Slashdot Mirror
Sun Wants to Make Linux 3D
gruenz writes "Linux Planet writes in this article about a project inside Sun developing "an experimental 3D successor to Java Desktop that they believe will change the way we interact with computers." A demo is available from Sun. 'In the demonstration, Jonathan Schwartz, vice president of Sun's software group, increases the transparency of a window so that you can see through it, turns a window on its side so that it sits at the edge of a screen like a book on a book shelf, turns a window completely around and leaves a note on the back, and takes a database of CDs presented as physical CDs, that you flip through, reading the labels, just as you would with real CDs, until you locate the one you want.'" It's called Looking Glass, in case you've heard that name before.
/Obscure?
.... they might start by posting the video in non-proprietary format!
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
If you look at the XDirectFB screenshots you can see what it looks like using the DirectFB X-server :-) The server has the ability to make windows transparent/opaque by degree as focus is lost/gained or hidden/shown. Very nice :-)
:-)
If this gets the go-ahead (and if it's open source), it'll be even nicer. The DirectFB X-server is still a standard 2-D environment, with all that entails. I can't see much use for attaching sticky notes to the "backs" of windows, but I'm sure someone will come up with one
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
This would be very nice to see. But I wonder if this is something that may leave the average home user confused.
I believe the ultimate goal of Linux desktops should be to make the computer as easy to use as a Mac.
Andy
Is make a processor that will run it!
Where's my 3GHz Sparc?
This puppy would be lightning fast !!
Seriously, isn't this what MS tried to do (the literal objects representing files and environment, not the 3D part)? They're probably trying to beat Apple to the punch (this is a plausible, and, by many, expected course for their 'ease-of-use' direction; maybe a new WM for iMacs, only?), but how quickly we forget Microsoft's little "innovation", ten years earlier.
Been there... seen this... downloaded the video months ago...
Telcos have alot of dark fibre in the States. Most people assume that's optical fibre...but it's actually moral fibre.
Pages and pages of "data" culminating in the punchline of Scott McNealy flailing about and screaming "I am God here!"
When Zero Cool and his 'leet group of hackers infiltrated the Gibson. That's what this reminds me of, infinite ammounts of stupid. Except better. Sort of.
I have used it, and it sure beats using a plain 2D KDE (even though the lovley kermamik interfaces looks 3D). I just hope sun decides to be innovative unlike the Gnome team who remove features, really annoying when you can't extract files from the context menu because the Gnome developers thought it would make it "bloated"
I have a fetish for traffic cones
Great, now we're going to get UI innovations from Sun? That's the last thing Linux needs: Sun has no history of doing _anything_ at all interesting in terms of UI work.
...). Hey, let's not do a search engine, let's do a linear search using fancy graphics. Woopee!
And secondly who wants to flip through CDs like in real life looking for the one you want? Aargh. Hey, let's emulate a frustration of the real world ("Where's my All Saints' CD?") on the desktop. Hey, let's ignore any metadata we might have about the CD (artist, title, genre,
Linux does not need some fancy graphics on the desktop to make an impact.
John.
It's a Unix system!
I think this is a very cool development. Don't get me wrong. But this is not what Linux needs right now.
There is a huge push to make Linux a true desktop OS that non-tech-savvy people can use. I take the example of the typical Slashdot mom--she can probably open Outlook or IE and perform all of her e-mailing and Web surfing tasks just fine. Present her with KDE or Gnome, though, and it's scary and unfamiliar. And all of this fails to break Microsoft's strangehold on the desktop which is as much a product of Linux's unwillingness to adopt a unified GUI standard as it is Microsoft's anticompetitive practices.
How about developers concentrate on two things--firstly, agreeing on a cohesive Linux desktop experience and forget about the Gnome/KDE fragmentation/flamewars that plague the Linux community, and secondly, writing the next generation of desktop apps for Linux, getting those perfected and at a level of usability and stability to rival Microsoft's offerings.
It's not a 3D desktop that going to get Linux on desktops. It's going to be a solid, stable, easy-to-use standarized GUI experience with mature, full-featured apps that surpass the functionality that Microsoft's and other vendor's Win32 apps bring to the table.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
3D graphics on the accelerated cards without video drivers? Anyone? I mean, at least for the most interesting news would be to hear about opensource, fully functional video drivers for major cards. By itselt, 3D desktops are not original ideas, lots of people have good ideas about them but only if Sun or anyone else could push nVidia or ATI to provide what we really need (and miss) in Linux, then I'd be impressed.
A 3D window manager is a dumb idea. Stop wasting money on it!
ok, now imagine it written entirely in Java....
that statement just made 6 developers here gag and spit coffee...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm sure everyone is familiar with the "killer app" theory, if your not then it goes like this. Every operating system must have an application that will make users buy the computer just to use it. For apple it was Visicalc, for DOS it was Lotus. If this 3D desktop works, then it could very well be the definative "killer app" for linux.
Agreed, unless they come up with a way to increase productivity, which this doesn't seem todo, why are they wasting time on it?
Let's see, 3d graphics of CD's or a simple text field where I type in 'Bandname' and hit enter.
Add to that the fact that 3d seems best navigated with a mouse and suddenly you realize that you're moving away from a keyboard interface which works better than a pointing device.
-- taking over the world, we are.
If you saw the video you'd notice that he talks about this being open source, or at least with an "open community". This being Sun, that probably means the Sun public license, but I still doubt they throw that much money at it.
Is it just me, or has sun lost its credibility in the open source community? They seem to be very ambivalent about Open Source, and I no longer trust them. Linux: Sun says yes/no/maybe Java License: Sun can't decide SCO: Sun has a relationship with these scuzballs, or maybe not. I'll just wait for an unambiguously open 3D desktop.
Just think how confusing it would be when the machine locks up and all the windows start spinning like a ballet company on crack.
I can't believe this. Sun has resorted to this old pipe dream!?!
If Sun wants to know about 3d user interfaces, look in 3d games. They have 3d engines readily available but they still use 2d interfaces? KISS
Put the resources towards someting that can actually do the company some good. I don't know what that is, but it couldn't be this.
I wonder what Sun's shareholders are thinking right about now.
I really think this interface looks great and runs smoothly, but I've heard the phrase "[...] change the way we interact with computers" way too many times by now. Apple's OS X is the most "modern" user interface I've used, and it's still just a bunch of windows and a pointer. How much can you change in the GUI without confusing Joe Sixpack too much?
Martin
"A 3D window manager is a dumb idea. Stop wasting money on it!"
How is trying to replicate the natural interface that we use every day a dumb idea? Do you stick every piece of paper that is on your desk to your face? I think it's much more natural to reach for something you want than to maximise/minimize it.
As long as you can navigate faster and easier with it (after some adjustment period of course), I'm all for it!
:-P
However, 3D desktops usually fall because of usability problems. Not really surprising, as most people (I know there are peculiar non-standard devices that deviate) are still using a 2D device (mouse) to visualize information on a 2D surface (monitor) to navigate in a 3D environment. Guess where the obstacle / incompatiblity with the I/O devices usually lies...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
This is the kind of thing which has to be done, yet no one wanted to do it because it wasnt profitable.
Linux needs a facelift if its to be successful on the Desktop. Let's thank Sun for wasting their money becase now Linux can take on and beat Longhorn.
This is less of a waste of money than mono
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
I saw a demo of Looking Glass. It rocked. And yes, I do see potential uses for this technology, not least for some serious storage management. Or complex document management. Or large EDA tool integration. The possibilities are fascinating, and don't tell me you "don't see them".
But, this demo was so long ago, by now I thought every nerd on earth knew about it. I am surprised Slashdot psoted it as news.
Sigged!
StarDock's WindowBlinds and its related FX software can 'shrink' a window to the desktop. You are supposed to soon be able to hold a shift key and shrink the window while keeping the content interactive.
Unfortunately I can't find a link describing that part of the software right now. It hasn't been put out as a full release yet.
I find that more useful than turning a window on its side. But not useful enough I actually use it.
The Java desktop system is really nothing but a branding strategy by Sun. Its basically a linux box with Java and Staroffice. The "Java" tag is an attempt to benefit from the hype around Java.
But if Sun is going to use this as a platform to innovate, it could help Linux a lot. Sun has the marketing dollars to push the adoption of this platform, especially in emerging markets where Windows isn't entrenched already. We could see a whole new generation of users who are more familiar with Linux via JDS, than with Windows.
more about me
Completely agree. I want speed. Make something that feels like BeOS running on a slamming fast CPU, only make it feel that way when running on a 1Ghz processor. Then I will be interested, until then I will run whatever is fastest, most consistent, and stable.
why do i seem to remember reading this same story and watching that same video a few months ago?
NERDS!!!!
I will not be impressed until I can see the Code. I could imagine some real innovation behind that if it where to be released into the wild. Until I see the code it is about as interesting to me as the next Microsoft product release.
Got Code?
And additionally, there are a few windoze crappies of that kind : google
The example of flippin CD cases is the exact proof why this tech sucks : I'm moving away from pgysical cases towards a hierarchical, multi-layered view of my mp3s with iTunes.
Sun, read my lips : I don't want to handle physical objects on a computer screen
here's another google for ya.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
I certainly hope they make out better than the last famous Looking Glass. For those who won't know, Looking Glass was a video game company who made Thief and System Shock, amongst others. They made excellent games, but didn't excel on the business side of things apparently and went bankrupt a few years back.
Please stop watching Minority Report. That was fiction. Fic-shun.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
"Would a 3D desktop be more difficult to use ?"
I don't believe the word diffucult describes it best but complicated. Linux should try to make it as uncomplicated to use as a mac. Put my little old mom on a 3D desktop and she would be lost.
Evolution or ID?
I can just imagine the 3D version of Clippy.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
I didnt see the movie yet ( it takes forever to load (did sun get slashdotted? :P)) But I still like the command line more than that stuff I think. I even like the command line better than gnome/kde/enlightenment/...
:P)
And, since I run on older hardware, it probably wont run very well on my computer anyway.
