retrospective https://donhopkins.medium.com/pie-menus-936fed383ff1#ed08 https://donhopkins.medium.com/pie-menus-936fed383ff1#ed08 >Spectacular Example: Simon Schneegans’ Gnome-Pie, the slick application launcher for Linux >I can’t understate how much I like Simon Schneegans’ Gnome-Pie, as well as his bachelor thesis work on the Coral-Menu and the Trace-Menu. Not only is it all slick, beautiful, and elegantly animated, but it’s properly well designed in all the important ways that make it Fitts’s Law Friendly and easy to use, and totally deeply customizable by normal users! It’s a spectacularly useful tour-de-force that Linux desktop users can personalize to their heart’s content. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17098179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17098179 Pie Menus: A 30-Year Retrospective: Take a Look and Feel Free (medium.com/donhopkins) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17106453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17106453 DonHopkins on May 19, 2018 | parent | context | favorite | on: Pie Menus: A 30-Year Retrospective: Take a Look an... I'm very impressed by Simon Schneegans' work on Gnome-Pie: http://simmesimme.github.io/gnome-pie.html http://simmesimme.github.io/gnome-pie.html And especially his delightful thesis work: Trace-Menu: https://vimeo.com/51073078 https://vimeo.com/51073078 I really love how the little nubs preview the structure of the sub-menus, and how you can roll back to the parent menu because it reserves a slice in the sub-menu to go back, so you don't need to use another mouse button or shift key to browse the menus. Coral-Menu: https://vimeo.com/51072812 https://vimeo.com/51072812 That looks like a nice visual representation with a way to easily browse all around the tree, into and out of the submenus without clicking! I can't tell from the video if it's based on a click or a timeout. But it looks like it supports browsing and reselection and correcting errors pretty well! (That would be something interesting to measure!) There's another useful law related to Fitts's law that applies to situations like this, called Steering Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering_law The steering law in human–computer interaction and ergonomics is a predictive model of human movement that describes the time required to navigate, or steer, through a 2-dimensional tunnel. The tunnel can be thought of as a path or trajectory on a plane that has an associated thickness or width, where the width can vary along the tunnel. The goal of a steering task is to navigate from one end of the tunnel to the other as quickly as possible, without touching the boundaries of the tunnel. A real-world example that approximates this task is driving a car down a road that may have twists and turns, where the car must navigate the road as quickly as possible without touching the sides of the road. The steering law predicts both the instantaneous speed at which we may navigate the tunnel, and the total time required to navigate the entire tunnel. The steering law has been independently discovered and studied three times (Rashevsky, 1959; Drury, 1971; Accot and Zhai, 1997). Its most recent discovery has been within the human–computer interaction community, which has resulted in the most general mathematical formulation of the law. Also here's some interesting stuff about incompatibility with Wayland, and rewriting Gnome-Pie as an extension to the Gnome shell: http://simmesimme.github.io/news/2017/07/09/gnome-pie-071 http://simmesimme.github.io/news/2017/07/09/gnome-pie-071
bogwog 5y ago
VR desktops apps nowadays let you place windows around your head in VR, so that you feel fully immersed in whatever you're doing. Back in the Compiz days, my virtual desktop switcher was a 3D cylinder. Holding the middle mouse button would zoom out my current desktop, placing me in the center of a giant 3D cylinder which I could rotate by moving the mouse to switch to a different desktop. And it worked with my dual monitor setup! That was immersive as hell, and I felt so freaking productive having that spatial awareness of my other desktops. Back then I was doing Android development with Eclipse, and I would have one desktop for code, another desktop for logcat and an ADB terminal, and another desktop for documentation/music/etc. And of course, all of my windows were wobbly. Today I don't use anything fancy like that anymore, and I barely ever use virtual desktops for anything, even though switching between them with a keybinding is much easier/faster than that old setup I had. ALT+TAB takes about as much effort as CTRL+ALT+ARROW, but one is muscle memory and the other is not. If I ain't getting a fancy 3D cylinder, why bother?
