Slashdot Mirror
Sphere XP Makes GUI 3D
Cypherus writes "I came across a link for a 3d desktop environment. "The SphereXP is a 3D desktop replacement for Microsoft Windows XP. Taking the known concept of three-dimensional desktops to its own level. It offers a new way to organize objects on the desktop such a icons and applications. Check the videos and screenshots to get the idea.""
I really don't think the 3d desktop will be feasable until we have some form of useful, cheap, and easy to use 3D input device. Anyone work with this sort of thing?
What I have yet to see on any sort of 3D gui, is a thought out plan. (If anyone has please link)
I would like to see some thought like a list of limitations that the 2D GUI paradigm currently has and how a 3D GUI could address these issues while not producing a huge long list of its own problems.
Until then, this looks cool, but is in no way a step forward, back, up or down. It's just kinda there.
-- taking over the world, we are.
This (SphereXP) is almost painful to use. Not that it's a bad design (it's very interesting), but I've seen the videos from a while back (I'm working on something that competes along these lines, have to keep tabs...). Two things I would say to the coder: 1.) CSGL is no longer being developed. Switch to Tao (http://www.randyridge.com). 2.) Try and keep the amount of effort (moving around, switching tasks) to a minimum. Download the videos, you will see what I mean. Lots of bad clicking and scraping while moving around the sphere.
The biggest problem I've run into (again, I'm working on something in the 3D Desktop arena), is that in windows, you cannot jack the Paint APIs (easily). So you can't just grab a window and throw it into OpenGL. Additionally, you can't modify the source (closed-source) to grab the windows...Which I am attempting to rectify with some assembly code, but it's still a pain.
The nice thing about Tao? Cross-platform (somewhat). As for my program? It will be released after I finish the assembly.
I am John Hurt.
People who said that about Windows were obviously not paying attention. Being able to carry out multiple tasks in parallel, to have several applications available to facilitate workflow, that's dead simple to justify.
Bear in mind that the windowed nature of the Windows GUI wasn't the big step forward - the multiple application, flexible workflow side of things is what truly mattered (working in windows had been around for ages, just look at the Mac, or even better GEOS on the C64!).
Having a pretty 3D interface to do the same thing? I'm not convinced. Gimme something truly revolutionary.
PC INpact Screenshots
The downside of these interfaces is the ridiculously high processor and memory requirements. All that extra graphic manipulation comes at a price, and I for one don't see any reason to waste processor cycles.
They also said that "glass teletypes" would be too bulky and difficult to read. They said that color graphics were a perfectly good waste of video RAM. And 2D graphics with a mouse would never catch on because pointing and clicking at rectangles all day long would get much too tedious.
Of course the 3D desktop comes at a price. It's not practical these days anyway, but it might be in the future. That "might" is very much the key. Even if this is all smoke and mirrors (doubtful, but possible), it makes the company look good. It's "innovation." It might become the next trend.
This Sphere XP is not in use right now because there are significant limiting factors. Computing resources, navigation, ease of use, etc. The whole purpose of research like this is to try to find new ways over those hurdles. If they just sat around all day shaking their heads and saying, "this is pointless, why don't we combine OS X and Windows XP instead?" they... well, they'd end up being you.
What I'd much rather see is somebody developing a faster, more lightweight UI that is a nice combination of OSX and Windows XP. One that chews up LESS memory (instead of more, like this), one that speeds things up.
Better get coding, because if what's currently out there doesn't suit your needs, it's highly unlikely that someone's going to rap on your chamber door and volunteer to sit down and start banging out customized software just for you.
As soon as I saw this on slashdot, I thought I'd quick take a look at it before it got swamped - I actually got all the images and videos downloaded before the site went down due to /. effect.
.torrent of it up for download, but realized that I didn't have any tracker to post it to if I did make one...
I was thinking I could put a
Perhaps Shalsdot needs to look into providing a public tracker for backups of video/images/etc. from sites they link to.
--The Rizz
"The girl who swears no one has ever made love to her has a right to swear." --Sophia Loren
Spoken like a true newbie. GEOS didn't come along for the C64 until way late in its life cycle (long after Macs). Windows wasn't able to "carry out multiple tasks in parallel" (non-preemptive multitasking) until 1995, 10 years after the Amiga did it.
You'll be so busy waiting for something "revolutionary" that you won't be paying attention when such evolutionary technologies as this roll right past you. It's not what it can do that you should be seeing, but what it will be capable of someday (the guy says it's research and a work in progress). GUIs have always been evolutionary - you said it yourself.
I'm not sure if a desktop that worked that way would be any easier, but to really use it, you'd have to change over all your normal reflexes. (There is no "try".) That would be a hard sell--which is where the coolness comes in, I suspect. :)
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