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Metisse - New Looking Glass Alternative
Interested in a 3D desktop? zoso submitted news about about a project called Metisse, writing "There is working and freely available alternative to the (soon to be released under GPL) Sun Looking Glass 3D desktop ( Slashdot story here)
If you have spare CPU/GPU cycles just go download and compile the first publicly available version of this X Desktop. Everything looks nice (screenshots here), has OpenGL support, transparency and all other whistles...."
It is in case your monitor is not actually lined up with your chair, now you can just twist the picture.
Have you seen the demo for OS X Tiger? It has a few concepts from Looking Glass. Things like angled panels with reflection (new iChat u+3 interface) and configuration/preference panels on the "back" of windows (Widgets).
Concepts that seems useless from Looking Glass are making their way to real products with very innovative approaches.
It's not supposed to make you more productive. The meaning of life, for some of us at least, is not to become more and more productive until we die. There is something about mankind, something inside of us, that wants to be entertained and amused, and this includes being in an asthetically pleasing environment (like a well decorated home, or in this case, a futuristic desktop that no one else on their block has).
1) If you are standing to one side of your monitor, it would appear perfectly straight.
2) Writing code in a microgravity environment, you would need your windows to match your attitude relative the monitor.
3) Twisted? At least it's not doing the hokey-pokey.
4) Or *is* it?
5) If your document were Medusa, you would not want to look directly at it.
6) If you combine two sideways documents and a Clippy, you can make an airplane and fly it around your desktop.
7) 2D is teh L4M3.
8) You get more points per kill because it's harder to shoot them.
9) Extreme coding challengers are bored and want new horizons.
10) Anybody can type in a straight line.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
1. scaled windows - it's one thing to resize your windows and tile them. That's very old news. Scaled windows are another beast. Scale your firefox window everything shrinks, you don't get a bunch of "A..." "B..." tabs. Instead you get "Apples" "Boxes" etc.. in what amounts to a smaller font. Not always better or worse than resizing, but a nice new tool.
2. Skewed windows - Yeap, I can't read em' either. What is the point? It _may_ be easier to browse multiple windows and forefront the one you want using skewed/rotated effects (instead of an alt-tab ring or taskbar).
3. Window peeling - this is kinda nifty. Instead of minimizing, resizing or moving your current window to see what is underneath you 'peel back' part of the parent.
Earthshattering breakthrough in UI? Nope. A reliable and consistant cut-n-paste would be of more immediate value. But as an experiment into improving the GUI it is fun stuff.
"I know this, this is UNIX!"
ask yourself, "What problem does this solve?"
How about asking yourself the same question when it comes to the plethora of ways to prepare food?
The only problem that eating solves is nourishment, but yet people eat a variety of foods. Some foods taste better than others. Some people taste foods differently than other people, yet we only really need it for nourishment.
Any project started by a programmer or group of programmers is to fill some need, which may only be personal. Like food, we like variety and sometimes want something different or better or the combo of the two. If the creator (chef or programmer) like what they have done, they might want to share with the rest of the world.
The problem any software project sovles is self interest. It doesn't need to be anything more than that.
To belittle people for sharing is absurd.
----- Oooh, Shiny!