I mean upgrading if it gives you better productivity, ok thats cool, but upgrading for eye candy is just plain stupid.
(I wonder if it comes with Emacs BTW (or vi)
You're old school? I beta tested the motherf***ing abacus!
Web Book and Web Forager were tools created by Xerox Parc which allowed you to organize webpages into books, which could be placed onto a bookshelf or table.
You could interact with the pages, and move them around the desktop. You could flip through the pages like a real book. This paper was done in 96.
Hopefully this 3D desktop idea is so successful that it becomes a step towards replaces monitors with some type of wireless goggles. Only then do I believe that the UI will be truly revolutionized.
Sun seems to send out two different messages at the same time...
On one hand: it is a conceptual software that is not intended for market ("experimental proof of concept", and the quote from Tom Murphy "I think in and of itself, it has a big wow effect. It's cute to see these things like 3D animations of stuff moving around and think of collaborative space, but how does it make my business more productive?")
On the other hand: it seems that Sun is quite serious about Looking Glass ("rapidly working to formalize the implementation", "Sun has made it clear they want Looking Glass to be a part of the open source community and to get open source community buy-in on the project").
I think that Sun has not made up their own minds yet - it will be quite interesting to see what Sun is going to do next, how the open source community will respond, and most importantly what does Sun really want out of Looking Glass? In the long run, more market shares, yes, but how?
melted core, please sacrifice additional proscessors to continue.
The original generic sig.
Some people from Sun demoed this at my university last week. Looks nice, felt snappy. Not sure how useful it is, though.
By the way... the OpenGL compositor used in OSX can do this already.
Well I say good on Sun for trying something which hasn't been done successfully before. So it's an old idea; video phone is an old idea that's only just about coming into everyday use and even then only by a few, however I have no doubt that it will be widespread sometime in the future. Other things humans didn't get right straight away: flight, television, radio, lightbulb. So to the nay sayers I say wait and see and to Sun I say good on you. At least this company is spending money on innovation and not litigation.
----
Why was this posted? Does anyone even "need" to use their applications in a 3d-environment? I think it would be mainly frustrating and slow. (java, anyone?) A speedy terminal and a lean windowmanager (xfce) is my cup of tea.
Dont just do something, stand there! -ESR
I dunno...the 2D version fits a lot better in my CD case.
Some of the stuff they are describing actually sounds somewhat similar to what we have now, for example "turns a window on its side so that it sits at the edge of a screen like a book on a book shelf". This is really little more than rolling a window up to its title bar and rotating it 90deg to save space on the desktop accompanied by some whizzy 3D effects. It's really just a logical progression of the simulated 3D effects GUIs obtained with the advent of 2D acceleration that utilises the latest 3D hardware to do it for "real".
True, it's not necessary, particularly resource friendly and the potential to seriously screw up the human-computer interface is greater. Even so, I won't be at all suprised to see features from this "Catwalk" on the street in Gome 3, KDE 4, Longhorn, and MacOS XI.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
but I have a hard time believing that it will every amount to anything. A computer is not a bookshelf. its just not intuitive to think of it that way for me, and maybe thats a by-product of learning computers as they exist today. Still, all the fancy graphics and animations add unnecessary clutter and delays it seems to me.
Take online shopping for example: I like to see closup pictures and _maybe_ 3D panoramas of what I am buying, but just as important is plain old text that outlines the specs. Online shops that indulge in too much Flash or animation annoy me and interfere with my shopping objective. It is the same with computers. I run Linux with a minimalist interface, and XP with themes disabled and "set to performance".
I am sitting here imagining all the elements on my screen acting like the demo in the article, and I can't help but feel that it would actually interfere with my ability to use the computer efficiently. Perhaps thats my opinion but my opinion as a user matters to me.
Also, wouldn't that just add yet another failure point and/or security risk to the architecture of the OS?
Why do we humans feel the need to constantly complicate our lives in the effort to simplify them?
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
The reason I keep all of my music on my computer is because it's NOT like flipping through my CD collection.
This isn't for people who run servers. It's for Desktop users like me who don't want to buy Longhorn.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Would that be circular stroking with your index and middle fingers or would that be a cupped hand moving up and down diagonally? On second thought, since you're probably a pussy, I would wager the former.
-Juan Carlos Soto, the head of Project Looking Glass
Can anyone tell me in simple English what Mr Soto meant?
Moderate this comment
Negative: Offtopic Flamebait Troll Redundant
Positive: Insightful Interesting Informative Funny
Nothing to see here
I find it odd that I was presented w/ an ad for MS Windows Server, comparing it's TCO to that of linux, showing that Windows Server TCO is lower than Linux's.
I realize that they probably have little control over the advertising they display on their site, but come on!
We've seen this before.
- increases the transparency of a window so that you can see through it
- turns a window on its side so that it sits at the edge of a screen like a book on a book shelf
- turns a window completely around and leaves a note on the back
- and takes a database of CDs presented as physical CDs, that you flip through, reading the labels, just as you would with real CDs, until you locate the one you want.
Nope - stunningly unimpressed. A computer GUI is an abstraction of the real world, not the real world itself. Applying the same clutter you find in the real world would make the interface worse, not better.Marvellous. Just as users of current operating systems have ben doing for years anyway.
Hmm. Potentially interesting as a way to pick between open windows, but doesn't Expose perform this task in a better manner?
Ah, how terribly useful. Hidden, non-obvious information in a GUI. Superb.
Except that in the real world I can never find the bloody CDs, because I can't remember where I've put them. I can navigate a media player interface far faster than I can hunt for CDs, and I can use more search criteria too (album, artist etc.)
Cheers,
Ian
It was a novelty I turned off fairly quickly - text on windows underneath makes things hard to read. The best analogy is to try and read a collection of transparencies on your desk. If they are stacked on top of each other, they quickly become unreadable. Your pencil and paper desk isn't really 3D either. The same thing with voice recognition. Speaking text to your computer wears pretty thin too after a while, and imagine trying to do this in a crowded office!
Anything that involves waving your arms about to manipulate things in 3D won't work either. You will get great exercise, but try doing this for 8-10 hours a day.
But let the research continue - maybe somebody will eventually hit upon a way of interacting with your computer in a way that improves upon what we have. My bets are with a set of glasses with a "heads up" eye movement tracking display, projected in front of you. We just have to figure how to do this without giving users splitting headaches from improper/inadequate motion compensation.
My rights don't need management.
Uh-oh! You just gave some Java developers a bad idea!
How is trying to replicate the natural interface that we use every day a dumb idea?
Because they're not replicating the natural interface. You still only interact with this with a 2 dimensional pointing device. You can't reach in and touch these objects, you have to translate your intended 3D action into a 2D representation of that action and then the software then has to try and translate that back into a 3D action.
The interface is exactly why these 3D desktops are a dumb idea.
*Yawn* Problem with a 3D environment is that it's pretty much useless on a 2D display. Call me when you make it immersive.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You can read more about it here Another Review on Sun's Java Desktop
Once again, life imitates art - or, movies about dinosaurs coming back to life.
look it up on google
...but the flipping-through-your-cd-album is a bad idea. One of the nice things about computers is their ability to display lots of information, like a list of albums, on screen at once. This seems to be a much slower way of navigating your record collection.
Vote for global prefs bug
If you're interested in experimenting with new desktop concepts and want something that works now you might like to checkout FreeMind http://freemind.sourceforge.net/
While at heart it's a [really nice] open source mind map tool, you can get it to launch apps, mailers, URLs etc.
When I'm managing a lot of complex related tasks and information, I've found it indespensible and it's accreting great features fast.
The speed of moving large files will now depend on your phyisical strenght, and you will now be forced to store files in large bins pulling out one after another until you find the file you needed.
Just give it some though... For someone that never worked with computers before, it is more intuitive to think every object displayed is 3D (like "real" world) than a 2D representation...
Perhaps Looking Glass is not the best implementation, but a 3D desktop IS more intuitive than XP for a 100% computer newbie. I believe that computer users are far less than 50% of total world population....
My Nvidia Linux drivers run perfectly in 2d and 3d.
I don't understand exactly what you are getting at.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
...but I think that Looking Glass is pretty darn cool. I support a lot of Sun equipment at my workplace, so I may get lucky and get to try this out.
> Sun has no history of doing _anything_ at all interesting in terms of UI work.
Many years ago, when X11 was in its infancy Sun came out with a windowing system called NeWS. Like X11 it was network transparent, but it used a variant of Display Postscript.
So yes, Sun do have a history in UI and have done some interesting work there.
I am sure that this would push a lot of people to migrate to Linux, but i still have to say that when i (and many like me) want to know which files are in a directory i just do "ls" instead of opening konqueror/nautilus. Of course i think konq/naut are both VERY GOOD, but doing ls is just faster :-)
PS:why are demos on sun site in real/mov format?
this in not really linux friendly, as for instance mplayer can view them only using win32/x86 binaries!!!
Wondering why i am doing so strange posts? I am trying to get a "+5,Flamebait" or "-1,Insightful" rating.
Yes, I have heard the name quite a while ago (Open Linux)!
Now, what light does this shade on the quality of innovation (and marketing) ?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Too bad Sun sucks and they are dirty SCO supporters.
The fact that it requires RealPlayer tells me right off the bat the idea is off to a real fantastic start.
Anyone saying that Linux doesn't need this is just stupid...
Longhorn it's scheduled for 2006, and it'll be doing things like this. Let Microsoft launch Longhorn, and we'll be hearding "BUT LINUX DOESN'T HAVE THIS" for years. *Again*.
In the video, the demo is done in a fucking laptop. Unless he's running the server in a big machine, I must say that it looks _impressive_, fast and smooth. If it uses the graphics card engine - hell, why not? You'd be using your graphics card, it doesn't need to be slow, it just need to use the graphics card. In fact, XFree doesn't use the acceleration as it could, it eats a lot of CPU power. This would help to get a _faster_ and better Xserver, now that the freedesktop guys are rewriting half of it.
