[HN Gopher] TheDesk desktop environment
___________________________________________________________________
TheDesk desktop environment
Author : smartmic
Score : 120 points
Date : 2024-05-05 19:40 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| What differentiates this from other desktop environments?
| BirAdam wrote:
| From what I saw in their video, there's a top bar that on
| mouse-over expands and becomes a virtual desktop switcher with
| an arbitrary number of virtual desktops. Otherwise it appears
| to be a somewhat standard floating window setup. I didn't see a
| menu, but my guess is that there is one or there's some sort of
| rofi/dmenu work-alike or that it makes use of one of those.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| Kinda made me dizzy - animating the whole panel with all that
| stuff (clock, etc) can't be any good for accessibility, but
| no easy task to do a whole DE regardless.
| vundercind wrote:
| Oh man, you're not kidding, watching those gifs made me
| reflexively long for the "reduce motion" settings toggle.
| rajishx wrote:
| It's a new one? I guess you are not the target audience of this
| Windows manager if you are not willing to give it a try and
| explore the features and the experience before rationalizing
| it's usefulness
| bruce511 wrote:
| While I'm sure -I'm- not the target market for a new Windows
| manager, it really is helpful to understand up front why a
| project exists.
|
| Sometimes it's a different feature set. Sometimes it's the
| same (or reduced) feature set or an emphasis on performance.
| Sometimes it's the side effect of using a new language.
| Sometimes it's just an exercise in learning.
|
| While these things are all completely valid (and more
| besides) the underlying reason is usually helpful when
| deciding if I am "willing to give it a try". Context matters,
| and it's helpful to understand if the developer's context is
| compatible with my context.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > It's a new one? I guess you are not the target audience of
| this Windows manager if you are not willing to give it a try
| and explore the features and the experience before
| rationalizing it's usefulness
|
| To add some perspective, I _am_ the target audience for a new
| Window Manager, but I 'm still gonna need a goal or mission
| statement before I try it out.
|
| No need to be fancy, just use one of the following stock
| phrases:
|
| _For people who like eye candy..._
|
| _A clutter-free, spartan environment_
|
| _Smart(er) tiling /stacking/workspace management _
|
| _Lean and fast_
|
| _Big with tons of value-added features_
|
| _Highly customisable_
|
| _" It Just Works(tm)"_
|
| _A (simpler|more complex) alternative to
| (Gnome|Plasma|Windowmaker|Xfce)_ [1]
|
| _A (new|old|ancient) way to manage workflows_
|
| _Designed for (programmer|designer|gamer|salesman)
| productivity_
|
| After all, creating a minimal Window Manager is about 2kLoC
| (in C). Someone who went to the effort to write maybe 20kLoC
|
| a) Ain't stupid or incompetent in the least
|
| and
|
| b) _Must have had a good reason for doing so!_
|
| Telling the world that reason can only help - the majority of
| us support new projects, we don't diss them for no reason
| (for that, we go to reddit :-))
|
| [1] Yes, I know that some of those are desktop environments
| and some are window managers. No, I don't want to argue about
| the difference.
| Beijinger wrote:
| >Lean and fast
|
| Moksha Desktop....
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| I think your assumptions around points A and B are both
| potentially mistaken.
| Levitating wrote:
| Xmonad stayed under a thousand LoC for it's first few
| releases.
|
| As for this DE, it's main feature seems to be having a
| topbar that expands itself on hover. But to me that seems
| like it's biggest issue.
|
| The animation will always seem choppy. And you cannot click
| anything on the bar directly because everything moves
| around. And you will inevitably accidentally expand it.
| It's just bad UI...
| lelanthran wrote:
| > As for this DE, it's main feature seems to be having a
| topbar that expands itself on hover. But to me that seems
| like it's biggest issue.
|
| > The animation will always seem choppy. And you cannot
| click anything on the bar directly because everything
| moves around. And you will inevitably accidentally expand
| it. It's just bad UI...
|
| So?
|
| I mean, I _agree_ it 's bad UI, but some people will
| absolutely love it. I mean if it was so universally
| regarded as a bad UI we wouldn't be seeing the same
| pattern on every third website, would we?
|
| It's all different strokes for different folks. Doesn't
| appeal to me (or to you), but I think there's enough
| people who prefer prettiness over ease-of-use; after all,
| look how many people still love their Macbooks, even
| though it's still got pretty a poor UI.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| A thousand lines of C is not equivalent to thousand lines
| of Haskell.
