Slashdot Mirror
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?"
A utility called PaneKiller serves as an add on for your Windows Task bar. You can directory surf, detach views (like KDE), plus much more. This utility helped me alot when I coded for a living.
PaneKiller
try http://www.truelaunchbar.com/
The concept of lifestreams seems interesting and is an approage really different from the "classic" desktop.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
OK so I have a small cheat sheet taped to the monitors to remind me of the infrequently used combinations but I remember most of them.
I have NO icons on my windows desktop as I think it looks horrible, they're always covered by various app windows anyway - and it seems that people with dozens of icons spend ages looking for the one they want. Most of the time I'm not using the mouse so it makes me quicker getting work done.
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
I completely agree with you: start menus are a pain in the ass. Every program takes a dump in there during installation, and it's pretty hard to come up with a good organizational system.
I use a simple program called kbstart on my Win2000 box. It's awesome. Although most aspects of UNIX aren't designed for usability, tool abbreviations are. It's much easier to type ALT-ENTER to bring up my kbstart prompt and type "PS". The alternative would be to do Start: Programs: Adobe Photoshop 6.
So I guess I'm saying, as far as launching goes, the future of GUI's is... no GUI :)
--You could try using Ratpoison and screen. Of course, there are a number of projects that seek to change the way various information is handled/presented/etc. See, for example, Chandler, Haystack,Gnome Storage, and WinFS. These all seem to be addressing the fundamental problem of managing ever growing amounts of information on personal computers.
Take a look at this attempt at a 3D desktop. http://www.3dtop.com/what.htm Don't know if I would use it all the time, but it's an interesting idea.
Litestep can be used as a replacement for Windows Explorer or in addition to it if you want. It is completely (and I mean completely) customizable and has alot of modules out there to control winamp, virtual desktops, and other things. Litestep
LaunchBar for Mac OSX comes pretty close to this, you just have to hit then type some part of the name and there it is. I can no longer work well without it. If anyone knows of a similar thing for Windows, let me know and I'll install it on my 'other' machine.
Karma: It's not just a good idea. It's the law.
My first thought is that there's something wrong with the way you work, and that you you haven't figured out how to organize your Start menu. Assuming that's not the case though... :)
I've had some fun reconfiguring my Windows desktop using using Samurize. It won't give you a 3D interface or a voice commands or any of that, but it does allow you to provide links to your important applications in a different way. For the true geek, it also allows the embedding of various graphs and system monitors.
Numerous screenshots are available on the site, but they may not all be work-appropriate, so browse wisely (the main page is perfectly safe).
You can also write a batch file to take the args in and pass them as needed.
IIRC, the CL-parameter deal is limited to 10 parameters/filenames. You could probably hack together a script that would take more files, dump the names to a textfile, and then run the textfile with your chosen app one line at a time...
GTRacer
80% GUI, 20% CLI, 100% ME
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
I use ObjectBar, a little taskbar reskinning program by Stardock. Its part of a greater suit of programs called ObjectDesktop, that basically includes a whole bunch of Windows-skinning programs. I don't use them though, they're kind of resource intensive. Object Bar is bad enough, but the functionality it gives me is irreplacable.
:)
What I did for myself was take an existing theme (Developer link and orignal shot), and rework it to what I liked. Its quite nice IMO Combined with sysmetrix (system data program), it gives me pretty much everything I need. I've got a thin bar at the bottom with Sysmetrix stacked ontop (and skinned to match seamlessly). On that bar, I've got 4 menus: System (Run, Find, Regedit, Console, Logoff, Reboot, Shutdown, etc), Settings (Win Update, Add/Remove progs, Display and System properties, Control panel shortcut, etc), Drives (HDs, CDs, floppies, MyDocs, etc, all with popup lists of their content), and LAN (network settings and access to other comps on the network). I've also got two shortcuts I use a lot (My Computer and Firebird), and the local time.
Of course, above this I have sysmetrix which i've tricked out to the nuts. It gives me CPU usage, CPU speed, RAM load, swap/virt mem loads, temperatures (CPU, CPU diode, case, outside), HD space, Network load (plus transfer rate and total data transfered), one click mail (checks for me every 10 min) and trash access, Win Uptime, and longformat date with three different timezones (GMT/EST/PST - i'm MST, which is on the bar below) and more!
