Alternatives to Icons and Start Menus?

Cibressus Lybir asks: "We've had icons, folders and menu's for a long time. I currently use two monitors, both filled to the brim with icons and several drawers on each desktop. My Start Menu, on my Windows machine is never used, because it's flimsy and too hard to navigate around. In movies you always see cool 3D desktops with stuff flying around and some kind of cool gesture or spoken word used to start up applications. The future will only bring more applications, more icons, and more time spent navigating around launching your programs. What are your ideas for the future of desktops? How can we rid our selves of the icon jungles that we call our GUI's?"

Comments

i call it the command line

[cpex]

all you have to do is type the name of the program you want to run... wait

Re:i call it the command line

[Zork the Almighty]

And what's the first thing people will try ?
C:\STARTMENU

Re:i call it the command line

[damien_kane]

The luser with the CLI on a call to his ISP's tech support line...

"Sir, please click on the big blue e"

luser@localhost:~/$ the big blue "e"
-bash: the: command not found
luser@localhost:~/$ the internet
-bash: the: command not found
luser@localhost:~/$ shut up you stupid computer i know you have the internet because i'm paying $24.95 a month to AOL for it
> oh, so now you don't even want to talk to me?
-bash: shut: command not found
luser@localhost:~/$ man you suck
No manual entry for you
No manual entry for suck

I think I have the solution

[kurosawdust]

In addition to icons on desktops, we could have a small text box at the bottom of the screen wherein you could simply type the name of the program you want to run or document you want to view, thereby limiting your "launch repertoire" only to the capacity of your own brain! I think I will call it..."Type It And- Holy Shit, There It Is!"...XP.

*rushes to patent office*

Recycle Bin

[MImeKillEr]

How can we rid our selves of the icon jungles that we call our GUI's?"

Easy - drag everything to the Recycle Bin. Right-click on it and select 'Empty Recycle Bin'

Problem solved.

Re:Recycle Bin

[dtfinch]

Or if you're a packrat like me who never deletes everything, create a folder called "old" on your desktop and drag across everything you haven't used in the last week. I probably have 10000 files in there, all dragged over from previous desktops, and nested in a fashion like old\old\old\.

Same for the start menu. All those things look so important, but you won't miss them. And if you do you can always pull them back out.

Pick up your mouse

[Uma Thurman]

and start talking to it.

(In Scottish accent) "Hello Computer"

Re:The future...

[the_truk_stop]

When giving the finger to your computer monitor, reboots it.

I would think that you'd give your computer the finger after it reboots.

Drawers?

[Tom7]

What the hell are drawers? Are you using GEM ?

I call it cleaning up your damn desktop

[NickFusion]

"Is there some replacement for the dining room table? My dining room table is full of mail and bills and dirty dishes.

I'm wondering if there some kind of 3D replacement, perhaps a series of dining room tables stacked on top of each other. I'm thinking there must be an eaiser way to find bills and mail and dishes when I need them..."

Sheesh. Clean it up, get organized. Those icons don't put themselves on the desktop...well, ok, some of them do...but not those other ones...you put them there, just clean them up.

Or make a folder called "Rug", and sweep them all under it.

Re:I call it cleaning up your damn desktop

[Kethinov]

root@localhost # mkdir /rug
root@localhost # mv /bin rug/
root@localhost # mv /etc rug/
root@localhost # mv /home rug/
root@localhost # mv /usr rug/
root@localhost # reboot

The system is going down NOW!

*minute later*

Decompressing Linux kernel...
Booting initrd...
Warning: Kernel panic, too much shit under the /rug!

Re:Direct Brain Interface

[wolrahnaes]

thinking of opening an application or document

This would never catch on. Imagine this scenario:

Bored while in conference room at work, start thinking about porn.
Machine hooked up to the projector picks up the info from your wireless brain input device.

I think you can figure where it would go from here.

calling up the needed information/documents/applications through hand gestures

This might work better, and for similar reasons.
Gesture by making a fist and moving it up and down quickly, the computer opens your fave porn site.

Damn my mind is in the gutter tonight!