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| Well, I'd kinda like to have some idea of what I'm getting
| before I download it. Otherwise, why even bother?
|
| You are asking users to commit a certain amount of time,
| effort and resources to testing out your software. The least
| you could do is set some expectation other than "LOL, n00
| S0ftW4rez, yo. CZekkit, b1tches!".
| Levitating wrote:
| Do you have any clue how many window managers are out there?
|
| Just the ArchLinux wiki alone lists 66 window managers.[1]
|
| Writing a prototype window manager takes maybe a day, it can
| be done under a 100 lines of code.[2] I am not going to test
| every new window manager.
|
| [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Window_manager#List_of_
| wind... [2]: https://github.com/mackstann/tinywm
| smartmic wrote:
| Found more about it here: https://vicr123.com/projects/thedesk/
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Don't Linux people realize there are a limited number of people
| to work on these things in their spare time for free?
| elcritch wrote:
| Perhaps the folks working on the project in what is presumably
| their spare time for free do know this?
| bitwize wrote:
| The idea is that it's irresponsible to diffuse the limited
| amount of effort by launching your own desktop environment
| project rather than contributing your talents to one of KDE
| or GNOME.
|
| I don't ever see myself using this DE, but the fact that it
| seems to be one guy's labor of love kind of makes me happy.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| But presumably they aren't interested in working on a part
| of a larger project that they have less creative and admin
| control over. This is a huge deal and precisely the answer
| to your question.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Something in the scale of a modern DE could become
| decrepit, outdated, and difficult to use real quick
| without major support.
|
| There's more DE's than I could shake a stick at and like
| 5 of them are usable for a an average user.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Well, like it's just your opinion, man... Opinions are
| like asses, everyone has their own.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| As someone that uses the 5th most possible DE I
| appreciate the state of the landscape. But more to the
| point I think you're not framing this correctly. I think
| this question is the best way to probe get to the heart
| of our disagreement:
|
| How would you coerce or incentivize the developers of
| this DE to work on a more mature project?
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| > How would you coerce or incentivize the developers of
| this DE to work on a more mature project?
|
| Being a cog in a wheel is always a sacrifice, but also
| more successful. It's more likely to be usable by regular
| people and overall more likely to be used.
|
| The biggest problem with desktop Linux is it's a
| fragmentation of unpolished projects, many of which
| overlapping each other.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Do you say the same of all photoshop alternatives or all
| different AI companies doing the same stuff...or even
| Apple building their own OS instead of providing their
| computers with Windows?
| lelanthran wrote:
| >> How would you coerce or incentivize the developers of
| this DE to work on a more mature project?
|
| > Being a cog in a wheel is always a sacrifice, but also
| more successful. It's more likely to be usable by regular
| people and overall more likely to be used.
|
| > The biggest problem with desktop Linux is it's a
| fragmentation of unpolished projects, many of which
| overlapping each other.
|
| Maybe you didn't realise this, but you didn't actually
| answer the question: exactly _how_ would you convince the
| people having fun writing their own little project to
| switch to being an unpaid employee on someone else 's
| project?
|
| I want to hear the actual sentence you'd utter to
| convince someone to give up a hobby and become an unpaid
| employee.
|
| I mean, what could I possibly say to _you_ that would
| make you give up cycling /TV/reading/art/gaming/$HOBBY
| and spend that time as an unpaid employee for _me_?
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| When did anyone claim this was a hobbyist project? It
| looks pretty serious to me.
| Skeime wrote:
| "Serious" and "hobbyist" are not antonyms.
| exe34 wrote:
| An important distinction, I'm sure, but entirely beside
| the point. It's people scratching an itch in their spare
| time, so we can't expect them to do things the way we
| want. We can choose to ignore them at best.
| Skeime wrote:
| That's what I wanted to say as well. This might look and
| even be serious, but it's still someone's hobby project
| as well. They can do whatever they want.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > When did anyone claim this was a hobbyist project? It
| looks pretty serious to me.
|
| _You_ did, right here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40269321
|
| >>>>> Don't Linux people realize there are a limited
| number of people to work on these things in their spare
| time for free?
