Slashdot Mirror
BumpTop, Pushing the Desktop Metaphor
Alranor writes "BumpTop is a new way of manipulating your GUI desktop with a graphics pen. Documents can be moved and piled (among other actions) as if they were real pieces of paper on a physical desktop. Simulated real physical interactions, such as documents pushing others out of the way as you move them around, are intended to increase the intuitiveness of the layout tool. Given the messiness of my desks at work and home, I'm not so sure this will work for me, but it's an interesting idea."
There's a neat video demo linked from the site (and a "hip-hop overview") if you want to see BumpTop in action; unfortunately for Linux users, BumpTop seems to be Windows-only. As reader idangazit describes it, this is "not just another "me-too" alternative UI; a lot of effort and polish has been put into the (pen-based) interaction, resulting in a very natural way of interacting with collections of information. Less sci-fi than Minority Report, but far more likely to hit a desktop near you in the next few years."
Update: 06/22 16:55 GMT by T : As zdzichu reader points out in the comments below, a visually similar project called lowfat, with an equally impressive video demo, is being developed — with enough sponsorship, lowfat will go open source.
Update: 06/22 16:55 GMT by T : As zdzichu reader points out in the comments below, a visually similar project called lowfat, with an equally impressive video demo, is being developed — with enough sponsorship, lowfat will go open source.
...are not unfortunate since they don't need no real world metaphors.
Fleur de Sel
Documents can be moved and piled (among other actions) as if they were real pieces of paper on a physical desktop.
Can you still get papercuts?
What's next? Ageia PhysX cards for office PCs for 1000000 simple document collisions per frame?
I just tried the Lasso'n'Cross on my real desk and it just made a bigger mess.
I initially read that as "bumtop" and thought "that's a weird place to put your computer."
Appropriate if you're in a situation where you have to pull numbers out of your ass, though.
I wish I could make my phyical desktop and indeed my whole flat more like my windows desktop.
"They're coming around when?!"
*select all -> drag into single folder*
Hah! Watching the video I noticed that at around 6.05min they pick a window to screw up and discard. And the window of choice? It's clearly displaying slashdot!
News for nerds. Stuff that crumples.
---
Accommodation for students
Where are the cardboard boxes you can throw the stacks in after they've sat on your desk for two years?
I would have had first post if I hadn't had to push all the papers off of my keyboard with my pen.
...or your documents will fly off your desktop
and a virtual keyboard/mouse appears.
:)
Wow. Really thinking outside the box there.
How good is the engine anyway ? If you open a window, do all your documents get blown away ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
You can have it both ways - permanent markers will work great for annotating on your monitor. Keep some correction fluid around though...