I also wonder how does this work. They say it's based on "java technology", but they'd be really stupid it they were writing such piece of software in java. I guess they used a sane language (C, C++) and they call it "java" just like they call their gnome desktop "java desktop".
Hopefully we'll know more when they explain it after the conference: "Sun will be traveling to meetings to discuss Looking Glass developments with members of the Linux community beginning at the end of April at the X Windows Systems Developer's Meeting to be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 28-30."
I wonder how this affects the xserver.freedesktop.org extensions, if sun can help us to rebuild the graphics world under oss systems or they're duplicating the job that Keith & friends are doing. I hope Sun can help us to beat the last field where open source operative systems haven't been very bright - desktops.
Simulating a 3-D interface in a 2-D media isn't going to be revolutionary. It's going to be time consuming, resource intensive, and ultimately frustrating for the user. The best thing that's going to come from might be a successor to java, one that does what java does more efficiently in order to deal with the inefficiencies of simulating one environment in a different, lesser one.
Until someone perfects a holodisplay, simulated 3-D interfaces are always going to be less efficent to use than a 2-D interface. And don't get me started about simply using the commandline.
I think it's great that sun is trying something different. Anything that might interest new users to the platform sounds good. I mean, Linux is all about customization. If you want to keep your 2d interface, there's always plenty of WM's to choose from. Maybe when people see a 3d interface at their local CompUSA, they'll ask what it is. I know tons of people who have never heard of Linux. I'm not sure 3d is the way to go, but maybe going in a new direction for the gui will end up working out. It does look cool.
-
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
Before the naysayers come out and flame sun for performing some "parlor" tricks and impressing some suits with what may be seen as useless (or close to it) for the rest of us, ask yourselves one thing.
What would happen if the next generation desktop were to debut not on Longhorn, not on MacOSX.?, but Linux?
I mean, really. What if the followers of desktop design became the leaders?
Yeah, that makes sense. It's not as if I could go into the next room and flip through my CDs, I clearly need a computer program to simulate the experience.
Direct manipulation is metaphor to allow non physical things. A direct manipulation interface to a simulation of real things is ratherpointless.
What we need is not a slighly fancier and no douby much slower version of an existing metaphor, we need new metaphors to do things which are hard to do with direct manipulation and other existing ones.
Eg we have two styles of interface for configuring complex systems. Language based (ie edit a text file) interfaces are easy once you know the language. Forms based (type-ins, selectors, buttong, menus etc) are a basicly simple minded syntax constrained editors for a language based model. To make, for instance, computers easy for non-tehnical people to configure we need a completely new metaphor, and have needed one for a couple of decades. Don't ask me what, but 3D forms are not a step forward.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Oh, I don't know... because a computer can store and retrieve information much more efficiently than you ever could in the Real World? Look, it's very simple: In almost all cases Real World metaphors do not work in the Computer World (for lack of a better term).
Just to give one example which is cited in the submission text: Flipping through CDs looking for the right one. That is such a blindingly stupid idea that I don't know where to begin. "Oh, but it's intuitive!". That may be, but it's nowhere as efficient as me pressing a "Search" key and typing the name of the artist/album title a be instantly shown the relevant results. If I have two CDs, it might be faster to flip through them, but not if I have more than ten CDs.
There's one important lesson here: Intuitive != Efficient.
Don't you think people have tried to apply Real World metaphors to the Computer World before? There's a reason that nobody does to any great extent anymore...
HAND.
It'll take a little more to make me want to move out of flatland.
Now when they have 3D goggles, sword-fighting protocols, and graveyard daemons like in Snow Crash THEN I'll want to buy it. . . . . .
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
This is very offtopic, but why do I get http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~lloyd/tildeImages/F ilm/JPark/PICS/3D.FS.gif
when I press the next button in Opera within this thread?
How many times are people going to dig up 3D as a means to reinvigorate their platforms?
The ONLY development that will bring 3D to the forefront is 3D PR0N!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Oh, and btw: Limiting yourself to Real World metaphors when the possibilities in the Computer World are almost limitless seems pointless at best.
HAND.
Hahahahaha
This clip mostly focused on the Windows manager and the Background of the Desktop - My favorite background is pretty much black and along with a blank screen saver. In XP I have all pretty windows option set to off for system speed increase.
The highlight of the video was when a window was flipped and he wrote notes on the back. Not quite revolutionary - neat yeah but this won't save Sun from the onslaught movement towards Linux. No, I won't think you'll see a bump in Sun's stock price due to this.
Sun is desperately trying to catch up to the superior innovation at Microsoft. With Longhorn sporting an amazing 3D interface, poor Sun is just looking old and tired.
Once again we see MS as the leader and the rest just trying to catch up.
Doesn't it look a bit like 3Dwm?
Unselfish actions pay back better
The looking glass desktop from visix included in early CND was really cumbersome. After waiting an absurd amount of time to do basic operations I got fed up with it and replaced it with fvwm. It always seemed to me that some suit said "we need drag and drop support, and a graphical desktop" so they included it even though nobody would use the thing.
Although cool 3d interfaces are nice and do create a more intuitive user interface, the reasons that ease-of-use is so low (even on the Mac) is the problems of system configuration and the mismatch between command-oriented input systems (both GUI and CLI) versus goal-oriented users.
Better help systems (not wizards) and more explanatory error messages would go a long way to improving ease-of-use. If computers could explain WHY they can't perform some operation (rather than THAT they can't perform some operation), it would make them les frustrating to use.
It may not be glamorous, but translating all the system setups, command sets, and controls into something goal-oriented rather than technology oriented would be a major step toward ease-of-use (the average usuer should never need to know an acronym to configure their computer). This would mean contextual help that explains what to do in terms that reflect the goals of the user, not the minutae of the underlying technologies.
More eye-candy will not make the machines easier to use. Better user-centric documentation, configuration, and diagnostic messages will.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Or, make something new and better, and let Microsoft be the one playing catchup.
This mornings there was a link for a Quicktime version of the movie. Now, it's only the garbage Real player. What happened?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/09/061620 5&mode=thread&tid=102&tid=108&tid=126&tid=156&tid= 187&tid=189
whatever happened to 3dwm??
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
"You do not need 3D accelleration to run a window manager. Yet."
It seems someone want to make that a requirement. When I have a machine in my house over 550MHz, I'll worry about such stuff.
Did I miss something when I installed Linux?
Where are the nekkid chicks on my wall paper?
More than once, the Sun guy made reference to being free from the shackles of an old environment (an obvious reference to Windows). Last time I checked, you can do pretty much all of what he demonstrated using transparency, hardware acceleration, and creativity in an existing Windows environment. I'm all for creativity ... and I'm all for giving access to APIs that allow developers to make use of clever functionality that has been built into an OS ... but a technology that's trying to build marketshare should be able to stand alone on its merits. I don't see much to gain by making unsubstantiated claims about the technical limitations of their competitors. As a sidenote for Sun ... I don't remember the last time I had a need to attach a note to the back of a webpage.
This is research. It may make its way onto the desktop (and it could be useful).
Transparecy can be annoying, but here they seem to be making windows translucent when not in focus. When you're using a window it is not transparent.
Swinging windows out of the way could be really cool, as could the notes on the backs of windows.
The jukebox is just an idea for a 3D application, I wouldn't use it, but give it to non-techies and they'll probably lap it up.
If this comes to fruition, it will give insight into how useable 3D interfaces are, and the existence of a useable 3D UI may lead to the development of 3D displays.
The GUI hasn't changed much since it was first suggested, active research into how to improve it can only be a good thing, even if the conclusion is that the methods researched are not (yet?) viable.
I think people should stop griping and be a bit more positive...
>> presented as physical CDs, that you flip through, reading the labels, just as you would with real CDs, until you locate the one you want.
AAAAUUUGGGHHHH!!!!!!
It seems as if ALL man-hours must be spent virtualizing ALL natural interface situations, even if those situations are inefficient, stupid and infuriating.
I've been saying for the past decade that eventually we'll all have photo-realistic, 3D desktops that we shuffle through with our hands.
"It's on my desktop somewhere, Bill. I just can't put my hands on it right now. Where the hell is that? I'll call you back when I've come up with it."
--
Malcolm
This was not intended as a troll. I have never seen a 3D interface that is anything more than whizzydo.
Wow the telephone experience with cellphone on the 2x1.5" display will be unbeliveable!
Realy, that's what the Marketing Department of Nokia, Siemens and Motorola is going to say!
Just my $0.02 and...
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Here are some potential "killer apps" for a 3D desktop:
Hydra is a three-dimensional extensible markup language (XML) instance viewer/editor that was developed to aid in standards development efforts. It uses OpenGL to display XML documents as a tree structure that can be manipulated in various ways by the user. Additional information is displayed in the tree using shapes, colors, and varying sizes and positions.
Croquet is a software architecture designed to enable collaboration between users across the Web in a shared 3D space. Croquet is not merely a 3D user interface for visualizing file systems or web sites, but a complete development and delivery platform for doing real collaborative work in a distributed 3D space.
kernel3d produces a 3D animation of Linux source code development. Shapes and different colored lines are used to represent files, function dependencies, variable dependencies, file size modifications, files being moved across directories, and new files (see screenshot).
Nooface
In Search of the Post-PC Interface
He said open source.
If the linux desktop is to go 3D this is a hard requirement.
Wasn't that some sort of covert op. to drive someone insane? It sounds like this could do it. A large part of my satisfaction with my virtual desktop is all the ways in which it does *not* work like the real one.
My guess is that this is one of those kewl things that have to be done, even though the market will wind up saying "no, thanks." I'm happy that the people who think it's important are getting a chance to do it.
I also played mine in RealPlayer 8 and had no issues with playback. XINE can deal with the QuickTime stream, but you have to download the whole thing first.
Yes, the nvidia drivers are good, but they are not open source. Today this doesn't matter too much because they give some "added value". They are not important for a fully functional desktop. If a 3D desktop would become the standard and 3D drivers are needed to run it at all Linux would need 3D drivers to be open source.