|
| How were you expecting someone to interpret _" things in
| their spare time"_? What other meaning did you have in
| mind for that sentence?
|
| Regardless of whether it is a hobby or not, and how that
| differs from your meaning of "spare time", I _still_ want
| to know what it is I could say to you that would make you
| give up your spare time to do unpaid labour for me.
|
| In context, I think this is a legitimate question -
| you've bemoaned the fact of people doing something "in
| their spare time" instead of being an unpaid employee, so
| the question "What can *I* say to *you*
| to make *you* spend *your* spare time being *my* unpaid
| employee?"
|
| still stands
|
| If nothing I could possibly say would convince you,
| that's okay too - just say so, like this "There's nothing
| you can say to make me your unpaid employee".
| JaDogg wrote:
| Even if this is a serious project, particular author of
| this project has a right to build something, and try to
| carve out an audience for it. Nothing wrong with that.
| Intermernet wrote:
| Have you considered that people do things for fun? They
| may not care about some abstract concept of "success"?
| Maybe writing their own DE is exactly the "success" they
| wanted.
|
| Also, being a cog in a wheel does nothing but perpetuate
| the wheel. If the wheel has a flat tire, or the wheel
| isn't round, or the wheel is going in the wrong
| direction, then being a cog provides no benefit to
| anyone.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| You completely avoided my question. How would you make,
| coerce, or incentivize them to work on a different
| project than the one they created or the one they wanted
| to work on initially?
| paiute wrote:
| I slowed down on linux as KDE slowly degraded. I love that
| someone is starting something new, maybe it'll go
| somewhere.
| jstanley wrote:
| > The idea is that it's irresponsible to diffuse the
| limited amount of effort by launching your own desktop
| environment project rather than contributing your talents
| to one of KDE or GNOME.
|
| This is totally wrong.
|
| The free software world is as great as it is precisely
| _because_ everyone is free to start their own project
| without asking for permission.
|
| And I don't think you meant it this way, but can we please
| not make people feel _irresponsible_ for pursuing projects
| they find interesting? That 's an easy way to kill a new
| developer's interest, motivation, and enthusiasm. And
| they're sure not going to pursue projects they _don 't_
| find interesting.
|
| If you have an idea for a project you want to work on:
| please go and do it! I don't care if there are already
| dozens of alternatives. Go forth and create. Maybe you'll
| make the new best version of the thing, maybe you won't.
| But you definitely won't if you don't try. And even if your
| version is no good, if you cultivate a habit of making
| things you want to make then you'll have the best chances,
| and at least in the end you'll have lived a life of
| creation rather than idle consumption.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| > If you have an idea for a project you want to work on:
| please go and do it! I don't care if there are already
| dozens of alternatives. Go forth and create. Maybe you'll
| make the new best version of the thing, maybe you won't.
| But you definitely won't if you don't try. And even if
| your version is no good, if you cultivate a habit of
| making things you want to make then you'll have the best
| chances, and at least in the end you'll have lived a life
| of creation rather than idle consumption.
|
| I agree. Furthermore: It might have some advantages
| compared with other programs even if it does not have all
| of the features or other advantages that the other one
| might have. Also, even if it is no good you or others
| might improve it later, anyways. There may also be
| reasons why one user or programmer might prefer to use
| one program than another, or even someone might use both
| if they really want to do.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > The idea is that it's irresponsible to diffuse the
| limited amount of effort by launching your own desktop
| environment project rather than contributing your talents
| to one of KDE or GNOME.
|
| That's just a different way for some people to complain
| that someone, somewhere, is having fun that they don't
| approve of.
|
| > I don't ever see myself using this DE, but the fact that
| it seems to be one guy's labor of love kind of makes me
| happy.
|
| Yup. I heartily support these kinds of things. I remember
| how much flack Terry Davis used to get on the internet, but
| those flamers have long since been forgotten by history
| while both he and TempleOS have their own Wikipedia entry.
|
| I still have "Use TempleOS daily for a month" on my bucket
| list :-/
| nutrie wrote:
| > That's just a different way for some people to complain
| that someone, somewhere, is having fun that they don't
| approve of.
|
| Yep, it ain't their business, period. It's like talking
| trash on people who like making pottery.