- luke2m 5y ago
  And here I am today, with Compiz Alike windows and magic lamp effect, Burn My Windows, Blur My Shell, Desktop Cube, and of course, Useless Gaps on GNOME. I love it.
- nightfly 5y ago
  How bad is the "screendoor" effect with top-of-the-line VR headsets nowadays?
jopsen 5y ago
Recall working on an highschool assignment in MathCad on my Windows XP virtualbox, and having my work fall apart in front of my eyes... It was the VM crashing and the window destruction effect was quite appropriate as my work wasn't saved :/ Maybe we should only burn windows when the application crashed non-zero :D
- javier2 5y ago
  MathCad in VirtualBox.. what a time.
designium 5y ago
I need this for MacOS.
- IronWolve 5y ago
  I was thinking this would be nice on win10 too
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Hmm nice work but I always hated the way Compiz had so many effects just for the sake of it :) The wobbly windows, the fire.. It was cool for 2 minutes and then annoying. At least to me. I'm surprised so many people thought the wobbly windows added a real feel to the desktop. I never really had that experience. But it's good that it's an option. I preferred Apple's animations which like the 'genie' one have a functional purpose too: they show where a minimised window is going. For me, the perfect animation is extremely quick so it doesn't make the desktop feel slower, but still just noticeable enough to make it feel sophisticated. And it should have a function, not just for show.
simonblack 5y ago
Pretty, but just more cycle-stealing inefficiency. Using something like this boils down to whether you don't mind wasting cycles and RAM on pretty effects or you just want the best performance consistently. For most of us, that depends on whether we have had the experience of struggling to maintain good GUI performance or not. The younger users will have no hassle with using something like this, they've always had plenty of GUI performance. For those of us who have had the experience of the necessity of only using plain-color wallpapers because it took too long for an image wallpaper to repair itself after moving a window on the desktop, it will remain one of those 'interesting thing to see, but not for me' effects.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  This will use less than a couple of percent of your GPU when it's "in action" . My computer is so overpowered for what I do most of the time this sort of thing is completely harmless. I'm pretty old myself but this stuff is fun to play with. I don't mess with it very long usually as it gets boring after a few weeks, but it's not really wasting much energy or cpu.
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grouphugs 5y ago
causi 5y ago
Boy do I miss how magical graphics used to seem back in the day. I remember one GPU I bought came with a 3D "computer house" simulation where all your files were in drawers, the control panel items were in the utility closet, etc. It was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen.
Lapsa 5y ago
would like to try it but I never close windows :/
Demcox 5y ago
So. Many. Emoji's. On. The. GitHub.
alanh 5y ago
dumb question: is there any way to get similar effects on a Mac? are there third-party tools that can change macOS appearance so dramatically?
MattyRad 5y ago
Compiz has been my daily driver for the past 10 years, I highly recommend it to everyone (make sure you use CompizConfig Settings Manager to configure it). If you do try it out, please _please_ ignore all the gimmicky effects (yes, including burning windows)- they're a distraction from the pure utilitarianism that compiz offers.