For Linux success it's important to have a fully functional open source base to build upon.
All the people bashing 3D user interfaces are the same people who are addicted to the Command line.
Some people i.e. those who do not work in IT would welcome a good 3D interface.
I'm always amazed when IT techs blast through ten windows worth of settings, while muttering instructions and then expect the user to remember it all.
Not all tasks are suited to 3D UI's, I know, but on the other hand a lot of tasks would be ten times quicker if shown in 3D. Setting up print ques, or networks would be a snap, if everything was shown in 3D and you could see when things were not connected. Watching heavy network traffic move, or being able to tell which e-mail server, router, or switch just died simply by watching it change colour on the network map would really help a lot of people.
A lot of people that are shut-out of the IT world due to learning disabilities, and Language processing skills would suddenly be 10 to 100 times more able in the IT world.
Of course I could be biased, I am dyslexic after all...
Although cool 3d interfaces are nice and do create a more intuitive user interface
Maybe to you, but I've always found such designs awkward. They're stuck trying to mimic 'real-world' objects, with the inherent limitations that go with them.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Here are some other 3D file system visualizers:
- FSV is modelled after FSN, but runs on Linux. FSV lays out files and directories in 3D, geometrically representing the file system hierarchy to allow visual overview and analysis.
[Screenshot] | [Download] (Linux)
- Xcruiser lets you fly through a filesystem in 3D as if it were interplanetary space. Directories are represented as galaxies, files are represented as planets (whose mass is determined by the file size), and symbolic links are represented as wormholes.
[Screenshot] | [Download] (Linux)
- TDFSB is a 3D filesystem browser for Linux. Take a walk through your filesystem!
[Screenshot] | [Download] (Linux)
- 3Dtop is an extension for Windows that represents desktop icons in 3D, letting you to fly around your desktop. You can create coloured spotlights, background and floor textures, "paintings" (bitmaps), clocks, and "flags" that represent shortcuts.
[Screenshot] | [Download] (Windows)
- ROOMS turns a Windows desktop into a 3D world. You can see the world either through a first person perspective or with a map view, and you can populate the world with sounds, animated images, and 3D icons.
[Screenshot] | [Download] (Windows)
- CubicEye organizes windows into a navigable cube. Cubes can be arranged by thematic or functional subject matter, and can be explored either individually or collectively as part of a more comprehensive structure of multiple cubes representing various areas of interest.
[Screenshot] | [Download] (Windows)
Nooface
In Search of the Post-PC Interface
I disagree. Who better to take a fresh look at a technology that is over twenty some years old than a group that hasn't been in that pool for the longest time. Lately, Sun has been changing that perception. As someone pointed out before, Sun has been heavily involved with Gnome as of late. Maybe they might be able to pull it off.
And secondly who wants to flip through CDs like in real life looking for the one you want?
With thoughts like this, the 3D desktop will take a while to become mainstream. How about this for software:
- Word processors. Instead of having multiple rows of icons for various formatting tools, you have a 3d reel that you can rotate with the top row somewhat translucent to see those behind. Think of the amount of desktop space you could save. Better yet, think of it as a notebook. You have the document that you are working on flat, but you have something you are transcribing from slightly tilted to fit them both on your desktop.
- Something a little closer home to me, weather software. Weather is presented in 3D, but most meteorologist look at it in a 2D perspective. It would be great to provide all the levels of weather in a slide on slide mode and then be able to pull each level out individually, all in 3D. Further, to be able to layer different forecast models in a 3D way would be great too.
The best part about 3D desktops would be developers would be required to think in new and hopefully more efficient ways. I am excited to see the development kit slated to come out in the middle of this year.Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
The Bookshelf paradigm has real potential. It is a better metaphor for how I am sure many people use their computer - *especially* if it were coupled with a computer that did away with the primary and secondary storage dichotomy.
To be successful, the bookshelf paradigm would require a machine that has secondary storage that was so fast as to negate the need for RAM, or a machine with so much primary storage as to negate the need for a hard drive. Programs wouldn't have to be loaded, they would always be there instantly - like a book. You wouldn't have to sit and wait for load times, the program's state would be the 'bookmark' where you left off, restarting the application would be like rereading, etc etc. As far as metaphors go, it would be far more intuitive for someone who had never used computers before and far less frustrating. In fact, most of my annoyances with working on computers all day long can be tracked back to the primary/secondary storage differentiation - I lump BSODs and crashes together in this category because the "reboot to fix" mentality is a direct descendent of this storage differentiation.
The bookshelf/nonvolatile machine combo is how I want my machine and my applications to behave. I went to linux in '97 because it was the closest approximation to that behavior with uptimes of several months (years for the hardcore/security unconscious). This would be the largest paradigm shift in computing since microcomputers.
Sounds like Microsoft Bob
I'd check it out if its open source. nice to have a company interested in Linux, not like that stupid mac OS crowd. Mac isn't even making their stupid itunes platform available on linux. they're as bad as M$ well M$ owns some apple stock don't they.
Was it the 1994 movie "Disclosure" in which a character played by the actor Michael Douglas put on a virtual reality headset to browse a criminal records database, projected as many virtual folders which had to be manipulated by hand before he miraculously found the right one?
There's 'ease of use' and 'elegance of use'; I think that some user interface designers think that the only way to make computer systems accessible and accepted by the general populace ('ease of use') is to make them mimic what novice users already know. (In the case of 'Disclosure', virtual reality copies of paper files!) I'd rather see the power of the computer being exploited in new ways to give us better interfaces ('elegance of use').
I'm told that at least one of the early makes of automobile had a papier-mache horse molded on the hood in a risible attempt to diminish the 'shock of the new'. Isn't a user interface which models familiar objects which have only familar, direct-manipulation, properties seeking after the same vapid end?
Gee, where are the funny remarks on how the porn collection will show up?
"I did this cuz Linux gives me a woody"
BTW, if anyone from Sun is reading this, that HCI work done was much appreciated. Formal testing was something that had been severely lacking and that helps out the salabilty of the environment well.
s h, the HCI feedback was a big deal.
While this 3d business seems a bit...well...researchy-without-immediate-benefiti
May we never see th
Ummm... How about telling users to stuff it instead of dumbing down the interface? I had absolutely no trouble learning about all the acronyms and so on. If you actually put towards an effort and RTFM you will not have trouble figuring things out on any modern system. If someone can't quite learn how a computer operates, they should probably be fired.
Time to hear from the VMS fanboy again. If you want to see what error messages *should* be, find a way to make a VMS application fail. Paraphrased, a typical VMS error stack might look like this:
"I couldn't open that window you asked for"
"because I couldn't initialize SOME-SUBSYSTEM"
"because I couldn't read SOME-SPECIFIC-FILE"
"because you are denied access to it"
Sure beats the stuffing out of "OUT OF MEMORY" or "invalid parameter". You could think of it as various layers of the program catching the error and re-throwing it with annotations. Each layer contributes its "understanding" of the failure and, if it is well done, the user gets the complete story of what went wrong and usually has enough information to understand and correct the problem without diving into the books.
I like focus-follows mouse, magic desktop borders and transparent thingies.
I like most fvwm-ish things (and zero resistance edge flipping!), but focus-follows-mouse always confused me.
It seems like this focusing system always tends to result in your mouse cursor winding up covering up what you're trying to work with. Usually, I'd prefer to have my mouse cursor elsewhere.
May we never see th
Could it be that the server hosting the quicktime/real videos has been slashdotted? I have a 4kB/s download, when I should have something like 150. Also my download speed is slowly but surely declining!
..is the key to a good tool. Like the pen you pick up, a good tool should be able to 'be picked up easily': the most easiest way for a pen is to take it with 2 fingers.
In that respect, the same counts for a PC:
the easiest way to access a certain 2-dimensional function is through the most simple way of approaching the problem.
This is not by using the mouse, but by using the keyboard. Sure, the keyboard has a higher learning-curve (think 'vi', think 'emacs'), but you can and will pick the fruits later.
In that very same way, a 3d-interface to do something which is most easiest done two-dimensional is superfluous and looks further than one should want to.
Exceptions have to be made though. When I want to interact with the real world, the translation 3d to 3d is most easiest and should be chosen over a keyboard or mouse. But as with all interfaces, the interface is strongly coupled to the surroundings in which you want to use the interface.
While I understand that Sun's idea is mostly a "view", not a "direct interface", eye-candy does not always interact that much better...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Re:Hey! Asses! (Score:3, Redundant)
*Please* tell me that there isn't *another* post that I missed talking about six developers gagging and spitting coffee.
May we never see th
"I know this, this is a Linux system!"
(Had to be said.)
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Why is my AMD Wonderbird 64/128 system with 128 gigs of memory so slow?????
It's what heppens when you make a Java developer mad.. they aren't rational to begin with as they refuse to admit the limitations of their feish so they mod down everyone they see without rational thought...
typical... his joke is damn funny too.
The geek in me thinks this is pretty cool but...
They really need to be worried about their business which is slipping away while they are screwing around in the lab.
This reminds me of all of the times while I was in school that I would work on some project that I was interested in instead of studying the boring stuff that I needed to study.
You're report cards are in guys and it is time to hunker down and take care of business for a while. You need to worry about things that are going to add to your bottom line. I don't know how a 3D interface for Linux is going to do that effectively.
This came up on /. in December.
It annoys me hearing all the negative comments about this project.
Projects like this should be supported and encouraged, because Linux should build a reputation as a platform that allows innovation, and features cutting-edge software. Doing something like this in Windows would be a much less certain venture, due to the ultimate lack of control of the operating system environment.
Sure, 3D interfaces are difficult to write well, and it will probably take a while to improve user experience, but so long as this is open source, what's the harm in trying. Instead of developers trying to standardise and emulate the characteristics of Windows, spending time diversifying and creating new trends in Linux plays more to its strengths.