| jzb wrote:
| In a perfect world, perhaps, everybody would align behind a
| single effort, and they would all agree on a vision and be able
| to all coordinate and work together effectively and make use of
| all of the time that everyone has available in the most
| efficient way possible. And they would all have exactly the
| right skills to fill all of the gaps, and there would be no
| overlap.
|
| But we do not live in that world. The idea that each person's
| efforts are interchangeable and can just be dropped into a
| project is mistaken.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| There are many numbers between 1 and 100 my friend.
| grogenaut wrote:
| There are just as many between 0 and 1 my friender friend
| Intermernet wrote:
| Although this is true in a mathematical sense, it's also
| mathematically true that there are exactly 100 times as
| many numbers between 0 and 100 than between 0 and 1. Yay
| infinity!
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Nothing scares me more than people supposing authoritarian
| efficiency is the dream state.
|
| Open source is better because it's disjointed & chaotic. It's
| advantage is that it doesn't get stuck, is moving and
| changing. New ideas happen, are iterated upon. Different
| people try different things catering to different use
| cases/scenarios/users.
|
| Open source covering so much terrain so many ways is its
| strength. It's an enduring base of antifragility, by not
| being one unsinkable vast idea.
| kevindamm wrote:
| The classic exploitation vs exploration trade-off.
| frankthepickle wrote:
| working on a project like this seems like a good way to learn
| and perfect skills you wouldn't be able to if you were working
| on a pipeline of issues for an existing package.
| jjmarr wrote:
| Yep. That's why there are multiple distributions of the Linux
| Distribution Chooser.
|
| https://distrochooser.de/
|
| https://distrochooser.snehit.dev/
|
| https://librehunt.org/
| seanhunter wrote:
| It's very important to regulate what people do in their free
| time, otherwise they might just pick and choose to do whatever
| they want.
|
| Where would it end? Far better to have centrally-approved free
| time activities to ensure those limited people don't get to
| just enjoy themselves but are instead spending their limited
| free time wisely.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| There are a lot more people out there than you realize. You
| might wanna double-check your Dunbar number ..
| StrLght wrote:
| Why _should_ "Linux people" realize that?
|
| Looking at other comments here I feel like you're making a lot
| of assumptions about this project. I'd suggest to zoom out a
| bit instead and find a different perspective.
|
| I see a hobby project being built just for fun. Maybe author
| uses it daily themself, but they aren't aiming it at a larger
| audience, that's for sure.
|
| Not everything has to be pragmatic by your standards and useful
| to millions of people.
| aprilnya wrote:
| Anyone else remember seeing this on OSFT years ago? Kinda
| nostalgic
| kkfx wrote:
| Not to be polemic but... Another floating windows manager ?
|
| It's about time to came back to free tiling (like Emacs/EXWM
| where there is no rigid "tiling model"), since we no not need to
| keep moving windows, we do not need icons covered by any windows,
| overlapping windows and so on.
|
| Most of the time we work on a single maximized application,
| otherwise we have some windows side-by-side to see both and so
| on. Use case for floating tend to be zero. Similar use case for
| most launchers and menus tend to be zero, most of the UIs have
| choose search&narrow over time, from "dashes" to Android
| preference passing though desktop quick-launchers witch are in
| the end a specialized CLI.
|
| The widget model, the floating windows model is failed and proved
| to be even if too many still use it. The DocUIs are the past
| (SUNWs anyone? Postscript UIs?) and the present and the
| foreseeable future...
|
| The DE as a tool proved to be next to useless, we use
| applications and need integration non desktop prove to been able
| to offer beyond very basic cut&paste and some protocols supported
| only by few apps and essentially irrelevant.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| > Most of the time we work on a single maximized application,
| otherwise we have some windows side-by-side to see both and so
| on. Use case for floating tend to be zero.
|
| Try telling [John Siracusa](https://atp.fm/96) that. Seriously,
| I'm with you, but I think there's a significant set of users
| who are _not_.
| kkfx wrote:
| Well, I'm listening it now (so far no anti-tiling, so I can't
| directly answer for now) but I can share my personal journey,
| as nearly all I've started with floating windows, at a
| certain point in time I've realize that's not a nice thing,
| there was a path:
|
| - first, no more icons
|
| - then a quick launcher
|
| - most of the time living in a CLI
|
| - then a first test of tiling with i3 used just in mere tab-
| mode and I've felt the sense of being a bit lost for a moment
| BUT after anything seems smooth enough
|
| - finally the enlightenment switching to Emacs/EXWM
|
| I've experienced a similar path when I ditch my decades-old
| hyper-curated home taxonomy to org-attaching all my files
| accessing them via org-mode, org-roam managed, notes.
