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3D Sphere Interface for XP
Brian Brian writes "I found this super cool 3D, inside a sphere, desktop interface. The videos really demonstrate it. I would love this built into OS X but it is just for Windows right now. And if nothing else, the paradigm is the coolest way to handle multiple screens." Here are a
collection of screenshots & videos. I'm skeptical that it wouldn't be very practical, but it sure looks fun.
XP is slow enough as it is...and now we want to do all kinds of useless fancy junk with this kind of window manager?
It looks like someone saw Minority Report one time too many.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
I've tried SphereXP, even implemented my own 3D desktop before that.
The problem with it is that it's not about function, but flair.
In short, try something else, preferably something which doesn't include the ability to rotate windos around their own axels.
Saw this a lonnnnng time ago. Installed XP just to try it. What I found :
-Extreme resource hog
-The designer knows nothing about UI design (so many different actions, even if you can customize the controls. Needs to be simplified)
-It's ugly.
-You can't even use the windows while they're in "3D " mode
Just a poor windows developer trying to make some competition to Looking Glass. It's too bad, because it'll never work, unless MS does it and integrates it into their OS. (It would probably be really buggy coming from them though. I hate to say it, but I'm looking to Sun for the first 3D desktop)
It's nice eye candy but I really don't see how this will make a user more efficient as it seems to be distracting (just more ammo for those with ADD). I do find Windowmaker's multiple workspaces to be a great boon though but it's not XP.
Trolling is a art,
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/14/214020 3&tid=189&tid=190
Hey look, it was also posted by CmdrTaco.
This looks a lot like 3d desktop, but ontop of the desktop instead of the black background.
I would love this built into OS X but it is just for Windows right now.
Can someone explain how this differs in any way from trolling? Several recent article summaries have had provocative comments like this attached. Is it an intentional attempt to drive up discussion rates, or are CmdrTaco, Hemos and michael just getting bored with vanilla Slashdot (where users make up their own minds after RTFA, not before)?
Do you even bother with dupe checks anymore?
Stuff.
The longest part of XP rebooting, for me, is waiting for it to shut down. This is because I have mine set to zero out the page file before shutting down, and zeroing out a few gigs of swap space takes some time. I imagine if I disabled that, it'd reboot extremely quickly.
Monitoring for instance. It would be nice to be running 18 different system monitors all in this interface and all you have to do to see other screens is move your mouse.
Why would i need a 3d environment to do this? I already realtime monitor 50+ servers and network infrastructure in 2d.
All i currently have to do to move to another screen is move my mouse, or press a key combination (a lot quicker for me).
What benefit do i get from 3d? I get to tell my boss i really really need a new computer to do my monitoring? An old P-166 plus 17" crt plus 2d X with the right apps solves monitoring.
Not to mention that any real monitoring system will be paging you, not just displaying things to s screen. The only benefit of 3d is wow factor, maybe my boss will be more impressed by whirling stats and messages than easy to read scrolling messages.
Firefox/IE are applications. Compare that to trying to make/extend a window manager. Sure, IE runs faster sometimes because of so much of it being built into the kernel, but the window manager (Explorer) in Windows is completly built into the OS (it basically is the OS in Windows's case). All this guy is doing is throwing up an openGL window that takes screenshots of windows, and uses them as textures for the inside of a sphere. Looking Glass, as one example on *nix, is in a much better posistion because it can be a full fledged window manager, because it justs use X as a window server.
As far as a multiple monitor vs. multiple desktop setup... I'd definitely go with multiple monitor by far. I have a dual-monitor setup in my cube and I never want to go back. I like to be able to have something up on both screens at the same time (think comparing documents). With a dual-desktop approach, you have to switch back and forth (whether it's keyboard combo, or moving the mouse to the edge of the screen).
:-)
Perhaps have a dual-monitor setup where if you go past the edge of the entire display (left of left monitor or right of right monitor) you switch desktops. Combine this with a KVM-switch-by-mouse-drag
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
In most 3D games you still navigate on a 2D map. Left, right, forward, back. Even when you have steps and ramps, it's still essentially 2D. The only real third dimension are elevators and stairs to different levels.
Some 3D games are really 3D, like flight simulators, but most are no more 3D than the original Wizardry was.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!