Marketing and competition is all about playing to your strengths, rather than going up against your competitors strengths where you are weak. If linux becomes "the platform where you can experiment with new things", it is already making important inroads among technical audiences.
Nice idea. Unfortunately, natural interfaces do not exist, so any attempt to replicate them inevitably leads to an interface that replicates arbitrary features of arbitrary physical artifacts while failing to support the user's tasks.
What exactly is the point of replicating, say, a typewriter on screen in 3D? Would it make text processing any easier because it's more "natural"? Of course not.
http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
None of them want to learn - and none of them will learn. They'll use whatever they understand on the 1st try. If they don't understand it at first glance they give up.
These are the people who are confused by the word "Inbox," whose eyes cross when you ask if they know the difference between right-clicking and left-clicking, and yes these are the people who will never edit a single .ini file, much less a crontab file in their entire lives.
well, it looks really nice, I've seen it running at CeBit last Saturday and I think a 3D desktop environment may be the right direction to go in the long term, but right now the whole thing is nothing more but eyecandy. The CD application is rather useless imho and afaik there's no additional functionality that you don't have in standart desktop environments these days (ok, there IS the ability to move the windows in the 3d dimension and rotate them etc., but what do you gain from that ability?). What really confuses me is that the guy at the sun desktop booth told me and some other folks that they would not release this to the public and it's only a prove of concept etc. After I got home I checked the FAQ at their site and it said they're looking into releasing it under some open source license, but for sure there will be some public API by summer...?!?
A 3D GUI only becomes as useable as a 2D one when you use a comfortable 3D input device to work it. Until a mainstream 3D input devices comes around, and possibly stereoscopic displays, you won't be able to navigate in a 3D desktop as easily.
It should be noted here that there is a difference between a true 3D desktop, and a desktop that uses cheezy 3D graphics to have windows slide around and crap..
- Mr.Oreo
Brutal File Manager
http://www.forchheimer.se/bfm/
3D desktop environment, heh? Does it come with pr0n, then?
"Word processors. Instead of having multiple rows of icons for various formatting tools, you have a 3d reel that you can rotate with the top row somewhat translucent to see those behind. Think of the amount of desktop space you could save."
But you'd lose accessibility. It'd take longer to access the icons. The whole point of having the icons there in rows is for quick access. If you have to twiddle a reel to make an icon visible before you can click it, you might as well just use the menu which corresponds to the icon. Much faster.
You really have to consider that an average user really doesn't know much about the PC, nor do they want to know much about it. The average user expects the home desktop to function much like a car, they get in and drive it around. The average user doesn't want to know how the system or a car works. They just expect it to work when they need it. Getting them to read the manual or online help is not likely no matter how much developers or IT geeks would like them to. Providing a level of protection is almost a necessity when turning an operating system loose into the world. In an ideal world, we could require users to read the manual prior to operation, but that will never happen.
As for the Looking Glass software, I see this as a logical progression of the user interface. I can see this being leveraged at a time when the monitor/display is no longer part of the desktop and we move to a virtual interface. As systems become more complex, the visualization of the system also changes.
I've been writing software for sometime now and I have gotten a lot of complements on the software I write. I follow three predominant rules when designing an interface. First, simplicity. People are used to a single data representation, like a sheet of paper. Place all related information on a single page. If editing needs to occur, allow the page to be edited. Do NOT have separate pages display and edit or multiple representations of the same information in different locations. While logically minded people can accept multiple views of the same data, most users do not have the spatial orientation abilities to be comfortable in navigating such a system. Users generally put up with it because they have no choice. Second, if a fault condition can be prevented before a user can commit the error, set the interface so that the fault cannot be committed in the first place. It is very annoying to hit a connect button only to be told that there are no connection settings. Either prevent the button from being used or pop up the method to connect. Either way, do not waste user time with things that don't work. Present the user things that do work or prevent the user from doing things that do not work. This places the burden on programmers to take responsibility of policing bad behavior; however, programmers loathe to do the work because being experts in the system they naturally avoid faults and it means more work for them that they do not perceive as a benefit. Users are not experts and should not need to be experts. They just want to get work done and rightfully expect the system to make intelligent guiding decisions since they've paid for the system to make them more productive. Finally, if a fault condition requires a modal intervention (which is very rare if you follow the previous rules), then all other fault conditions that can be possibly checked are also evaluated and tacked on to the error list. There is nothing worse than submitting something, getting an error, fixing it, submitting again, getting another error, fixing that, submitting again, getting another error...
These three rules have served me well.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
I still do not understand why they need to be open-source, if they work perfectly well to render 3d visuals *right-now* then they are going to be working perfectly well for future applications in the future including desktops.
AFAIK the drivers are simply there to interpret rendering instructions to the GPU in a format that it understands. As long as the control set (eg: OpenGL) is interpreted by them, all is well.
Is this just a case of not liking closed-source drivers or is there another underlying problem?
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
a vr system is created where users can access computer using vr glasses or plugging in matrix style :S
neat, but what's it good for?
In Bob we trust.
I saw the demo for Looking Glass at Borcon and yes, its way cool!
The San Jose Mercury ran an article a month or so ago about how it was conceived of at Sun. It turns out a Sun programmer just worked on this in his spare time at home (much to the distress of his girlfriend). Then one day he takes it to work and shows his manager, who is blown away. His boss shows the higher-ups in Sun who are also blown away.
They make it a full scale project, take it away from the original author, and now take full credit as "visionaries". The truth is, this whole concept was the midnight creation of a hacker.
So much for industry R & D.
"Although cool 3d interfaces are nice and do create a more intuitive user interface, the reasons that ease-of-use is so low (even on the Mac) is the problems of system configuration and the mismatch between command-oriented input systems (both GUI and CLI) versus goal-oriented users."
Does the mac get around this using their netinfo tool? Maybe I am off base, but about everything you can do from the config screens can also be done through netinfo on the command line, and it's all funneling through 1 config system..
I don't think they loose sync at all.
hmm, the dock seems to look and act a lot like the OS X dock.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Unfortunately, natural interfaces do not exist,
Has the nipple been demoted?
and here I was looking forward to a computer with nipples all over it...
How is this any different than DirectFB/GL? With the XDirectFB X server running on top of it, it does everything this does (except play 3D games with the X desktop.).
XDirectFB/GL could easily manipulate windows in this way, but the Linux desktop game has a long way to go before this becomes a major issue.
More important is the discussion from a couple weeks ago on building a good, standardized 3D gaming platform on Linux. Sneak a bazillion of these into people's home and who knows. You own their living room and you might end up owning the desktop.
The beauty of FOSS is that we don't need to go in any one direction. Like evolution, the branches that advance the "species" are the winners and those that don't either fill a small ecological niche or expire.
Another advantage of FOSS over Microsoft.
do not click his links!
Simulating real-world devices to make computers more usable is a common idea, but not a very good one. Physical devices have lots of limitations and painful user interfaces (sometimes literally). Have a look at IBM's attempt at this. Some of the best attempts at using 3D as part of regular user interfaces probably come from these people; you can judge for yourself whether their user interfaces are useful.
These kinds of attempts at general-purpose 3D user interfaces have the smell of failure--companies desparately trying to look "hip" and "modern", but without anything real to show for it. To me, it's an indication how far behind Sun really is. Good user interfaces should be unsurprising, simple, fast, and use the medium they are presented on well. In the case of computers, that's a 2D, low-resolution, high color depth screen. Design for the medium.
I think that's called a stack trace :)
My other car is first.
I remember seeing this demo at least six months ago, probably longer than that. There hasn't really been anything new happening with this, that I've heard.
The first obvious step here would be to transition ourselves from low level, command oriented (ie imperative) programming languages to higher level, goal oriented (ie declarative languages like Prolog and ML) languages to develop the software in.
The fact that computer software is currently stuck in such a command-based paradigm is incontrovertably intertwined with the the imperative languages used to write them and the resultant development models and view of computing in general. When you consider that additional bennifits of declarative languages being demonstrably simpler to verify and that they inherrently rule out entire classes of security flaws and bugs, you're left with a system that not only has less problems but should also eventually result in more usable software.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
It has a lot to do with Java. It gets JVMs on the desktop. There are also a lot of java apps included with the desktop, such as jEdit, JDictionary and JGraphPad. Java WebStart is bundled for automated app deployment. Star Office is bundled, with Java as one of the main languages for writing extensions. The Java Media Frameword is bundled along with Ogg Vorbis. Single sign-on is supported with JavaCard and JSIS. Mozilla with full J2SE applet support is bundled.
How is trying to replicate the natural interface that we use every day a dumb idea?
Items in the real world take up a physical space. Which makes a TON of items (i.e. computer files) take a TON of space. Imagine if you could visualize your entire 160 GB hard drive as real world documents and books. That would take ages to keep organized and be horrible to look up! Instead we're using icons we can click on and navigate to in maybe 1-10 seconds. Computers use much more efficient and flexible metaphors than actual real world items. A 2D desktop is in my opinion often *more* advanced than a 3D desktop. We remove a redundant dimension to reach the information faster.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I think the point is being missed here...if we are going to make the jump from 2d to 3d, then it has to be something extremly new and has to give us ways of manipulating data in ways that we haven't thought of before, like the jump from CLI to GUI.
I, for one, don't want to have to "flick through" my cd collection to find a cd in real life, its time-consuming and boring (esp. when you have alot of cd's which dont always stay where they are supposed to!), let alone trying to do it on my computer!
(P.S. don't get me started on the notes behind the website!)
>
...from the people that brought us CDE
Sure, the eye candy helps, but it can't be just about that.
;)
It has to be more than a windows manager or a file manager, it must also do programming. Imagine 'frames/windows/whatevers' with sides, as well as backs. Want the translation of a foreign website? Just put that on a different side, as well as the stickynotes 'side', and sides for covering "pipes" and environment variables. Every object has it's own 'control panel' site, where the # of sides are defined. It's probably where 'relative faces' would be defined, where an axis of a web browser's object can be defined to return each search result on a 'face' of the given axis. No need to resort to cubism when free-form objects can be defined.