|
| I've hesitate MUCH, I've tried for very long time with
| limited set of low importance files and so on. Evolution is
| scaring when it's a kind of revolution and you know it's not
| a game, it can be painful as well, but it's the reason we are
| not in caves anymore, so it's a thing humanity have embraced.
| Not all, of course, I bet a very small minority, but that
| minority is the one who steer the evolution, others follow.
|
| Long story short if we advertise our findings, the reasons
| behind a specific move, and a little bit at a time we spread
| the idea, things will happen. Even if today many say we are
| at the end of the history the history never end. Those who
| think the contrary can talk about themselves, meaning they
| count not to change themselves, and generally are wrong even
| at that, we do change, we like it or not anyway...
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| > Most of the time we work on a single maximized application
|
| I'm not sure who the "we" is here but I don't. I don't go to
| the extent of the sibling comments ATP link (worth a listen
| btw, toward the end of the episode from memory) but I have half
| a dozen windows open at any one time and it's very rare I will
| make something full screen or just two side by side. Even if
| constrained to my laptop screen I will usually have 3 or 4
| windows open and not as just an even split of the screen.
|
| I have colleagues who work in Mac full screen mode and I get
| motion sick watching them move between (and forget the location
| of) different apps and windows.
| kkfx wrote:
| Well, we meaning the most common kind of users, techies or
| newbies or luser all together: most part of humans today use
| a desktop like a browser bootloader, to a point someone have
| invented "the Chromebook" because of that, bringing also a
| limited kind of tab-based UI to the masses.
|
| Allow me a question: when you read your emails how many
| windows you use for that? Personally I use one (notmuch-
| emacs) or two (notmuch+a note), when you buy some stock do
| you use some full screen software (no matter if local or web)
| to see market data or you have many other windows shown at
| the same time? These are just two example of common
| activities. Of course if you are a frontend programmer you
| probably have much more stuff shown all your work time, but I
| bet none of them specially overlapping. That's is the "we" I,
| a bit arrogantly, use above...
|
| > I have colleagues who work in Mac full screen mode and I
| get motion sick watching them move between (and forget the
| location of) different apps and windows.
|
| I use Emacs/EXWM and well, yes, often I forgot some
| buffers/X11 apps open, but who care? The point is that
| anything is at my fingertips. I can easily create windows
| layout, or save-and-restore them, I can easy flip windows
| (mode-line-other-buffer bound to a keystroke) is MUCH more
| efficient than moving the mouse around.
| donatj wrote:
| I _long_ for the days of early MacOS X where there was no
| maximize and the green button just optimized the size of the
| window to its contents. The days of tear-off tools where I
| could pull toolbars and menus out into their own windows and
| just build a little workspace for the exact task I was working
| on.
|
| The maximized single window of Windows stood in stark contrast
| to MacOS X's floating windows. I came from Windows, and it took
| time for my brain to buy in but when it did I tell you, true
| productivity awaited in a way we are direly missing.
|
| Nothing makes me sadder in life than seeing someone using an
| ultra wide with a maximized browser where the contents take the
| center 8th of the screen.
| kkfx wrote:
| Did you try just seeing Plan 9 GUIs? They do more than what
| you ask and better, you do not need to "pull out toolbars",
| you simply create them typing functions names in a relevant
| place. Try Pharo and you'll see and even powerful model, the
| UI is just an element to makes the text active and user-
| programmable for anyone.
|
| If you think about them you'll realize why the widget GUI
| model can't be an answer, it try to offer "some" flexibility,
| but can't be enough, trying to avoid the need of an
| acculturated user, well, the acculturate user is not an
| issue, it's a target. We MUST form them, because IT is the
| nervous system of our society. We should stop making Ford
| model workers as a kind of dumb-terminal meat-based robots,
| we must craft people, humans who bend their desktops to their
| needs.