764 points by marcodiego 5y ago

I love the thing you can do with linux! gnome is an exceptional desktop environment, i don't see any other DE letting plug directly into its environment to change every aspect of it, i just wish they are not going to make it more limted with a bunch of limited portals access (like firefox)

georgewsinger 5y ago

Really cool. SimulaVR (simulavr.com) is interested in potentially adding compiz effects like this into its VR window manager. There are some really cool ones you can do in VR, but I won't say more. =]

Tucanix 5y ago

Made in JavaScript HAHAHAHAH

throwaway889900 5y ago

>You should also start your commit message with one applicable emoji I don't think many people will contribute with a rule like that. Project is neat though.

GaylordTuring 5y ago
I was thinking the exact opposite actually. I like how easy you can get a feel for the latest commits just by seeing the emoji, which is excellent! More people should enforce rules like this.
torquemodwanted 5y ago
Interestingly, this diverges from the more common gitmoji rules: https://gitmoji.dev/ https://gitmoji.dev/
lobstrosity420 5y ago
>I don't think many people will contribute with a rule like that Why do you think that is?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Because emoji are tacky. You want to use them in your commit message? Fine. But if I were ever contribute to a project that enforces such a rule I would start every commit with the middle finger emoji.
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    It's his project. He can be tacky, if he wants to. If you don't like it, fork it. I don't like emojis, but I have even less regard for how boring the internet has become.
  - excalibur 5y ago
    > But if I were ever contribute to a project that enforces such a rule I would start every commit with the middle finger emoji. Ah yes, the Kid Rock aesthetic. Much less tacky.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    Isn't tackiness heavily context, culture, and timeframe dependent? Besides, computing is far too serious these days . I see no reason for my computing to be a little bit whimsical (especially if it's a hobby project), provided it's also self-consistent.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      > Isn't tackiness heavily context, culture, and timeframe dependent? All the more reason to not require them?
      - selfhoster11 5y ago
        I believe the opposite: that there is sometimes the right place, the right project/people, and the right time to be whimsical. So not always, but also not never (as an abolitionist stance would see it).
billpg 5y ago
I may start doing that for my own projects.
matsemann 5y ago
Gitmoji - Yay or Nay? 2019, 220 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21760021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21760021 If you'd like more thoughts on the matter. (and the original article now lives here: https://www.bekk.christmas/post/2019/11/gitmoji-yay-or-nay https://www.bekk.christmas/post/2019/11/gitmoji-yay-or-nay )
DonHopkins 5y ago
Simon's a top notch interactive graphical user interface designer and programmer. Not just static pictures, not just fixed animations, not just functional code, but rich interactive animated feedback that's actually useful and helps you complete your task while it's also beautiful. When you can design and program stuff like this all on your own and give it away for free, then you can make up any rules you want about commit messages. Look what else he can do with icons and emojis: https://schneegans.github.io/news/2021/12/02/flypie10 https://schneegans.github.io/news/2021/12/02/flypie10 >More Fly-Pie Updates! >In the last couple of months several new versions of Fly-Pie have been released. In this post, I want to highlight the major new feature. >New features were added in version 8 and version 10. The versions 9 and 11 were released as well, but they contain bug fixes only. Here are two trailers to celebrate the respective releases: Fly-Pie 8: New default dark theme and support for GNOME 3.36, 3.38, 40, and 41! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9t7hfkE_5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9t7hfkE_5w Fly-Pie 10: A new Clipboard Menu, proper touch support & much more! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXtckqhEIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXtckqhEIk

dthul 5y ago

Love the flashback to the old Compiz days! The only thing missing now is wobbly windows.

anotheryou 5y ago
wanted to make the same comment :). they were so good
- canbus 5y ago
  haha, ditto, wobbly windows were awesome, and the geared cube
pintxo 5y ago
You mean [1]? [1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2950/compiz-alike-windows-effect/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2950/compiz-alike-win...
- rbanffy 5y ago
  The GNOME Foundation needs to adopt this.
moses-palmer 5y ago
it is not missing: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3210/compiz-windows-effect https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3210/compiz-windows-e.... My eldest son has it running on his account, and I predict that later today those wobbly windows will also burn... EDIT: correct extension
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hnlmorg 5y ago
I miss the fad of Compiz effects. Sure they were silly but it added a little fun to the desktop. I never really got into desktop themes preferring something plainer and smaller (because screen real-estate was still a commodity back then) but wobbly windows and closing effects largely didn't take much away from usability while still adding a little personality.

ogogmad 5y ago

Some of these effects might be useful in a presentation. For instance, if your windows break apart into small shards of shiny glass (making a slight noise when doing so) and then disappear, it might be engaging. This sort of thing is common in films like Minority Report.

andai 5y ago
Ahh, you've brought back fond memories of grade school powerpoint presentations :)
- ogogmad 5y ago
  I was thinking more like a Youtube walkthrough of something that involves clicking around a desktop. But even in a PowerPoint presentation, if it's done in good taste, it can be quite stylish.
- Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
  I remember I have to do a presentation for a country that I picked to present for my 9/10th grade history class. My first slide have that blue flaming text as a title that I generated from the flaming text generator website back then.
- rubidium 5y ago
  Me: “There are people who had PowerPoint in grade school!” *googles PowerPoint release date. Answer: 2004. I guess that checks out. I’m old now.
  - andai 5y ago
    It's from the 80s, actually. But yes, I was referring to the early 2000s :)
  - aulin 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure PowerPoint is way older than that. It was already there in basically its current form with all the terrible animations in office97 but it goes back to the late 80s.

canbus 5y ago

compiz effects are probably one of the main reasons why Linux interested me so much growing up, and why I now work in tech!

mediocregopher 5y ago

Compiz was one of those things I could show off to friends to prove that linux was actually way cooler than any of _their_ operating systems, but since then seems to have been completely forgotten about (at least by me). This was a nice blast from the past.

