What Features Would Make a "Better" GUI?

Rudyatek asks: "When it comes to desktop OSs, there has been much talk about 'the end of the desktop', 'reinventing the GUI', etc. Usability has become increasingly important as we battle the ugly UIs of Windows and X11, and watch companies like Red Hat and Ximian try to improve them. But I'm curious if anyone has any clear ideas on what a truly 'better' UI would really be like? As a hobby OS programmer I have a great interest in alternative OS ideas, and this is one that I hear more complaining about than actual ideas. Anyone have ideas?"

Comments

Readable fonts

[lightspawn]

Maybe you can play around with text files to tweak your system's fonts, but most users have neither the technical expertise nor the inclination.

If you release a distro with unreadable font, people don't say "hey, this distribution isn't configured very well". They say "Linux is hard to read".

Oh, and can we please have checkboxes that make it obvious whether they're checked or not?

They all suck.

[GiMP]

Everything out there now sucks.

There have been some neat ideas tossed around, including those with are not only 3d.. but '4d', allowing you to track file and system history through a 3d interface.

Eventually we will have commonity hardware that can display 3d (opposed to hardware which currently only displays on a 2d surface).. at which point we will need a truely 3d interface, we should develop this interface now... rather than waiting for the hardware before building the software. History has proven that progress is best done with software pushing the development of hardware, not the other way around... current hardware is fast enough to write software that could be viewed from a 3d display, even if such displays aren't available yet :)

There are a few features I'd suggest for 2d widget s like those with GTK..

The tabs in GTK are done terribly wrong as they are modelled after Microsoft's equally bad tab widget. If there are more tabs than can be displayed, then the tabs should either create a new row (causing problems with nested tabs which shouldn't ever be used anyhow), or it should provide a menu for the selection of the hidden tabs like with SGI's Motif (which is different than plain Motif).

Close buttons for windows should be on the upper left side of the window.. I'm not sure why Microsoft changed this (and hence creating a whirlpool effect); Windows 3.1 had a upper-left close button, MacOS has it, MWM (and clones/spinoffs), etc. It much faster, easier, and more natural to have it on the upper left. I believe Microsoft's intention was that it should be difficult and slow to close windows.. something that may help novices from making mistakes (which is why MWM and clones, including Windows 3.1 require it to be double-clicked); however, I find that a lot of people new to computers cannot find the close button due to it's location... advanced users are just annoyed or learn to use keyboard shortcuts.

Speakers of languages based on latin are instinctfully drawn to the upper-left.. this is why having a menu in the upper-left is more effective than one in the lower-left (Microsoft Windows 95, per default). This can be different for those who read/write languages from right->left or from bottom->top. I believe Microsoft put their menu on the lower-left as it was initially designed to be 'supplimental' to the desktop icons which would be more prominently placed in the upper-left. However, desktop icons are a bad idea.

Desktop icons are a bad idea. There should be a distinction between the execution layer and the runtime layer. A menu-bar which provides the execution layer then a 'viewport' for the runtime layer. Putting launchers in the runtime 'viewport' causes confusion between the runtime and execution layers. Think of a panel in Gnome as the 'execution layer', this is where programs are executed from.. and then the desktop where windows are allowed as the 'runtime layer'. This also means that programs should not be allowed to overlap the panel.

I must agree; however, that the PalmOS interface is quite adequate considering some of it's defiance of some of my suggestions (desktop icons , for instance). However, their desktop icons could be easily replaced with a 'spring-loaded' folder such as in MacOS.. this would provide the abstraction of the 'execution' and 'runtime' layers by providing a panel, while still being usable on a small display. This 'spring-loaded' folder while minimized would sit along the bottom of the display for easy access while the user is utilizing any programs within the 'runtime' layer.

A distinction between 'runtime' and 'execution' layers should require that the 'runtime' layer cannot overlap the viewport of the 'execution' layer, but the 'execution' layer's programs should be able to visually overlap programs contained within the 'runtime' layer.. as would be necessary for menus or usage on small displays as found on PDAs. :)

What's your target?

[BSDevil]

I've seen a fair number of people mention that they want something closer to the command-line, and more involved file-system management. That may be fine for you, but what about for my grandma who just wants to use word, outlook, and her knitting pattern designer. She dosen't want anything to do with the command line - she wants a (virtual) button to press that will "make it go" and run what she means.

So when you say a better GUI, I challenge you to qualify what you mean. Do you want a better GUI for the programmers and hardcore command-line-junkies out there, or do you want somthing for the majority of users who don't give a shit about the command line or the filesystem, and who just want to "make it go?"

Fos us who like the line (and like things like gcc, regexps, or **nix), then maybe a GUI with command lines everywhere is what we need. But all my grandma (or Joe Sixpack) needs is a bunch of buttons - like (as someone suggested) PalmOS. Or a Mac.