|
| You can't create anything like that up front, you need
| empowered end users. The current old mac model is rubbish
| today since we are in the era of WebApps, and we are there
| because we need DocUIs, and the current WebUIs are not
| flexible enough on the user side, and that's why we start
| again NotebookUI and alike, modern 2D CLIs, trying to deny we
| need end user programming while we slowly push it again. Old
| Mac like modern Gnome SHell want just to be at the center for
| narcissistic business purposes.
| ropejumper wrote:
| > Plan 9 GUIs
|
| Mostly just Acme, though. The others are kind of mediocre
| and don't have this mechanism.
|
| Oberon does implement something like this system-wide, and
| iirc that was the inspiration for Acme.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Most of the time we work on a single maximized application,
| otherwise we have some windows side-by-side to see both and so
| on._
|
| With a few caveats (some smaller floating windows, always on
| top, occasionally for reference or playing a video I'm half
| paying attention to) I'm with you there. Under windows
| FancyZones is my current tool of choice, effectively splitting
| my 32" screen into two (or occasionally three) by various
| proportions, I don't use Linux on the desktop ATM but last time
| I did tiling window managers were my preference.
|
| Though given how I keep lots open from various trains of
| thought, particularly browser tabs, spread over a few virtual
| desktops, I'm starting to think nested virtual desktops might
| be a thing to look for and try...
|
| While we are here: if anyone can recommend a good tabbed file
| manager for Windows I'd be happy. Dual-pane works for some
| things but not otherwise. I've tried a few over the years, some
| that wrap Explorer, some that are entirely their own thing, and
| they've all proven unstable, take an age to start or open new
| windows, or are very leggy in response to any input, or some
| mix of all three of those problems (yep, more buggy and
| unresponsive than explorer itself!).
| kkfx wrote:
| Well, IMVHO you just look at Eclipse perspectives for
| desktop, meaning something to save and restore a set of apps
| in a relevant layout. Virtual desktops are the poor man's
| handcrafted solution for that. Try to visualize EXWM|a
| fullscreen Emacs, where you just call a function and get
| three windows, your code debug layout, than another for your
| mail reading routine and so on. Do you really need "virtual
| desktop visual"? You just call, search&narrow style or with
| some keybindings, a dedicated function. Personally I use my
| keyboard function keys for that, for instance F7 open my mail
| reading setup (notmuch + org-mode/org-capture notes), F10
| open my Firefox and so on. Being in Emacs running "an app"
| (i.e. a window) or a set of apps is no difference, it's just
| a bit of elisp to be run. This allow MUCH more than simple
| virtual desktops with much less effort everyday.
|
| Oh, sure you have to craft and evolve your desktop, but
| thanks to the user-programming concept Emacs have it's damn
| easy. It's hard only because X11 apps are not made that way,
| but try looking a Pharo (Smalltalk) demo and you'll
| understand.
|
| About file management: I can't suggest a proper file manager
| but I can tell how I manage my files, as org-mode attachments
| accessed via search&narrow styles. I have notes about almost
| anything, let's say one about EDF (the utility provide me
| electricity) in the note I have all relevant contracts infos,
| invoices etc. Well, if I look at a specific invoice just
| hitting a key (org-roam-node-find) and typing EDF offer me
| the main note and many other "sub-notes", a simple title
| textual match. I can tab/enter to se the main note and find
| anything in it, or I can add some text like "november" to get
| results for all EDF stuff with november and add 22 to mach
| 22, they I get the EDF invoice for November 2022. Since it's
| free form text I can place it in other notes, also (limited,
| unfortunately) transcluding it elsewhere. For instance I have
| a note for my home, witch contains anything relevant,
| electricity contracts and bills as well. This way you made
| all your "views" without any GUI limit and without taking
| care of crafting an maintaining a file-and-folders taxonomy.
| File get attached, you can access then via text, you can
| craft org-ql queries to see different results, it's just a
| graph of textual nodes, fully searchable with ripgrep, files
| are just a backend storage stuff. Oh, and you can use it in
| Windows as well. It's a kind of Paperless-ngx without
| paperless rigid structure and limitations. Quick archiving of
| recurrent things, like an utility bill, can be automated via
| scripting.
| MadcapJake wrote:
| I'm stoked for "mosaic tiling":
|
| > a new window management mode which combines the best parts of
| tiling and floating
| https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2023/07/26/rethinking-windo...