Then i've got my popup sidebar, which shows pretty much everything else. Its got the systray and current applications (since its vertical, I can stack tons more programs into it. Plus, the width of the bar scales with program names, to a point). Then i've got a section with personalized shortcut menus, that I absolutely love. Its got primary menus (Games, Media, Utility, etc) that slide out into sub categories (Unreal Tournament, Media, Utilities, etc) that have drop down lists of commonly used programs. It gives me access to pretty much any program on my HD, but its sorted by program type rather than name, which is something I hate about the start menu. Speaking of which, the start menu popup sits above my own menus, just incase I ever need it (which isn't often). The best thing about the menu though, is that I can change anything I want. Sometimes, if i'm working on a project, i'll give it its own shortcut or side menu. I can drop in links to relevant programs, have popups to certain folders on my HD, etc. Very handy, and it only takes a few minutes to set up (templates are your friend!)
The thing I find lacking about traditional "Start" menus or other pre-defined ways of accessing a system is that they're made by someone else. The best system will always be one made by you, because you know what information you need at your fingertips. So all you really need to do is find a customizable way of organizing things (for your OS), and then go crazy. Yeah, it can take a while to get everything working just right, but the end result is so worth it. Not having to deal with the hassles and frustrations of finding a program or piece of info is priceless IMO, so I look at any time customizing my desktop as an investment.
That said, alternative interfaces would be pretty damned cool. I know it was mentioned in a previous post, but the way Minority Report worked (hand gestures) was very, very cool. I think adding more physical interfaces to our computers will be the next big step. Hell, i'm already addicted to mouse gestures in Fir
There's this thing for windows called "MCL", that is, "Mike's Command-Line" :)
It rolls up to a small button in the corner of your screen, and when you click it, you can type out whatever command you want- it has basic macro ability, etc. I'd love this sort of thing in Linux, it would be great to have it combined with full scripting support, bash-completion, etc. Still, in windows it is good enough. I enjoy typing a letter or two, getting what I want, and having MCL roll back up to a tiny dot I dont need to care about.
I dont tend to use it anymore, though. Mostly I just have everything I use frequently start automatically at boot
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Typically you can click-n-drag the selected files to the shell's window and it will be as if you'd typed the filenames. This works at least for Windows's cmd and most Linux xterm clones.
Litigious bastards
I currently use two monitors, both filled to the brim with icons and several drawers on each desktop.
I think you are the problem. You need to organize yourself better. If two monitors are full of icons, then I have to wonder why you consider all of them so worthwhile you can't remove some of them.
I've walked by coworkers's desks and seen Windows desktops with icons lined up all the way to the right of the screen. This isn't a rarity. I can't understand how people work this way.
Organization and priority is the key. You've got four basic spots to put stuff. Menu, panel, desktop and folders. Put your applications in the menu, with links to your five most frequently used programs on the panel. The menu should be organized by category and frequency of use. Don't accept the default locations, use the menu editor! The desktop should not contain any applications at all. It should contains icons for drives, devices and projects. The latter is the key. Organize your computing into projects, and put all your data into hierarchical folders. There's also the fifth possibility of "the command line". There's no reason for non-GUI programs to be in your menu system. For instance, I use "tidy" all the time, but have never once considered making an icon for it. If you use KDE, the Alt-F2 key is your friend.
Finally, dump anything you don't use. Do you really need icons for five different music players, six different text editors, and a handful of CD burners and rippers? Do you have a document you're finished creating? Take it off the desktop and file it away!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
This is easy to do in Win2000/XP. Right click the taskbar and choose Toolbars > Address. It'll let you execute any command in your system path, open a folder or file by typing its full name, or load your browser of choice by tying a URL.
Try Total Commander. It has two panels for listing files and you can set it up so that anything you type goes into a little command box at the bottom.
Pressing + brings up a file selection box, type *.jpg (or whatever), then type in your command like rm (or whatever), hit ctrl+return and it will perform it on all the selected files.
Very cool program, I haven't used windows explorer or a single command line in a long time.