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Novell Makes Public Release of Xgl Code
hamfactorial writes "Novell has announced the public availability of the Xgl code, an openGL accelerated X server layer. Available binaries ought to be coming soon for distributions running the modular X.org 7.0 release (possibly 6.9, though unconfirmed). A temporary page for Xgl information is up at the openSUSE website. This is the same code that was running in the Novell Linux Desktop 10 preview videos as seen earlier. Further information is also available at Miguel De Icaza's blog."
sorry for the caps.. but C'MON ill lay $500.00 on this not working with xinerama. xinaerama/multiscreen users always seem to get the shaft with the fun stuff like this >
http://orthonovum.is-a-geek.com
That's not what I call progress.
;) ), I sure won't want to waste it waiting for inane animations by silly developers trying to show how clever they think they are.
*paste rant*
Having animations and other silly stuff (like _pauses_ before actions)just adds latency, and wastes CPU.
If I could choose a "low latency/delay" theme or option then that would be great.
I would have thought that most experienced users would know where their gui stuff (windows, dialog boxes, menus etc) went without needing any animations to give them a clue- progress/status indicators excluded of course.
All this waiting half a second or so before actually doing the stuff is ridiculous. Like requiring pauses before opening submenus. I can understand that immediately opening and drawing large submenus in the days of MHz processors and slow 2D cards can slow down your computer to unproductive levels. But the last I checked my PC was running significantly faster than 1.5GHz.
If there's going to be any time wasting or procrastination done, it should NOT be by the computer.
Leave the time wasting to the humans. Human time is more important than computer time. And like most people, I've only got a finite time left on this world and if I'm going to waste it (like most people here
I remember recently people here were complaining about annoying cut scenes in games.
Well those animations are just like those cut scenes in games. Sure if you can interrupt the animations on-the-fly then it's not so terrible, but uh, it's still going to get quite old after the nth time...
That sort of thing mostly belongs in some "Pimp My GUI" TV show, or fan-boy/"ricer" gatherings.
It's like having your car engine spin some colourful nonfunctional propeller just because it looks cool. Or having your expensive semi-automatic car's UI make cute noises and flash pastel numbers before shifting to the appropriate gear. If I'm going to have my car engine spin something it's got to be something useful like a supercharger or aircond compresser. If my car is going to flash something on my windscreen it should flash an extrapolated icon of a toddler hidden _behind_ a parked car, based on the legs it spotted under that parked car, especially if the toddler is moving towards my path (I don't think very highly of cars that drive themselves - given the sort of "geniuses" around, it's not going to happen within a decade or maybe even two, but there are so many ways that cars could help drivers drive better).
Let's see some real progress OK?
Most of the stuff we currently have on our computers is not really that advanced _conceptually_ from what Douglas Englebart demonstrated nearly 30 years ago. Just compare the Novell demo, current popular GUIs and Englebart's demo - 30 years and that's it?
So it's very disappointing to see the proclaimed "state of the art" in GUIs seems to be the equivalent of blue LEDs on cooling fans.
Anyway the future would probably be "thought macros". Initially it'll probably start with users training their "artificial brain augmenters" by thinking of some arbitrary thing/item/concept and then associating it with an action they want the computer to do.
The thought recognition thing is there - just mostly only done on nonhumans so far.
Combine that with an enhancement of the "seeing with tongue" technology and you'd have input/output.
Add wireless technology and enhanced "home automation" and you'd have virtual telepathy and virtual telekinesis.