canbus 5y ago
Bragging about wobbly windows was the best thing ever. I'm glad I'm not alone!
- ravenstine 5y ago
  And that multiple-desktop cube thing!
  - rastapasta42 5y ago
    What about the fire effect?
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Multiple desktops on a rotating cube tho. Shit was straight fire
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    I don't see why Apple couldn't introduce this to its desktop switching routine. The cube animation already exists for switching users. It would be nice to have the option when switching desktops.
    - massysett 5y ago
      That's just it. Apple would rather provide One True Way to do it. On Mac, cube = switch user, and slide = switch desktop.
    - rbanffy 5y ago

the_only_law 5y ago

I actually kind of want to use GNOME just for this now. Call me crazy but little novelties like this are part of what make computers fun.

acidburnNSA 5y ago
I am so glad I'm on GNOME right now. Click the link, slid the slider, and woo here we are!
Firehawke 5y ago
That's really it-- it's a waste of resources, but it's such a tiny amount that all these effects are almost free. There's no point in not having a little fluff that makes the experience a bit more fun.
- Legion 5y ago
  > it's a waste of resources I always laugh at the people that take this notion way too seriously. If their CPU is only 98% idle, it's a travesty. I imagine the same people driving around in cars stripped of all paneling and upholstery, because every little bit of unnecessary weight hurts performance! > There's no point in not having a little fluff that makes the experience a bit more fun. Well put. Considering how much time we spend staring at these stupid little number boxes, things that makes the experience a little more enjoyable are worthwhile, even if they're dumb and frivolous.
- babypuncher 5y ago
  I don't consider it a waste. These features provide enjoyment, which has value. As far as software goes, they are no more wasteful than video games or media players. Units of energy expended per unit of "enjoyment" is certainly a factor to consider, but in this case the extra energy consumed is very minimal.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Not really, these effects are nothing to modern graphics cards.

benbristow 5y ago

I was expecting this to be some tool that deleted C:\Windows\System32 or something, but I came out pleasantly surprised with a hint of nostalgia.

intrasight 5y ago
Or moving to a warmer climate - and burning my windows

marcodiego 5y ago

Compiz was probably the single most impactful event for desktop linux of the mid 2000's. Not that it itself made much of a difference, but the ripples affect many areas we take for granted today. A few reasons: - it put linux ahead of windows and mac in terms of appearance; - it brought many new users and most were a good mix technical and enthusiasts; - it showed the advantages of modular software; - many plugins were useful and these useful plugins influenced desktops to this day; - it was fast, stable and cool enough; - it brought many new developers; - it was an incentive for vendors to improve 3d linux drivers; - it made X.Org developers improve redirection, - it came by default on the most popular distro from 2006 to 2012. Yes, most of the effects were useless but even they helped developers and designers to decide what not to include or do in the future. It pioneered useful things like selecting an area of the screen and saving it directly to a file, useful zoom and quick visualization of non-visible windows. It also showed how important compositing was on the desktop. Although probably not in direct influence, there is a reason android, wayland and whatever comes with ChromeOS all have compositing features. At the time, there was some interesting developments and experimentation: métisse, sun's looking glass, bumptop, deskgallery... none of them was as successful as compiz. I'm proud I was myself part of it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X9bcrJ3TjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X9bcrJ3TjY) and have my name written in some of its source files to this day, even if almost nobody use it anymore.

hammock 5y ago
I dont know what Compiz is (not a linux user), but I seem to remember something like this mod existed for Windows in the 90s/00s
- mr_cyborg 5y ago
  Are you remembering Desktop Destroyer[0] perhaps? 0: http://stressreliefpig.com/games/downloadable-desktop/desktop-destroyer.html http://stressreliefpig.com/games/downloadable-desktop/deskto...
- jchw 5y ago
  WindowBlinds had some similar features, but I’m pretty sure Compiz almost immediately did far more. The state of the art third party software on Windows in the 2000s tended to try to emulate Vista Aero on XP, or skin Vista/7 differently but with similar functionality. The Molten theme from WindowBlinds 6 is somewhat reminiscent of burning windows, but I don’t think it actually did that. Maybe at some point you could burn the start menu down, I can’t remember. Some stuff, like the desktop cube, could be emulated, but not too well. On Compiz, everything was drawing during the animation, showing off the modular compositing that it enabled, whereas most desktop cube toys didn’t update the screen while rotating, making it less impressive.

de6u99er 5y ago

Wow, that's really cool. I think I am going to use the Matrix shader on my private workstation. Will do a code check before I install it on my work laptop tho. TIL: Gnome Extensions can be written in JavaScript.