| kkfx wrote:
| Honestly I'm not at all convinced, it seems to be another try
| to push childish stuff in modern systems... Yes, _widgets
| based GUIs_ are designed with a specific aspect ratio and
| size in mind, DocUIs tend to be designed with an aspect ratio
| but scale well enough (think about web-apps, not just Emacs
| buffers). The lack of integration is only solvable with the
| classic model "the OS is an application, there is a single
| unique environment for anything", so all apps are written as
| part of the sole system/framework from the most lower level
| to the highest end-user programming.
|
| Something perfectly possible, actually done in the past, with
| very nice results, see just for instance
| https://youtu.be/RQKlgza_HgE to not go too much back in
| history toward Xerox Smalltalk workstations. but also
| something commercial big player do dislike, since in this
| model you can only pay the programmer, not the
| program/service so no giants only competition...
|
| Text and relative text rendering is the most flexible and
| integrable tool we have so far, and the web itself is a good
| proof and show as well the limits of trying not giving power
| to the end user.
|
| On "modern desktops", honestly Ubuntu Unity was a thing
| because the side bar was just a quick launcher with some
| icons, something usual on a good place since we have larger
| and larger monitor with less and less vertical space, and the
| top bar was as small as fluxbox at al. Gnome SHell tried the
| narcissistic way, forcing people to see animations just for
| common windows switching witch surely have a kind of WOW
| effects for the kids, but far less interesting to work all
| day. Ubuntu also pushed the HUD, or a way to replace the apps
| menu with a CLI search&narrow style, witch was essentially
| the same principle than dash and quicklaunchers in general
| AND the Emacs M-x model. However in Emacs anyone can craft a
| function in a snap and run it through M-x, in modern desktops
| it's a hard, long thing with much boilerplate. Just to create
| a .desktop, witch is a kind of functions skeleton in the
| Emacs model, you need a dedicated file only for that, put in
| a specific place, than the code somewhere else etc. People do
| like seen beautiful gardens, but do want quick things, so the
| path of regulate the world in advance all modern system try
| is a failure in advance.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| > The lack of integration is only solvable with the classic
| model "the OS is an application, there is a single unique
| environment for anything", so all apps are written as part
| of the sole system/framework from the most lower level to
| the highest end-user programming.
|
| This is one reason why I wanted to design an operating
| system, although I also wanted to change many things from
| what other systems do, although there are also some
| similarities to features of other systems.
|
| My ideas do involve better integrations between parts of
| the system (although different parts can still be
| individually reimplemented and replaced), and my ideas
| involve both low-level and high-level programming.
|
| > Gnome SHell tried the narcissistic way, forcing people to
| see animations just for common windows switching witch
| surely have a kind of WOW effects for the kids, but far
| less interesting to work all day.
|
| Sometimes animations may be helpful if objects are moving
| around on the screen and you want to easily see where they
| are moving to, but a lot of the animations are worthless
| and I would rather not see them. If an option is added to
| allow disabling all animations (and to adjust their speed),
| then that will be a good idea.
|
| > However in Emacs anyone can craft a function in a snap
| and run it through M-x, in modern desktops it's a hard,
| long thing with much boilerplate.
|
| It does look like a good idea, if anyone can craft a
| function and run it (which is also an idea of what I might
| intend in my operating system design). I don't use a
| desktop environment on my computer and do not use .desktop,
| although some programs do.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| It is a interesting idea, although there may be some problems
| too. Maybe it will help, though.
|
| Note that X window system already has the ability for
| programs to specify a minimim and maximum size hint, aspect
| ratio, and other things. This isn't new (maybe in Wayland it
| is new, but in X it isn't new since it is already there).
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Awesome. I've not tried this one. I've tried almost all the other
| ones though like Gnome, XFCE, Plasma, Fluxbox, the one that
| doesn't use a mouse much, Unity, FWVM/Crystal, and a bunch more
| that I can't even remember.
|
| Have to admit that even though I liked XFCE the best from the
| Linux world, I still like MacOS the best because it is the most
| stable, the most consistent, and has almost no bugs, even if it
| has less features. Microsoft is too ugly to use at all.
| greggsy wrote:
| As someone who reads and writes documents all day, I just want a
| desktop that helps me visualise a stack of messy pages, books and
| things like calculators or clocks on a desktop. Doesn't need to
| be VR, a top-down view would do.