Select a group of objects, and rotate the selected group to see their "pipes". "Pass-thru" programs that don't need any visual rendering space could just show up as a line, if viewed from one side, but have another side akin to a shell script. Directional flow lines between objects used for STDIO only show up in programming view.
Any 'frame/window/view' should be able to become the 'primary/foreground', and each view can contain any number of other objects or views, allowing for far more than "3d". With enough memory, you could store the whole stack as it changed through time.
Well, that's what such a beast would mean to me. It's more about walking through my filespace in a graphical MU*-like environment, it's more like picking up a strange shiney object in a room of such an environment...think of that Escher print of him drawing his reflection in the mirror/glass/metal(?)sphere...but if zoomed in on, will reveal that you're looking at is a view of the opposite of what you were looking at - MU* environment in a 'window' surrounded by desktop.
I'll put the pipe down now
(These ideas are copyleft by the implementor)
Plus ca change, plus c'est les memes choses.
Isn't this a reprise of the same video from about a year ago? What's new here? Looks to be another GUI that makes me work harder to use it. Right-clicking (even on a mac) and selecting a "notes' category would still be faster and less memory intensive.
1) Sun
2) Sun
Sun does not make good GUIs. In fact, they seem genuinely unable to, even more so than the average linux programmer. My pet theory is that it has to do with the history of Sun being a unix-CLI kind of company. All of Sun's GUIs look like hard-core CLI hackers made them - and they made them in the knowledge that this was useless eye candy.
3D is very cool, but what's the use of a hammer if you have no hands. What's the use of the coolest tech if Sun is doing the GUI?
competence in user interface design is something that Sun does not possess.
you might say: But... Sun can change! sure. but there are severe counter-indications at work here:
- the demos complete lack of elegance
- the demos complete lack of useful things to do with the new tech (the hard-core CLI hacker will create an excellent 3D environment, but he won't know how to use it to make an easier to use GUI)
- past experience (witness Java apps / demos... )
Since the movies are /.'d, does anyone have a bittorrent?
S N- 1312_forjds.mov
http://webcast-east.sun.com/archives/GSN-1312/G
This stories so old it could vote!
(In the U.S. that is...)
I believe it was the movie "The Net" that introduced us to the surreal user interface of "Cathedral", a veritable 3D VR environment where you push/pull/open/close literal objects to access information.
Tufte, a "design guru" also advocates what essentially you seem to be saying - "inline" information and avoid needless complication/metaphors etc
Sun rolled its own GUI called SunView between 1984 when it started until 1988 or so when XWindows got decent. SGI licensed it for several years. XWindows won out because it ran a little more efficiently and it ran on most UNIX computers. Some of Sun's utilities are still in SunView.
It is actually related to the stack, but the result is not much like a stack trace. You get *explanations*, not addresses. I guess you could think of it as a "semantic traceback".
Not long ago there was a story "corrupted video streams can cause buffer overflow and execute arbitary code". The realplayer officials claimed no responsibility, and they swore they didn't know about it. Only some "p0rn sites" did.
Same things happens with acrobat reader.
I tell you. Never trust free binaries with closed source.
But there are players out for almost any platform and most desktop setups would include a player for it.
But really the only truly good way to do it is to encode in multiple formats and let the customer choose. This is sun. It is not like they don't have the hardware to run multiple encodes or don't have enough diskspace etc.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
to write a Scene Manager for OGRE that displays the file system including SMB stuff in 3D that can be navigated around in with 2 mice but maybe one of you do. It'd be smart to start small with something like a Konqueror modification that runs in a window before replacing the entire Window Manager. I want something that can fly me around my network pointing out security holes. It's not impossible, I just don't have enough time.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
Before even taking your grain of salt, I recommend you read what Jonathan Swartz has had to say about Linux in other articles. With friends like this, who needs enemies?
I wont even look to see what it is. Until that guy is out of the picture, Sun is not playing right.
The parent's point isn't that the video is inaccessible. The point is that it is only accessible in a proprietary format. The whole thing is dripping with irony - Sun pushing openness in a video that isn't.
ayottesoftware.com
A friend who works for Sun has an alpha of Looking Glass on his laptop.
It works quite well actually, but requires a fairly intense 3D setup to run well (think of a top of the line card a bit more than a year ago and that is probably the minimum for it). As such it probably won't be released for awhile so that the hardware requirement isn't as stiff then.
There is still a lot to be done on it, but from what I was able to play with it actually does have a good chance to significantly enhance the environment as long as Sun continues to improve usability. It is far more than a 3D file browser (in fact it has nothing yet to do with that, instead it is a 3D window manager that uses existing browsers like GNOME nautilus within the 3D window). It is much more about high-level organization of the UI.
See also 4Dwm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4dwm), which I used to use on an SGI Indy. Of course, it really wasn't 4D in the geometric sense. Now there's an idea for a really counter-intuitive GUI.
Looks like someone at Sun has a Lewis Carroll fetish.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
Unfortunally their are three camps at least. The CLI people who could care less about ease of use. If it was hard to write it should be hard to use :P . In reality they care very much about ease of use it is just that say a text configuration file where all the options are in one easily edited place is easy in their eyes. I agree with them by the way.
The second group is filled by Lindows and Xandros. They say fine you find it easy we think a gui is better so they build one. Or pay others to build it for them. This is fine and good and works.
The third group is the /. "I would run linux if only it used C: D: file structure, was case-insensitive, allows me to run any app anytime, install software with 1 click, in fact if it was windows but free". They want all of all linux to becomes "easy" and reading manuals is a waste of time. You can regonize them. They never admit THEY find it to complex. It is always their aunt. Their aunt who worked with REAL unix command line apps all her life to do simple things like typing letters. You know the 50yr old lady who knows VI.
Funniest experience was when I was working on some friday 5 o'clock site launch and the clients (small firm with everyone they knew invited, it was the boom time) where standing behind me watching me work on the server via the command line. The general question what I was working on and did their server run on dos perhaps? The mother of the boss said, "Well it looks a bit like vi except for that status bar". To her I was the gui freak for needing that status bar to remember wich state I was in.
Anyway the whole problem is that we all want something different from our OS but some of us want others to fix our problem. Not the way opensource works. Your itch, you scratch it. Want me to scratch your itch that I don't have? Pay me.
For this it is good that Sun/IBM/HP take an intrest. They can PAY people to make the Linux for the "make it easy" crowd. Unfortuanlly as this article shows the "make it easy" crowd is hard to please.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
yall had this on here last year when it was first annouced
Stop trying to second-guess what I want. If I want the first letter of a word capitalized, I'll capitalize it. OpenOffice is just as guilty of this nonsense as M$ software. If Another scenario: if I select a block of text, I'd most likely expect to paste a block of text at the location that I choose (another docoument, for example). What the hell does Evolution do, then, when I get this weird text object with a yellow dotted outline, that's offset from the rest of the text? It's certainly not what I copied!
If you're going to do something other than what would generally be expected, don't. It makes for a frustrating experience- even for advanced users.
"And when your wifey comes to update her software, or something breaks?"
When something breaks on either my parents desktop or any of the computers at my father's law firm its Stop and do not pass Go. Face it, most people are totally clueless about computers and that's not going to change until all the people who grew up without computers get old and die.
When it comes to updating software or something breaking most people are screwed no matter what OS they run. Its silly say that this is a Linux issue when most Windows users go through the same exact thing. Reboot, hope it fixes your problem, then call in IT or your grandson etc.
I'm not advocating a switch to Linux. Without the support of Adobe, Microsoft, Intuit, Macromedia, and all of those other ISV's Linux is still very lacking when it comes to the software that most people want to use. But the whole "what to do if something breaks" theory is a non-issue for Linux just like it is on Windows. Get all of those ISV's to support Linux and linux users will finally be able to "enjoy" the same great tech support that companies have always given to Windows users.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I put the in neat stack with folder-pick for quick search. I do not put my paper in a 3d fashion, and it certainly confuse everything this way. Ever searched info to finally notice you had it BEHIND a piece of paper ? Ever worked with 20 books full of reference holding them in various position ? Ever searched info within a series of 3d object ?
Bottom line unless your work is purely intellectual without reality hold, those of us which works with paper knows something since long ago: A stack of paper is better to handle info (stack of window) than any other 3d representation.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Innovation is very important , i agree..In this case , i see the need of business innovation along with technincal innovation
,Matching to standards of windows Desktop in terms of coolness in looks , fast response
Sun should aim at
at the minimum
Advertise advertise and advertise
steps tro increase client confidence
Hello , this is my way.
Which way is yours ?
btw there is no right way
If you're going to do something other than what would generally be expected, don't. It makes for a frustrating experience- even for advanced users.
Exactly! Emacs and Scite and many other advanced, pretty-printing text-editors piss off advanced users all the time. I think a better policy would be:
If auto-indent is set, when the user presses return, have the indentation of the new line be the indentation of the previous line, unless the user is inside parens (in Java/C/C++/Ada/Pascal/etc.), and in that case, make the indentation line be x off of the first non-whitespace character beyond the opening parens (where x is set by the user, and by default one).
That way, if the user wants to change indentation, the program will let them. Otherwise it leaves it the same. So you won't have to tell the program whether you want your case statements to look like this:
switch x {
case 1:
dosomething; break;
case 2:
dosomething; break;
case default:
dosomething;
}
or this:
switch x {
case 1:
dosomething; break;
case 2:
dosomething; break;
default:
dosomething;
}
Basically what I want are well-thought out user interfaces.
But I hate when programs and machines refer to themselves as I, as if they were all self-aware and stuff. It's rude and presumtuous to those of us who are.
Sun has been heavily involved with Gnome as of late.
and this supports your position how, exactly?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
we have a true, 3D monitor.
Manipulating a 2D space (your screen) with a 3D view is counterintuitive, unless you're actually building something (CAD). If we had an actual 3D monitor that you can look in from the side, then a 3D GUI might work.
