4 ms·

It pretty much embodies everything I hate in modern OSes. I know what I want to do and I know how I want to do it, get out of my way. Meanwhile modern OSes can'

by ilyt 4y ago

It pretty much embodies everything I hate in modern OSes. I know what I want to do and I know how I want to do it, get out of my way. Meanwhile modern OSes can't even handle simple "maybe don't steal fucking focus from window I am currently writing something in just because some other app decided to make another windows."

scrubs 4y ago
Totally agree. I'm sick and tired of apps "helping me," constantly interrupting with tips, "did you know .." rearranging my windows and so on. I want to get stuff done not start a journey and relationship with new code. And nobody knows better than the user what stuff they wanna do.
- juunpp 4y ago
  It's like the corporate OS developers think they know better and need to constantly remind you how pathetic and insignificant your existence would be were it not for their omnipresent magnificence.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    It's disgusting and patronizing honestly. It's like perpetual chase of "new, inexperienced user", at cost of people using the OS for last 5-10-20 years, and no actual benefit to anyone using it seriously to do work.
- MarkSweep 4y ago
  I think this is the best argument against "telemetry" in apps. If there is no way to measure people's reactions to such annoying prompts, there would be no way for a product manager to justify it by saying "metric X went up by Y% when we showed this popup".
  - ilyt 4y ago
    No, no, we need to connect microphone to telemetry so we can hear user yelling "fuck off" at the features
SkyMarshal 4y ago
God, the fact that stealing focus still exists in 2023 is maddening. Please just let me open windows and apps in the background while I continue to work uninterrupted in the main focus window in the foreground. Even web browsers let you open tabs in the background, why haven’t OS’s caught up to the yet. That said, I like the concept of this OS design. It reminds me a little of the theoretical concept behind Star Trek’s LCARS interface, where the interface adapts to the user and the task at hand. As a power user I doubt I’d use this myself, unless it could be installed on top of NixOS, but it might be more intuitive and accessible to a more general user base. It will be hard to get rid of files and folders though, even for general users. As messy as that can get, it’s a simple abstraction burned into just about every human’s brain at this point.
- andai 4y ago
  I have the opposite problem. If I open too many Windows, the Windows window manager starts glitching out. When I open an app, it doesn't always come to the front and I have to go alt-tab through dozens of windows to find it. (Sometimes it ends up at the bottom, so alt-shift-tab switches to it... but sometimes it ends up in the middle...) Also if I open too many windows, opening Windows explorer takes 1-2 or more seconds. Something about exhausting GDI handles?
  - happymellon 4y ago
    How many are we talking about here, I'm curious about how many windows is too many for Windows? I don't often have more than 30 open, and at that point I start thinking it's excessive and that I should probably tidy up to make sure I actually complete a task rather than get distracted.
    - andai 4y ago
      Asked ChatGPT to write me a script to count the open windows :) I have 164. Although I have quite a bit of RAM left at the moment. The OS getting sluggish is usually what prompts me to close a few open apps. So having lots of RAM is bad for my productivity... The annoying part is just that Windows explorer gets really sluggish -- to a comical degree. For example, I'll do a file operation (copy, rename etc) and it'll take that same explorer Window 5 seconds to register the operation that it itself performed. Meanwhile, Sublime Text open in the background detects it within miliseconds.
eviks 4y ago
How does it embody stealing focus when this design goal is specifically about focus? "Focused. The clutter we take for granted in today’s operating systems can be overwhelming, especially for folks sensitive to stimulation. Mercury is respectful of limited bandwidths and attention spans."
woolion 4y ago
In KDE Plasma, a window manager, you can configure "focus stealing prevention", as well as activation and raising of windows to be on click or on hover in a fairly precise way. Still that is fairly far from the OS layer. Microsoft and Apple sell the 'OS' as a bundle with everything (a window manager, file explorer, etc) that you cannot really configure a lot, but that is a problem with their products.

by ilyt 4y ago

scrubs 4y ago

Totally agree. I'm sick and tired of apps "helping me," constantly interrupting with tips, "did you know .." rearranging my windows and so on. I want to get stuff done not start a journey and relationship with new code. And nobody knows better than the user what stuff they wanna do.

juunpp 4y ago
It's like the corporate OS developers think they know better and need to constantly remind you how pathetic and insignificant your existence would be were it not for their omnipresent magnificence.
- ilyt 4y ago
  It's disgusting and patronizing honestly. It's like perpetual chase of "new, inexperienced user", at cost of people using the OS for last 5-10-20 years, and no actual benefit to anyone using it seriously to do work.
MarkSweep 4y ago
I think this is the best argument against "telemetry" in apps. If there is no way to measure people's reactions to such annoying prompts, there would be no way for a product manager to justify it by saying "metric X went up by Y% when we showed this popup".
- ilyt 4y ago
  No, no, we need to connect microphone to telemetry so we can hear user yelling "fuck off" at the features

SkyMarshal 4y ago

God, the fact that stealing focus still exists in 2023 is maddening. Please just let me open windows and apps in the background while I continue to work uninterrupted in the main focus window in the foreground. Even web browsers let you open tabs in the background, why haven’t OS’s caught up to the yet. That said, I like the concept of this OS design. It reminds me a little of the theoretical concept behind Star Trek’s LCARS interface, where the interface adapts to the user and the task at hand. As a power user I doubt I’d use this myself, unless it could be installed on top of NixOS, but it might be more intuitive and accessible to a more general user base. It will be hard to get rid of files and folders though, even for general users. As messy as that can get, it’s a simple abstraction burned into just about every human’s brain at this point.

andai 4y ago
I have the opposite problem. If I open too many Windows, the Windows window manager starts glitching out. When I open an app, it doesn't always come to the front and I have to go alt-tab through dozens of windows to find it. (Sometimes it ends up at the bottom, so alt-shift-tab switches to it... but sometimes it ends up in the middle...) Also if I open too many windows, opening Windows explorer takes 1-2 or more seconds. Something about exhausting GDI handles?
- happymellon 4y ago
  How many are we talking about here, I'm curious about how many windows is too many for Windows? I don't often have more than 30 open, and at that point I start thinking it's excessive and that I should probably tidy up to make sure I actually complete a task rather than get distracted.
  - andai 4y ago
    Asked ChatGPT to write me a script to count the open windows :) I have 164. Although I have quite a bit of RAM left at the moment. The OS getting sluggish is usually what prompts me to close a few open apps. So having lots of RAM is bad for my productivity... The annoying part is just that Windows explorer gets really sluggish -- to a comical degree. For example, I'll do a file operation (copy, rename etc) and it'll take that same explorer Window 5 seconds to register the operation that it itself performed. Meanwhile, Sublime Text open in the background detects it within miliseconds.

eviks 4y ago

How does it embody stealing focus when this design goal is specifically about focus? "Focused. The clutter we take for granted in today’s operating systems can be overwhelming, especially for folks sensitive to stimulation. Mercury is respectful of limited bandwidths and attention spans."

woolion 4y ago

In KDE Plasma, a window manager, you can configure "focus stealing prevention", as well as activation and raising of windows to be on click or on hover in a fairly precise way. Still that is fairly far from the OS layer. Microsoft and Apple sell the 'OS' as a bundle with everything (a window manager, file explorer, etc) that you cannot really configure a lot, but that is a problem with their products.