48 ms·

it. made. my. machine. very. slow. Interesting, I guess. What purpose though other than "neat"? I'm trying to come up with a UI need it would fu

it. made. my. machine. very. slow. Interesting, I guess. What purpose though other than "neat"? I'm trying to come up with a UI need it would fulfill, but can't. Mind you, I love neat for the sake of it, and if that's the intent, well and good. But wondered if there was something else I was overlooking.

siculars 18y ago
hey mate, don't be a hater. it's an uber cool effect.
mkn 18y ago
It may be premature to say that it's neat just for the sake of neatness. It may not have a direct UI usage, but we could probably learn something about mouse events and drawing by examining the code, for example. Also, from a UI perspective, you migh be able to make mousing more efficient by dragging UI elements around in a cloud around the mouse. (You could fade them out so that they were just barely visible, for example, until you right-clicked or shift-right-clicked to pin them down and use them.) It looked, at first glance, like the effect was running on a Canvas, so I don't know how easy it would be to do outside of one. Also, call it mkn's first law: There's always something you're overlooking. (Where 'you' is the hypothetical you, not you in particular.) :o)
- contextmenu 18y ago
  We have that, it's called a context menu.
  - sutro 18y ago
    We've all heard of single serving sites: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=399941 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=399941. Here the parent commenter is pioneering the latest incarnation of the trend: the single serving HN account.
    - captainobvious 18y ago
      Someone quick! Find a phone and call captain obvious.
  - mkn 18y ago
    I guess my point was that it would be a translucent cloud of items that followed the mouse. This way, you'd be able to see/read what was under the cloud but could switch your attention to the translucent cloud to see what was there. Context menus are invisible until you right-click. Also, there's been some evidence that we remember the locations of things better if they're arranged radially (like the demo approximates) rather than orthogonally (like in a context menu). A combination of a translucent constant reminders of tasks available plus a radial arrangement of those tasks floating around the mouse might make it easy to remember what's available after a right-click. It might be distracting as hell, for all I know. One thing's for sure, it would be more than just a context menu as we know them now.
- jyothi 18y ago
  this can get close to iphone interface of google earth on a normal browser.
- MoeDrippins 18y ago
  In this case, "you" IS me in particular. I'm slow on the uptake more often than I'd prefer. =) Thanks for the comment; I hadn't thought of much of that.
Shamiq 18y ago
Yea, my proc usage went through the roof. Is it because of the "hit detection"?
nickb 18y ago
What browser are you using? If you try the latest Safari or Firefox nightly, you'll be amazed how fast that thing is. Javascript VMs are progressing at an amazing rate.
- MoeDrippins 18y ago
  Firefox 3.0.5. I haven't played around with the nightly's much, but I might. Thanks. And yeah, to the Javascript VMs progressing. I don't think I've seen as much buzz about performance upgrades as in the JS space. Waiting for it to hit the server side in a big(ger) way.
- khafra 18y ago
  I tried it on Chrome running in Virtualbox seamless on a year-old box, and it was pretty zippy.
tlrobinson 18y ago
i. hate. gratuitous. periods.
palish 18y ago
The effect has to be adjusted slightly to be used in a UI context. If it is changed so that the item nearest the mouse cursor snaps to the cursor, then suddenly you'd be able to precisely and easily select an item from a group of tightly-packed items. So the UI advantage might be that you can see a lot of items, but can precisely select any of them. Also, for UI purposes, it might be beneficial to remove the "springy" effect on the items. When the mouse isn't moving, the items shouldn't be animating. In other words, the animation should be driven by mouse movement, with no elasticity.

siculars 18y ago

hey mate, don't be a hater. it's an uber cool effect.

mkn 18y ago

It may be premature to say that it's neat just for the sake of neatness. It may not have a direct UI usage, but we could probably learn something about mouse events and drawing by examining the code, for example. Also, from a UI perspective, you migh be able to make mousing more efficient by dragging UI elements around in a cloud around the mouse. (You could fade them out so that they were just barely visible, for example, until you right-clicked or shift-right-clicked to pin them down and use them.) It looked, at first glance, like the effect was running on a Canvas, so I don't know how easy it would be to do outside of one. Also, call it mkn's first law: There's always something you're overlooking. (Where 'you' is the hypothetical you, not you in particular.) :o)

contextmenu 18y ago
We have that, it's called a context menu.
- sutro 18y ago
  We've all heard of single serving sites: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=399941 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=399941. Here the parent commenter is pioneering the latest incarnation of the trend: the single serving HN account.
  - captainobvious 18y ago
    Someone quick! Find a phone and call captain obvious.
- mkn 18y ago
  I guess my point was that it would be a translucent cloud of items that followed the mouse. This way, you'd be able to see/read what was under the cloud but could switch your attention to the translucent cloud to see what was there. Context menus are invisible until you right-click. Also, there's been some evidence that we remember the locations of things better if they're arranged radially (like the demo approximates) rather than orthogonally (like in a context menu). A combination of a translucent constant reminders of tasks available plus a radial arrangement of those tasks floating around the mouse might make it easy to remember what's available after a right-click. It might be distracting as hell, for all I know. One thing's for sure, it would be more than just a context menu as we know them now.
jyothi 18y ago
this can get close to iphone interface of google earth on a normal browser.
MoeDrippins 18y ago
In this case, "you" IS me in particular. I'm slow on the uptake more often than I'd prefer. =) Thanks for the comment; I hadn't thought of much of that.

Shamiq 18y ago

Yea, my proc usage went through the roof. Is it because of the "hit detection"?

nickb 18y ago

What browser are you using? If you try the latest Safari or Firefox nightly, you'll be amazed how fast that thing is. Javascript VMs are progressing at an amazing rate.

MoeDrippins 18y ago
Firefox 3.0.5. I haven't played around with the nightly's much, but I might. Thanks. And yeah, to the Javascript VMs progressing. I don't think I've seen as much buzz about performance upgrades as in the JS space. Waiting for it to hit the server side in a big(ger) way.
khafra 18y ago
I tried it on Chrome running in Virtualbox seamless on a year-old box, and it was pretty zippy.

tlrobinson 18y ago

i. hate. gratuitous. periods.

palish 18y ago

The effect has to be adjusted slightly to be used in a UI context. If it is changed so that the item nearest the mouse cursor snaps to the cursor, then suddenly you'd be able to precisely and easily select an item from a group of tightly-packed items. So the UI advantage might be that you can see a lot of items, but can precisely select any of them. Also, for UI purposes, it might be beneficial to remove the "springy" effect on the items. When the mouse isn't moving, the items shouldn't be animating. In other words, the animation should be driven by mouse movement, with no elasticity.