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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
why do i seem to remember reading this same story and watching that same video a few months ago?
NERDS!!!!
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 ?
Please stop watching Minority Report. That was fiction. Fic-shun.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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.
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?
Have you even seen the video ? Does it look confusing at all ?
It's basically a regular desktop with 3D features. I seriously don't see why you would lable it complex. The coding behind it is complex yes, but that doesn't mean the desktop is complex or difficult to use.
And what exactly would you do with this 3d desktop? In terms of productivity? Does reordering translucent windows on your virtual bookshelf all day long count as productivity?
I think not.
In your post you mention Visicalc for apple and Lotus for Dos, and I agree they did drive these oses, but this is just another window manager , and has nothing to do with an application.
Now, if this environment exposed an API that allowed a given developper to use 3D Widgets in order to move out of the 2d windowpane concept, maybe we could be on to something. Especially for Data Analysis tools, but right now, as a standalone WM on top of 2d Widgets, this is completely useless.
I dunno...the 2D version fits a lot better in my CD case.
Nice idea, but a killer app has to be an application. This, at best, could be a killer interface. But, to be a real success, it has to have something to interface with, ie good software.
If Linux wants to get into more homes, the fragmentation needs to be reduced. Microsoft has a unified cohesive view of their operating system. In the OS world, it can vary completely between two colleagues, let alone communities. Until that's sorted, this is just expensive pissing in the wind.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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....
> 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.
This is no killer app. This is a toy. It may let people organize their desktop better, and it's cool to look at, but you are not going to get businesses to pony up for the switch to Linux so their employees can make their windows transparent. A "killer app" must have real and recognizable benefits to influence a shift of this magnitude.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
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)
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.
Current desktops are confusing for quite a few users. Now consider that this new interface doesn't really change the way things are done (there are still windows, menus, et cetera), just adds stuff. Granted, it's really damn cool stuff (stuff that I can see Apple using Quartz Extreme to do sometime down the road), but it will confuse the shit out of computer novices.
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.
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...
He said open source.
If the linux desktop is to go 3D this is a hard requirement.
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.
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
Did I miss something when I installed Linux?
Where are the nekkid chicks on my wall paper?
here. You probably used Red Hat or SuSE. Given time, Open Source fills all niches.
May we never see th
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
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/
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
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 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.
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.
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!
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.