Phrodo_00 5y ago
The Gnome desktop shell is written in javascript. (or at least it was in 3.0, although I don't expect it to have changed)
- tcit 5y ago
  Only small parts of it.

gedw99 5y ago

have to add this to my wides pc ...

legrande 5y ago

This would be great when doing live demos during a talk at some conference. People would be entertained by these effects, even if they are just for show and 'purely for aesthetic purposes'.

indymike 5y ago

This is really cool! Typed from my KDE desktop, with wobbly windows and desktop cube effects. Desktop computing should be fun.

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago

I love Linux because it creates a space for stuff like this to take place. That said, i3 is enough glitz for me (and it's pretty much none).

BlueTemplar 5y ago
Somewhat ironically, now hosted on a Microsoft-owned closed platform.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  Fortunately, Git itself is "open" and the source code can be migrated to another host without much difficulty. Migrating bug/issue tracking, PR management, and CI will be more difficult, but not impossible. That said, I don't quite understand why no viable alternative has arisen. Gitlab was a good attempt, but its interface turned out to be kind of clunky and more "team-oriented" than makes sense for general open source projects. I strongly believe that if it had a "slick" interface like Github, it'd be more popular. Sourcehut is fantastic, but lacks the same "issues" and "pull requests" system. Mailing lists honestly kind of suck, if only because there's zero semantic markup in email (excluding HTML-in-email which is a clusterfuck that nobody should use), making it difficult to track comment replies, embed code blocks, etc. And submitting patches over email is a chore compared to making a PR, viewing diffs, etc. on a platform like Github. Also the social networking features of Github are unobtrusive and fun. Following other users has introduced me to a variety of interesting projects, starring projects is a fun way to show support, and the ability to watch a repo for releases is useful (although I wish it were an RSS feed instead).
dopeboy 5y ago
We all go through phases. I was on Cinnamon for the past six years and see myself returning to GNOME. I find myself wanting less cruft out of a DE as I get older. And more keyboard friendly too.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  Also on Gnome for the minimalistic experience, but wobbly windows have a physicality that just clicks.

mro_name 5y ago

they've got emojiquette!

silisili 5y ago

Excellent. Longtime Gnome desktop user, former Compiz user...I had no idea this even existed. You better believe I now have burning windows :), despite how childish it may seem.

gbrindisi 5y ago

I still remember the feeling when I managed to run the cube desktop with compiz on ubuntu 06.

StillBored 5y ago

This is cool, but the fact that its written in JS tells me just about everything I need to know about gnome... JS has its place, using it for systems programming isn't one of them IMHO, since I prefer to have the core of my computation stack slim and fast. I can almost forgive the electron apps their piggyness given the desire to build cross platform, but gnome? Yah, no thanks.

jeff_vader 5y ago
I find it interesting since JavaScript in this case is only "glue" language. Actual effects are hardware (?) shaders: https://github.com/Schneegans/Burn-My-Windows/blob/main/src/extension/FireShader.js#L45-L153 https://github.com/Schneegans/Burn-My-Windows/blob/main/src/... .. Had no idea this is possible.
- StillBored 5y ago
  IMHO, its less about where the work is done (and yes i'm aware that gjs tends to be used mostly as glue, and the same with KDE) and more the fact that I don't want a big heavyweight garbage collected language deciding to garbage collect and glitch some part of the system, or JIT pass recompiling a bunch of code when I first click it. I despise latency in human computer interactions and everyone whines about how its worse on pretty much every common PC/etc vs older devices, yet they go an install hooks written in JITed/garbage collected languages all over the system. Having those hooks written in compiled languages/etc is bad enough, I found myself regularly cleaning the runas & windows explorer context menus of loads of cruft because the click latency was noticeable, and now not only can one plug in a ton of stuff but it needs to thunk though to JS to do it (and not picking particularly on JS, because it would be just as bad in java or python or whatever other scripting language one chooses). Its just a waste of cycles, and for projects I work on, engineering time is "cheap". That applies to most system programming if one spends 1/2 a second considering that the code forms the foundation for hundreds of millions of devices all burning energy and the time of their users.
  - ratboy666 5y ago

andrew_ 5y ago

The emoji-commit-message spec absolutely drives me batty. Why. Just why.