|
| There have been a few cheap looking, janky and slow demos in the
| 'oughts and late 90's, but I'm confident that personal computing
| is able to do this without significant performance loss, and it's
| not such a massive leap from tiled window managers today.
|
| I firmly believe that our current way of managing and interacting
| with information could benefit from an extra dimension: ragged
| corners, thickness, persistent placement on a desk, and other
| attributes that make a paper object much easier to identify,
| locate and differentiate in real life, compared to a bunch of
| documents named _something something.pdf /docx_
| postmodest wrote:
| That model of visual-memory-centered skeumorphism died in the
| 90's. Because for a majority of people, they get no benefit
| from persistent visual placement of content, or visual
| differentiation of documents, and can't cope with the "desktop"
| in REAL life, much less the metaphor that was "every desktop UX
| between the Mother of All Demoes and the death of even trying
| that was the iPhone" now people interact with the world through
| vertically siloed apps which all have different management
| models for content, and make it easier to charge you feudal
| rent on what would otherwise be your own possessions.
|
| And what especially galls me is that if you suggest this
| "skeumorphic" model to OSS devs, they act like you're crazy.
| Even if it's something simple like "the Indigo Magic Desktop's
| scalable line art icons that had animated states". Suggesting
| visual interfaces seems to grossly offend people who develop
| software.
| underlipton wrote:
| >Because for a majority of people, they get no benefit from
| persistent visual placement of content, or visual
| differentiation of documents
|
| You say that, but I don't think it's true. (I think you even
| argue against it later in the comment but I'm not sure??)
| invisitor wrote:
| This is why I think people loved the concept of the "desktop"
| in Windows. Those that filled it with icons, in their own rows,
| columns, grids, corners, full of games, applications,
| documents. To me it is one of Windows's biggest successes. And
| yet some dismiss it as unecessary and even remove the feature
| altogether. I think it should be embraced even more, make the
| messy desktop a first class citizen for people to organize
| their thoughts, with ways to interact with it without having to
| minimize all windows. Windows 10's menu did this in a neat-
| enough way with its customizable menu, what happened to that?
| walteweiss wrote:
| When I moved to macOS back in 2011 (OS X back then), from
| Windows, I was shocked how much the OS pushes me to organise
| my digital world better than the mess I had in Windows. I
| never have piles of stuff in my digital life, it's
| uncluttered now.
|
| These days I use Linux with both swaywm on a laptop with Arch
| do-it-yourself Linux, and mainstream Gnome on a Fedora
| desktop (workstation edition) with almost no fiddling. Both
| desktop metaphors allow me to organise my digital world very
| well.
|
| From that point of view the mess of icons on a Windows
| desktop looks horrible to me. I dread the very thought of
| using Windows ever again. I dread I'll be given the locked
| Windows laptop and forced to use it.
|
| I know it's not that bad. Especially, if you just need to
| perform some tasks in some GUI apps, especially if those are
| Microsoft apps anyway. Still, I have the fear. My Linux
| familiarity created me a very vulnerable place of comfort and
| possibly an illusion the things would be that way forever
| (for me). Which can be true, actually.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| I'm curious about why you're referring to the Windows desktop
| in particular. Don't pretty much all OSes do that?
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| I'm working on a modern 3d filesystem, ala fsn/fsv, (in godot
| 4.3), as part of a bigger project. I think the spatial
| opportunities will scratch that itch for some people.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| I find it remarkable that there really doesn't seem like a lot
| of momentum to innovate the desktop. I'm dead sick of Windows
| and Mint is just a carbon copy.
|
| I want several, hard, discrete desktops. I want one that I can
| toss a bunch of graphics files onto that has something kin to
| "Fences" so I don't have to navigate the file explorer. And
| with the flick of a button I can move to a different desktop
| that I've set up for work, one for play and etc... I think
| Ubuntu used to have something similar, though I wouldn't be
| surprised if it actually behaves much like Windows and is just
| a window manager.
|
| I do a lot on the desktop to specifically avoid the file
| manager because file managers seem to be intrinsically
| unnavigable. And then there's inconsistencies between
| applications which is enough to press me ever closer to an
| aneurysm. Going between the Win10 file explorer and one from
| Win95 a la ImageJ is awful.
|
| Shit, with a system like that I reckon you could almost get
| away without a file explorer.
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