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Great comment. But allow me to disagree on comparing Gnome 2 to OSX. In my opinion old Gnome was exactly what you're talking about: "driving off the road". It w

Great comment. But allow me to disagree on comparing Gnome 2 to OSX. In my opinion old Gnome was exactly what you're talking about: "driving off the road". It wasn't like Windows or OSX, it was its own thing, the best desktop environment, in my opinion. The only element reminiscent of OSX (only visually, not functionally) perhaps was the menu at the top. Unity, on the other hand, is the exact replica of Gnome 3, just not as polished graphically. They both have this weird "buaaa mode" where you're typing instead of clicking on a shortcut, they both destroy virtual desktop functionality and if anything, they're basically cloning OSX bad habits: instead of switching between windows on Alt+Tab they're now switching between apps (across virtual desktops!). So I would suggest that the opposite is happening. Instead of staying in the "new place" Ubuntu is basically trying to get on the road and follow OSX. Frankly, I'm not even sure it's possible to "drive off teh road to a new place" when it comes to desktop UX without a significant change in hardware: we're still using basically the same computers as we did in late 80s, even the screen real estate hasn't improved much.

DanBC 15y ago
> Frankly, I'm not even sure it's possible to "drive off teh road to a new place" when it comes to desktop UX Sure it is. 3d file managers[1] never took off. With todays hardware they'd be a lot nicer to use. Users have been limited to quite small (sorry about my incorrect terminology here, I'm going to go read some man pages) total virtual screen size within which their windows were located. Now graphics cards, and system memory, are huge; this leads to possible radical new interfaces. Imagine a "Zoomable UI" - documents open in their own full size window; any document opens in its own window tiled next to it; the user can zoom in as far as they like to do detail work, or out as far as they like to organise all these documents. Programs would open toolbars in their own windows. Any toolbar would be able to work on any document (because it's Unix, so all input and output is text, right?) - but the result wouldn't necessarily make any sense. That's not particularly radical; tiling WMs exist already. [1] (http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml) {my favourite is FSV.}
- TREYisRAD 15y ago
  Raskin sounds similar to what you describe for a "Zoomable UI". http://www.raskinformac.com/ http://www.raskinformac.com/
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  I agree, its way easy to drive off the road. Not as easy to navigate the resulting underbrush. Aza Raskin's THE stuff is pretty interesting in that regard, there are varieties of menu systems, where do menus appear, how do they appear? (I've always thought the pie menus were cool) And of course how do you switch between manipulating the space (app selection, desktop, themes) and manipulation within the app itself. Strangely (for me at least) is that the Windows 8 previews have some interesting stuff in them (after years of not changing much) more interesting in concept than some of mainstream UIs on Linux. Again not that a tiling WM is particularly new but the blending of the icon/status bar presence/window/launcher feels pretty fresh. I do run Kubuntu on my desktop but I continually try out different schemes with virtual machines when I can to see where things are going. My netbook runs XFCE which reminds me in a strange way of Suntools.
- Gormo 15y ago
  3D file management never took off because no one has yet found a meaningful and intuitive use for three dimensions that couldn't be accomplished with two. The screenshots of FSV on that site show me a 2D interface that's been extruded into cubes and displayed isometrically. Usable, but the 3D is superfluous. All the other 3D file managers appear utterly unusable. What on earth is going on in this screenshot of Tactile3D: http://www.tactile3d.com/overview/screenshot_orbis_9.jpg http://www.tactile3d.com/overview/screenshot_orbis_9.jpg? Or this one of TDFSB: http://www.determinate.net/webdata/img/TDFSB2.jpg http://www.determinate.net/webdata/img/TDFSB2.jpg?
  - DanBC 15y ago
    Yes, 3d file managers were ugly, and hard to use, and didn't really serve any purpose. But with modern hardware, and with a better HID, and with a better analogy / paradigm / idea, they could come back and be useful. I don't know what that meaningful use for the 3rd dimension would be, but I'm pretty sure there is one. (The tactile screenshot is awful. It appears to show a bunch of stuff ordered by name. The TDFSB2 screenshot shows someone "walking" through their home/leo/jpeg directory, with all the jpegs being displayed. Remember that these are tinkering toys, and that things like mice or GUIs were initially weird and horrid. Maybe getting a bunch of smart people working on them would generate useful results?)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
silon4 15y ago
>they're basically cloning OSX bad habits: instead of switching between windows on Alt+Tab they're now switching between apps (across virtual desktops!). This is THE reason why I will not touch gnome-shell/unity. Too bad, because I could get used to most other stuff (except unity's menu bar on top) and I believe it has potential. Multiple displays and virtual deskops are a minor annoyance that can be improved.