chungy 5y ago
Youth maybe? Worse though is the dependence on the plain ASCII codes, limiting their utility (if you even call them that) to GitHub's display. On a terminal (at least where I'm likely to use "git log"), it's just a bunch of dumb ASCII codes taking up line space. I don't really get it. Why not just use the real emoji? At least it'll display properly outside of GitHub.
- aflag 5y ago
  I liked the idea, but I agree with you that they should just have used emojis.

nvr219 5y ago

I use Mate with all the animations turned off and this kind of stuff makes me realize I am an elderly, soulless fuck

kleer001 5y ago
Same, but KDE fwiw. Yuck. I don't need it, I don't want it, get it away from me. But I'll be the last to yuck someone's yum. Have at it y'all. It's just not for me.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Yeah KDE's configurability is exactly what I want. 5.23 was again a great release. This is really the power of Linux... You can make it what you want it to be.

schmookeeg 5y ago

Wow did this ever take me back. Arguably my first "public code release" was a plugin ("mod" back then I think) for the WWIV BBS system -- a screensaver called "Bubbles" that would draw random circles on the idle screen instead of the dead blinky cursor at top left. BBS owners would basically need to code it as a diff in their own system and recompile the thing. I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. It was probably 50ish lines of C code, and I made some serious assumptions about what video card and modes were present. I really really loved computers and coding back then. Reading the comment below about being elderly and soulless also resonates for me at the moment. I miss the romance of it all. :) I've been married to computers for nearly 40 years now, and all of the spice is gone. It's just comfortable and regular and routine. Oh well, on to another 2-hour interminable sprint planning sesh (sigh) -- "yes dear, I'll be right there"

rd07 5y ago
I am interested on how did you learn programming and even create a functional program when you were that young. I was 14 years old when I write my first "hello world" program, and after that, for the next 5 years I basically just fiddling with Visual Basic 6 UI builder and programming. Most of my script come from books or the internet, and I don't understand the complicated stuff at that time, especially where the program interacted with Windows API. Maybe the lack of teacher and access to materials also has a role for my lack of understanding back then. So, I am interested on how did you learn programming on such a young age?
- schmookeeg 5y ago
  My dad was a DBA and did a lot of C code for his work. He got me a PC clone for my 7th birthday and a copy of Borland Turbo C. I made all sorts of strange code widgets and ascii animations, and also ran a BBS which put me in a lot of nerdy circles. Learning coding by osmosis I suppose. I did dad's homework up into my mid teens, so it was a good payoff for him! :) I never asked him if he liked the book Tom Sawyer. I bet he did.
  - rd07 5y ago

dhosek 5y ago

I wonder if it's possible to do things like this with Windows or MacOS. I love the idea of cool effects like this (even if the first thing I did after OSX introduced the genie effect was to turn it off—nowadays the hardware is fast enough for it to not be annoying and the split second of the window shrinking away is a nice visual cue as to what's happened especially if one accidentally hides the window via cmd-H).

_zzaw 5y ago
macOS has gotten a lot less fun, starting with X. I remember no end of UI-customization utilities for pre-X Macs, some of which were really powerful, like Kaleidoscope. I loved being able to make the system look like an NeXT box (there was even an Irix theme) or design my own UI entirely. Even Apple briefly considered the idea of building theme support right into the OS. But they didn’t, and the few quirky things that OS X did, like the puff-of-smoke effect, have been quietly removed. I hate how sterile Apple’s products have gotten. Sure, they’re beautiful, but they don’t have the kind of character the old ones did. I wish something like Kaleidoscope (or Burn My Windows) existed for Macs.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  I remember one, "Out of Context Menus" that allowed things like adjusting the vertical and horizontal settings of windows, as well as applying a gaussian blur to them. You can read more about Eric Trout's extension here: https://tidbits.com/1999/07/12/the-machack-hack-contest-1999/ https://tidbits.com/1999/07/12/the-machack-hack-contest-1999...
- dhosek 5y ago
  On the flip side, I remember in the late 80s that pretty much every Mac disk had a virus on it thanks to fairly loose OS security in those days. I'm guessing that no more talking moose is the price we pay for not having to worry about getting a virus anytime something is put in the computer.
  - _zzaw 5y ago

resoluteteeth 5y ago

The matrix one is nice; maybe a star trek teleporter effect would be a nice addition?