I'm going to try to not rant on skins except to say the person who thought tiny dark-green LCD-style text on a black background is what a media player should like should be taken out back and shot. In the balls.
(Oh yeah, I've been writing software for decades now and have been not just complimented but paid handsomely. Maybe I'm just bitter because my ancient eyes can't read that stupid tiny dark-green on black LCD crap. And because I have a PhD in user interface design and implementation.)
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
I attended last month in Medellin, Colombia (a global launch ?) to a SUN presentation on their NoSuSu (Novell SuSe Sun) Linux strategy (Looking Glass Included).
Their basic pitch was:
- All Sun server s/w you can eat for US100/seat-year (Support and training included!)
- All Sun desktop s/w (Supp & Train incl.) for extra US50/seat-year
A plain StarOffice demo was included (No mention about XML, PDF, SWF publishing and scripting features).
The Looking Glass is a 3D-engine in java fed from a lot of desktop data.
Obviously they are betting on selling servers for hosting all that affordable software, because Linux versions of the server s/w are not ready yet.
in carrying over real world interactions ? I don't want to have to virtually flip thru my cd's, if I wanted that I'd just flipp thru them.
I want cross linked DB structures, with dynamic associations that can be linked, cross linked and grouped on the fly, and by profiling. I want free of the traditional cumbersome interface, not chained to its' physical representation...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
--the easiest way I have found is to get a stack of magazines and lay them out on the table, representing folders/files and whatnot. Just stack and arrange creatively and it "makes sense".
heh heh
neogeezer zogger
Actually what happens is that VMS builds stack frames with signal handlers. A condition handler may be established at any frame level and it may process a condition, continuing ot unwinding or it may resignal to an upper level handler or a combination of the two. A side effect is the nice informative error messages. It also means that you could write some really reliable code.
So: what's the format you'd prefer? I promise to tell the Sun person (who replied when I asked for an alternative suitable for my SPARC at home). And for their convenience, what's the appropriate converter? I'm not an A/V person, you understand! --dave
davecb@spamcop.net
I was at FOSE this morning, and got to see Looking Glass in action on a Sun guy's notebook. My coworker actually played with it, though I did not. If you have a chance to visit FOSE, go to the Sun subsection of the GTSI display to see Looking Glass for yourself.
I'm not sure what it really adds to computing other than another layer of UI sugar. I mean, it didn't do anything that conventional 2D window managers don't already do (and at better frame rates). There was a music player that let you view CDs, for example, but you can do the same thing with album covers and a Mac OS-X program called "Clutter". Sure, you can spin the movie player window so just the "side" of the window is visible. But most 2D window managers let you roll up a window into the title bar, which has the same net effect, but without making first-time viewers go "Oooh."
I expect a lot of the flashy and pretty effects to make their way into everyday window managers, but I don't think Looking Glass really revolutionizes the way we use computers -- at least, not what I saw of it this morning.
Bander
What we need more of is science!
Over the years, since 1993 or so, I have played with VR and its associated hardware (from a homebrew/garage-level standpoint). In the past few years, I have taken a very laid back approach, not really doing much with VR (other than purchasing old hardware as it appears on the used/surplus market). Why is this?
I have given it a lot of thought, and came to the realization that for the vast majority of tasks that computers are used for, those tasks are inherently two dimensional. These are tasks which are done quicker and easier with a computer, but could be done (albeit slower and more complicated) with paper/pen/pencil. Maybe some scissors and tape as well.
The problem (not really a problem, per se, more of an obstacle in the course to a 3D "desktop") is that what computers do is process information and symbols, both of which have a long history through human progress as 2D representations. From stone cave drawings, to Summerian clay tablets, to papyrus, to paper and ink - information (and the manipulation of that information) has been expressed using two-dimensional interfaces. It is absurd to try to manipulate it otherwise, because it doesn't lend itself to do so.
This is why the WIMP metaphor is so powerful, because it expresses the closest method of paper for computer-aided manipulation of 2D information and symbols. I could also argue that the current file system metaphor of hiearchical folders and documents extends the WIMP ideal.
So, where does this leave 3D?
I have tried to give this great thought. As a programmer, I have always wondered "What is the killer application for VR?". Imagining a 3D desktop didn't make sense, at least with today's HMDs (I was thinking of a fully immersive environment). The limits of resolution and field of view makes presenting 2D information in an HMD a painful thing to actually use. Maybe if the resolution could be bumped up enough where we could simulate a monitor in the 3D world...
A 3D desktop is not where it is at - but surely there are applications where using 3D provides a more intuitive interface than 2D? Some of these applications are being explored and used today, from reporting engines that render information in a 3D manner to see trends and whatnot easier than looking at numbers, to the ever venerable simulation systems used to train pilots (and other operators - IIRC, CAT has a bulldozer simulator), to entertainment uses (re: any FPS out there).
In a similar manner, studies and research being done with augmented reality seem to suggest that 3D interfaces/overlays are most useful when manipulating and interacting in real-world environments. These forms of interfaces seek to provide the information processing power of the computer to allow our everyday world become more intelligent. I can envision a whole slew of applications for this technology (as well as a whole slew of bad uses, such is life).
Unless our use and implementation of language shifts (ie, a three dimensional idea of language, or something even more radical), I do not see a 3D desktop ever coming to light that is truely useful. All attempts will likely feel like trying to manipulate a fork while wearing oven mitts...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
.. in meatworld it's useful as a driver to know some basics-how to change a tire, check the oil, what the gauges mean, etc. To require similar with computers is acceptable, IMO, but to require full guru status would be sorta self defeating for all the IT people out there, yes? have to go get a job then, hmmm?
I was mac classic guy for years and years, because it worked, was intutitve, the GUI actually helped me learn, DOS at the time was rote memory boring and clunky, it was an easy switch for me. With modern *nixes though, you get both, adapatable to all levels of expertise, with the benefit of being open source/free (a great philosophy and business standard as far as tools go) so it's cool beans fat city as far as I am concerned. I'm all in favor of intutitve GUIs that work as opposed to pure skinned eye candy stuff that says it works but doesn't.
zogger
Yet another glossy response that doesn't address the underlying problem. Being able to navigate 3D spaces for your files is neat. Maybe we'll finally get those cool file management interfaces that those kids in Hackers got. I want a Gibson too, damn it!
But it's really useless since it won't actually help users to find their files. It takes the problems posed by the desktop metaphor and compounds them. Now my report is lurking somewhere behind me beneath a virtual photo album of my vacation photos or trapped behind a virtual CD rack representing my WMA collection. 3D views of documents add on a spatial property to the data, so I'm left wondering if all documents adjacent to my notebook are related to the contents of my notebook. Now users have to think about boundaries. Anyone whose built a collection of books over the years knows that the moore different types of books you have, the harder it is to create general categories for organizing those books since content often crosses categories.
I think David Gelernter's Lifestreams will do a much better job of making document retrieval and overall information management both efficient and easy. In Lifesteams the accumulation of data, any data, forms a time-ordered stream that can be manipulated and transversed using metafilters, which are basically filters that operate on the main stream. For example, with e-mail, there is a single e-mail stream. I can create a metaphor to pull addresses from the stream, thus created an on-the-fly addressbook that is always current. I can create another metastream to pull all emails after a certain date, thus creating a virtual inbox.
When it comes to papers and reports, I don't have to think about the original filename or location of a document I wrote years ago that I want to include in a document I am writing today. I merely create a metastream to pull the data I want from all documents based on certain content. This always documents to be stored virtually across many different categories at the same time. As of right now, I'm stuck with folders and generic descriptions that become irrelevent as I stored more complex writings.
Lifestreams Homepage
Lifestreams Discussion at ACM
Wired Magazine article on Lifestreams and Gelernter
The Quicktime's broken, and I'm not installing REalplayer, thank you very much, that's for suckwads and open source retards.
Parent post brought to you by IronyBot.
This is indeed interesting.
We humans are 3d beings, by visualizing data 3d, the computer can much easier sort of "connect" to our brain. I think that this can in a way relieve the computer by giving some of the work back to the human.
Just look at such a simple task as "remembering where I put that file", will become much more intuitive.
What a usable real-world 3D interface needs:
1) A decent 3D input mechanism. One dimension: keyboard. Two dimensions: mouse. Three dimensions: ???
2) A UI that isn't just eye-candy. Imagine your current 2D desktop. You click on an icon and a browser instantly appears. You minimize it and it instantly disappears. You click a window at the bottom of the z-order stack and it instanly comes to the top. Now look at all the prototype 3D desktops out there. Just the opposite. You click on an icon and you get a five second animation. You minimize it and you get another five second animation. You click a window way down in the depth field and you get a five second animation of it floating to the top. And it it's not perfectly aligned with the XY axis, whatever's in that window is going to very hard to read.
3) A sensible 3D paradigm. The 2D paradigm for every usable desktop is the "pane". A text editor window acts like a 2D sheet of paper, for example. But just like in the real world, you still need panes in a 3D desktop. A "box" won't work for editing documents. These panes need to fit into the paradigm correctly, or the desktop is unusable. Look at the real world desktop. If you read a piece of paper, it's much easier if it's flat on the 2D surface of your desk, than if someone is holding it up in front of your face. We use 2D all the time in real life, and the 3D desktop needs to account for that.
No, I don't know what the sensible 3D paradigm should be. If I knew that I would be writing a 3D desktop now. But I do know that the 3D desktop prototypes I've used and seen are simply unusable for general purpose work. Some work for specialty uses (CAD, games, etc), but none are suitable for general use. Looking Glass is no exception.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Uhm... to debunk the statement that Sun hasn't been doing anything in the UI world. Thought that one was pretty obvious.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
It reminds me rather of chained exceptions, available in Java since 1.4.
A very nice feature, it's a pity it arrived only this late.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
Yes, you've hit the nail on the head.
/. Really, what counts is not so much how easy it is to do per se, but how easy it is to learn how to do, i.e. how easy is it for a total noob? That's the real barrier. If you assume they know anything at all, you've already overlooked the real barrier to Linux's adoption.