DanBC 15y ago

> Frankly, I'm not even sure it's possible to "drive off teh road to a new place" when it comes to desktop UX Sure it is. 3d file managers[1] never took off. With todays hardware they'd be a lot nicer to use. Users have been limited to quite small (sorry about my incorrect terminology here, I'm going to go read some man pages) total virtual screen size within which their windows were located. Now graphics cards, and system memory, are huge; this leads to possible radical new interfaces. Imagine a "Zoomable UI" - documents open in their own full size window; any document opens in its own window tiled next to it; the user can zoom in as far as they like to do detail work, or out as far as they like to organise all these documents. Programs would open toolbars in their own windows. Any toolbar would be able to work on any document (because it's Unix, so all input and output is text, right?) - but the result wouldn't necessarily make any sense. That's not particularly radical; tiling WMs exist already. [1] (http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml) {my favourite is FSV.}

TREYisRAD 15y ago
Raskin sounds similar to what you describe for a "Zoomable UI". http://www.raskinformac.com/ http://www.raskinformac.com/
ChuckMcM 15y ago
I agree, its way easy to drive off the road. Not as easy to navigate the resulting underbrush. Aza Raskin's THE stuff is pretty interesting in that regard, there are varieties of menu systems, where do menus appear, how do they appear? (I've always thought the pie menus were cool) And of course how do you switch between manipulating the space (app selection, desktop, themes) and manipulation within the app itself. Strangely (for me at least) is that the Windows 8 previews have some interesting stuff in them (after years of not changing much) more interesting in concept than some of mainstream UIs on Linux. Again not that a tiling WM is particularly new but the blending of the icon/status bar presence/window/launcher feels pretty fresh. I do run Kubuntu on my desktop but I continually try out different schemes with virtual machines when I can to see where things are going. My netbook runs XFCE which reminds me in a strange way of Suntools.
Gormo 15y ago
3D file management never took off because no one has yet found a meaningful and intuitive use for three dimensions that couldn't be accomplished with two. The screenshots of FSV on that site show me a 2D interface that's been extruded into cubes and displayed isometrically. Usable, but the 3D is superfluous. All the other 3D file managers appear utterly unusable. What on earth is going on in this screenshot of Tactile3D: http://www.tactile3d.com/overview/screenshot_orbis_9.jpg http://www.tactile3d.com/overview/screenshot_orbis_9.jpg? Or this one of TDFSB: http://www.determinate.net/webdata/img/TDFSB2.jpg http://www.determinate.net/webdata/img/TDFSB2.jpg?
- DanBC 15y ago
  Yes, 3d file managers were ugly, and hard to use, and didn't really serve any purpose. But with modern hardware, and with a better HID, and with a better analogy / paradigm / idea, they could come back and be useful. I don't know what that meaningful use for the 3rd dimension would be, but I'm pretty sure there is one. (The tactile screenshot is awful. It appears to show a bunch of stuff ordered by name. The TDFSB2 screenshot shows someone "walking" through their home/leo/jpeg directory, with all the jpegs being displayed. Remember that these are tinkering toys, and that things like mice or GUIs were initially weird and horrid. Maybe getting a bunch of smart people working on them would generate useful results?)

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

silon4 15y ago

>they're basically cloning OSX bad habits: instead of switching between windows on Alt+Tab they're now switching between apps (across virtual desktops!). This is THE reason why I will not touch gnome-shell/unity. Too bad, because I could get used to most other stuff (except unity's menu bar on top) and I believe it has potential. Multiple displays and virtual deskops are a minor annoyance that can be improved.