pengaru 5y ago

Anyone happen to know what gnome shell version added the ability for extensions to run arbitrary glsl shaders like this?

harles 5y ago

So many neat things going on with Linux desktops. It’s unfortunate high DPI/mixed DPI support lags so far behind Windows and Mac. This has essentially killed Linux as a daily driver for me.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

Very neat. Works perfectly so far.

pmarreck 5y ago

Is there anything like this that works in KDE Plasma?

DonHopkins 5y ago

I love Simon's work and artistic sensibility! I posted this earlier about his amazing work with pie menus for Gnome. Here's done even more amazing pie menu stuff since then, including Fly-Pie -- why don't all web browsers and window managers support this yet??? This stuff is extremely useful, practical, easy to use, and deeply customizable, not just beautiful window dressing, eye candy, and fancy effects. More Fly-Pie Updates! https://schneegans.github.io/news/2021/12/02/flypie10 https://schneegans.github.io/news/2021/12/02/flypie10 Fly-Pie 8: New default dark theme and support for GNOME 3.36, 3.38, 40, and 41! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9t7hfkE_5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9t7hfkE_5w Fly-Pie 10: A new Clipboard Menu, proper touch support & much more! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXtckqhEIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXtckqhEIk Pie Menus: A 30 Year Retrospective https://donhopkins.medium.com/pie-menus-936fed383ff1#ed08 https://donhopkins.medium.com/pie-menus-936fed383ff1#ed08 >Spectacular Example: Simon Schneegans’ Gnome-Pie, the slick application launcher for Linux >I can’t understate how much I like Simon Schneegans’ Gnome-Pie, as well as his bachelor thesis work on the Coral-Menu and the Trace-Menu. Not only is it all slick, beautiful, and elegantly animated, but it’s properly well designed in all the important ways that make it Fitts’s Law Friendly and easy to use, and totally deeply customizable by normal users! It’s a spectacularly useful tour-de-force that Linux desktop users can personalize to their heart’s content. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17098179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17098179 Pie Menus: A 30-Year Retrospective: Take a Look and Feel Free (medium.com/donhopkins) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17106453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17106453 DonHopkins on May 19, 2018 | parent | context | favorite | on: Pie Menus: A 30-Year Retrospective: Take a Look an... I'm very impressed by Simon Schneegans' work on Gnome-Pie: http://simmesimme.github.io/gnome-pie.html http://simmesimme.github.io/gnome-pie.html And especially his delightful thesis work: Trace-Menu: https://vimeo.com/51073078 https://vimeo.com/51073078 I really love how the little nubs preview the structure of the sub-menus, and how you can roll back to the parent menu because it reserves a slice in the sub-menu to go back, so you don't need to use another mouse button or shift key to browse the menus. Coral-Menu: https://vimeo.com/51072812 https://vimeo.com/51072812 That looks like a nice visual representation with a way to easily browse all around the tree, into and out of the submenus without clicking! I can't tell from the video if it's based on a click or a timeout. But it looks like it supports browsing and reselection and correcting errors pretty well! (That would be something interesting to measure!) There's another useful law related to Fitts's law that applies to situations like this, called Steering Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering_law The steering law in human–computer interaction and ergonomics is a predictive model of human movement that describes the time required to navigate, or steer, through a 2-dimensional tunnel. The tunnel can be thought of as a path or trajectory on a plane that has an associated thickness or width, where the width can vary along the tunnel. The goal of a steering task is to navigate from one end of the tunnel to the other as quickly as possible, without touching the boundaries of the tunnel. A real-world example that approximates this task is driving a car down a road that may have twists and turns, where the car must navigate the road as quickly as possible without touching the sides of the road. The steering law predicts both the instantaneous speed at which we may navigate the tunnel, and the total time required to navigate the entire tunnel. The steering law has been independently discovered and studied three times (Rashevsky, 1959; Drury, 1971; Accot and Zhai, 1997). Its most recent discovery has been within the human–computer interaction community, which has resulted in the most general mathematical formulation of the law. Also here's some interesting stuff about incompatibility with Wayland, and rewriting Gnome-Pie as an extension to the Gnome shell: http://simmesimme.github.io/news/2017/07/09/gnome-pie-071 http://simmesimme.github.io/news/2017/07/09/gnome-pie-071