I'm a windows user (yeah yeah, recoil and condemn) but I've wanted to try Linux for a very long time. Here's my problem: I need to set up a network and share a printer. With Windows, almost everything is auto-detected. If I don't know how to do something, it's pretty easy to learn how. Up and running in 20 minutes.
With Linux, well... I once read a guy's explanation of how "easy" it was to do on Linux. it was something to the effect of:
1) aslj -asdlk =as jolak [o09al
2) -"ksu9ej 23 4 89032
3) iornl ayrl pi oiulhgg
4) 3lk- -ks lsl "8hlgy"
5) l8h' a'siu[0jag
6) 463oi 9 -nlaf
7) Done! So easy!
I kid you not. The commands were total gibberish to me -- something I'd probably end up banging out in frustration with my fists (like, when trying to set up a network and printer on linux). Now, it's only a couple of commands, yes, but ***learning the proper commands*** and which ones to use would probably take days or weeks to do. And if anything goes wrong a year later, I'd have forgotten it all and would have to study all over again. Versus 20 minutes on Windows.
Having school + work takes up enough time already. And I don't think I'm lazy: I like exploring and learning, and computers are no exception. But you know how you always somehow procrastinate studying for exams? Well, what if you never even had to take the exam if you didn't want? What if you could always run into the arms of Microsoft?
Linux Lords: please make Linux easier to use! I'm not trolling here. I'm trying to provide feedback to where the Linux l33t gather:
Anyway, yeah: not ease of use, but ease of learning how to use is what's blocking Linux from this typical computer user.
My $0.02.
May my prayers be heard!
I really think that having a truly useable 3D interface requires that the environment spread from the monitor to something more. The mouse alone is reason for this. Getting a user to master a 3D environment in an application alone can be troublesome. Add that to the rest of your GUI, and you have a real problem for most....
I think the real solution lies in creating and making available a 3D interface (data glove, motion tracking, etc) and creating a cubicle that would create a large immersive environment for a user. Something like a CAVE. Then you can recreate and provide the kind of spatial organization that would really be groundbreaking. Then possibly a paperless office could become a reality.
Who is the master of foxhounds, and who says the hunt has begun? -Pink Floyd
When I was in school, SGI had some of the sweetest interfaces around. In fact, I believe it was already in 3D. Why go away from that?
See: 3Dwm
What about simplicity?
Most users have a hard enought time getting through a simple 2d windowing environment. How much more when they gotta navigate through some high-level quake maze just to check their email.
How is trying to replicate the natural interface that we use every day a dumb idea?
It's not just dumb, it is profoundly stupid. It's the kind of idea thought up by someone who doesn't grok technology. The main problem is that 3D is about space, and with the computer we've already moved on to hyperspace. A real folder gets cumbersome if it nests other, bigger folders. A real location called Slashdot would require you to leave your current location and take time to walk/run/ride there, whereat you would slowly move between article rooms looking for discussions. I vastly prefer the hyperfolder, which contains all manner of objects, and the hyperlink, which instantly takes me to what I want. The 3D interface is absolutely brain dead until someone can puzzle out representations for information (much like WIMP in 2D) that makes working with it easier.
Yeah, so you can flip through a virtual library of CD's the same as you flip through a real one. Or stick notes on the back of a document.
Sounds like it enables all of the bad habits I have that lead to a CD library where I can't find my favorite CD's.
And the sticky notes that only turn up when it's too late to do what they were suppoed to remind me to do.
3D is great for lots of things (games, simulations, et al), but I'm not so sure about an OS. 3D requires even more complex commands to function. For example, instead of hitting tab (or somesuch key) to flip a page, or scroll to the next set of information, you'd have to maniplate the object, just like the real world. Also, (for me at least), my computer is the only organized space I have. My desk is awash with clutter, old papers, books, and general junk. On the other hand, all of my music is neatly presented in they're respective files, and all my projects have they're own scheme also. If my OS suddenly went to 3D, it would be in the same state as my desk within the week. In short, programers need to limit complexity, not create it. While 3D does have that "gee wiz" tipe apeal, it's practical uses are limited.
"See you, space cowboy." -Spike
I saw a live demonstration of the desktop at a Sun briefing.
The desktop is really a 3D-enhanced traditional desktop, so it might actually work in practice... Instead of multiple virtual desktops, you have a 360 degree panoramic view - just turn around to find a clean section of desktop. Window stacking uses "depth" to push inactive windows away from you; you can also "flick" between active windows (kind of like flicking between two pages of a book.) There were various other eye candy features, but I don't remember the details.
My overall impression was that it was pretty neat - I was pretty pissed off when I found that the "demo" was just a movie and not something I could demonstrate to colleagues.
So you of course know everythign about how your TV, your radio, your car, your washing machine and your microwave works right?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
So, jumping aboard a mediocre knock-off of the NEXTSTEP L&F constitutes "doing something in the UI world" in your book?
Ok...
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Effort leading to yet another Lex saying "this is UNIX, I know this!"
play "Brandy, you're a fine girl."
... called openglass?
It was a piece of crap written for FVWM1.
I use to run it on SCO Openserver then Caldera OpenLinix lite 1.1 back in the mid 90's. Shudder
http://saveie6.com/
Pity that "breaking text into paragraphs" isn't one of them.
(Cheap shot, sorry, couldn't resist, move along, nothing to see here.)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
One problem I see right away is the huge icons on the bottom there. Are they underneath the app I am using, if so, they are not very useful, or are they "always on top", which is annoying, or is it hard to figure out how to get them to do what you want them to do when you want them to do it?
I use enlightenment, because I do like cool pictures in the background, and I like the options that I have (different types of borders, edit your own menus, set stacking [on top, below, normal], sticky, middle mouse click for shading/unshading, virtual desktops up to 8x8, multiple desktops up to 32, that's (32*8*8) = 2048 desktops (I use 3x3x3 and it's more than I need).
Personally, I don't like icons, or anything. The only thing on my desktop when there aren't any apps open is a clock, with time, date, day of the week (wmclockmon). Nothing else. With the menu just a single left-click away, you can load up your favorite apps on the toplevel menu, and the ones you use less on the submenus - so basically, just click anywhere on the background - even the tiny slice of background between the edge of your app and the edge of the screen - or just mouse off the edge and scroll over to the next virtual desktop (they wrap too) and left or middle click once (not twice) for an infinite amount of nested menus you very easily learn to create yourself however you want.
I think real innovation in GUIs would involve moving as many mouse functions as possible to the keyboard for the sake of improved ergonomics - enlightement has those capabilities, and although I haven't used it much, I understand fvwm2 can be made almost entirely mouse-free, if you so desire.
I'm sticking with enlightment for now, but I think I would be equally at home with fvwm2. 3D is not as important to me as is shading with the middle mouse button, virtual/multiple desktops, and "always on top". I have a seriously hard time being productive otherwise.
Lose. Lose. Lose. It's one "o".
Loose as in Goose.
Lose as in Muse.
One "o". Not two.
Lose. Lose. Lose. I'm losing my temper. You are a loser. Learn to spell. It's not freaking hard.
I know it's a spelling flame but this one really shits me. It's as bad as "rediculous". There's no fucking "e" in ridiculous, people.
Really... just give it up and go away. You guys are losers. If someone has something important to code, they write it in c or c++, not Java. If someone wants to deploy a unix based OS, they use Linux, not Solaris. You (SUN) sold us out during the
Anyway. Please please just die and go away. You guys are linux traitors anyway.
Errrrr.
I really don't like Sun. They are the inventors of hyperbolic marketing for what used to be simply engineering tools.
Oh yea, and Stanford is the last refuge for untalented preppie wannabies with lots of money.
I just shat myself. This is DAMNED impressive. :D
I was keeping my WinXP Distro because I can't get Counter-Strike to run well on Linux, but hell... If I can get this desktop, I wouldn't mind brushing of that fedora CD and giving it another try.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
3D spaces
flaw 1) It is a pain to minipulate things in 3d with a 2D mouse
my solution
Haptics to touch what your are looking at and multidof minipulators
Thanks
First Timer
Can anyone say Microsoft Bob?
Sun is showing what MS demonstarted at PDC 2003. The 3D Java Desktop is just like the Avalon presentation system in Longhorn. The Java implementation is surely going to run like a snail.
...getting an awful lot of applause for something that Microsoft had in 1998
I find it very odd that the demo for this product, which the FAQ claims will run on Linux or Solaris, is only available in Real Media or QuickTime formats --- and Real Media and QuickTime players are only available for MS-Windows or Mac OS.
a lot of tasks would be ten times quicker if shown in 3D. Setting up print ques, or networks would be a snap, if everything was shown in 3D and you could see when things were not connected
This is one of many comments that have claimed 3D data is somehow easier or more natural for humans to understand.
Are they all weak jokes? Or do these posters truely not have any experience with actual humans?
Human mentality is actually biased towards 2D thinking. Their early evolutionary advantage was travelling across the surface of the earth, which is a 2 dimensional routing problem. Before humans can understand a concept, they try to project it onto a plane.
Just do your own experiment. Grab a few humans and run them first through a 2D labyrinth, and then through a 3D maze. Which one can they solve faster?
Watching heavy network traffic move, or being able to tell which e-mail server, router, or switch just died simply by watching it change colour on the network map would really help a lot of people.
Nothing in that has any connection to 3D. It's about coloring, not dimensionality.
The heck with two monitors. Its time for the three monitor revolution! The third one can be a portable tablet type that can be SNUGGLED with at night. :D The hell with human relationships I say!
Now if only my bank account would agree with my theory...
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
You are in a large room. To the North is a passage marked "My Documents." To the West is a passage marked "Control Panel." There is a faint light coming from a small arrow, which is floating in front of you. There is a small bin labeled "Recycle" in the corner. >
The Philosophy of Liberty | lewrockwell.com
Ive seen similar demos for windows 2000 years ago