bogwog 5y ago

VR desktops apps nowadays let you place windows around your head in VR, so that you feel fully immersed in whatever you're doing. Back in the Compiz days, my virtual desktop switcher was a 3D cylinder. Holding the middle mouse button would zoom out my current desktop, placing me in the center of a giant 3D cylinder which I could rotate by moving the mouse to switch to a different desktop. And it worked with my dual monitor setup! That was immersive as hell, and I felt so freaking productive having that spatial awareness of my other desktops. Back then I was doing Android development with Eclipse, and I would have one desktop for code, another desktop for logcat and an ADB terminal, and another desktop for documentation/music/etc. And of course, all of my windows were wobbly. Today I don't use anything fancy like that anymore, and I barely ever use virtual desktops for anything, even though switching between them with a keybinding is much easier/faster than that old setup I had. ALT+TAB takes about as much effort as CTRL+ALT+ARROW, but one is muscle memory and the other is not. If I ain't getting a fancy 3D cylinder, why bother?

luke2m 5y ago
And here I am today, with Compiz Alike windows and magic lamp effect, Burn My Windows, Blur My Shell, Desktop Cube, and of course, Useless Gaps on GNOME. I love it.
nightfly 5y ago
How bad is the "screendoor" effect with top-of-the-line VR headsets nowadays?

jopsen 5y ago

Recall working on an highschool assignment in MathCad on my Windows XP virtualbox, and having my work fall apart in front of my eyes... It was the VM crashing and the window destruction effect was quite appropriate as my work wasn't saved :/ Maybe we should only burn windows when the application crashed non-zero :D

javier2 5y ago
MathCad in VirtualBox.. what a time.

designium 5y ago

I need this for MacOS.

IronWolve 5y ago
I was thinking this would be nice on win10 too

GekkePrutser 5y ago

Hmm nice work but I always hated the way Compiz had so many effects just for the sake of it :) The wobbly windows, the fire.. It was cool for 2 minutes and then annoying. At least to me. I'm surprised so many people thought the wobbly windows added a real feel to the desktop. I never really had that experience. But it's good that it's an option. I preferred Apple's animations which like the 'genie' one have a functional purpose too: they show where a minimised window is going. For me, the perfect animation is extremely quick so it doesn't make the desktop feel slower, but still just noticeable enough to make it feel sophisticated. And it should have a function, not just for show.

simonblack 5y ago

Pretty, but just more cycle-stealing inefficiency. Using something like this boils down to whether you don't mind wasting cycles and RAM on pretty effects or you just want the best performance consistently. For most of us, that depends on whether we have had the experience of struggling to maintain good GUI performance or not. The younger users will have no hassle with using something like this, they've always had plenty of GUI performance. For those of us who have had the experience of the necessity of only using plain-color wallpapers because it took too long for an image wallpaper to repair itself after moving a window on the desktop, it will remain one of those 'interesting thing to see, but not for me' effects.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
This will use less than a couple of percent of your GPU when it's "in action" . My computer is so overpowered for what I do most of the time this sort of thing is completely harmless. I'm pretty old myself but this stuff is fun to play with. I don't mess with it very long usually as it gets boring after a few weeks, but it's not really wasting much energy or cpu.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

grouphugs 5y ago

causi 5y ago

Boy do I miss how magical graphics used to seem back in the day. I remember one GPU I bought came with a 3D "computer house" simulation where all your files were in drawers, the control panel items were in the utility closet, etc. It was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen.

Lapsa 5y ago

would like to try it but I never close windows :/

Demcox 5y ago

So. Many. Emoji's. On. The. GitHub.

alanh 5y ago

dumb question: is there any way to get similar effects on a Mac? are there third-party tools that can change macOS appearance so dramatically?

MattyRad 5y ago

Compiz has been my daily driver for the past 10 years, I highly recommend it to everyone (make sure you use CompizConfig Settings Manager to configure it). If you do try it out, please _please_ ignore all the gimmicky effects (yes, including burning windows)- they're a distraction from the pure utilitarianism that compiz offers.