LCARS Themes in Development

mr100percent writes "I'm sure most Slashdot readers remember the computer UI from the Star Trek universe. Now, a number of developers are at work making LCARS themes, including one for Nokia tablets. There's even a Standards Board, with a flash LCARS demo." Several of us here in the office had the opportunity to test out the Nokia 770 at LinuxWorld San Francisco. The "cool factor" of a UI like this may even outweigh some of the downsides to the device since most of them were interface difficulties.

Comments

Nothing for you to see here

[wolrahnaes]

First time i've seen that in a while...I must be lucky

Re:Nothing for you to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever noticed that "Nothing to see here" is temporary? That the story will appear in less than a minute? That nobody really cares if you can't see the story, especially since by the time 99% of the people that follow the link actually follow the link the story is already there? That your message then becomes absolutely meaningless? Who really needs to know that Sean Harlow couldn't see a story on Slashdot at 1:10 AM but could at 1:11 AM?

You and everyone that posts a "Nothing to see here" post should have your karma kicked down to 0 so everyone else doesn't have to see it. Of all the things to waste your time posting about, you post about... Nothing.

And here I was...

[oKtosiTe]

...thinking Star Trek was dead.

Re:And here I was...

[LiquidCoooled]

Its dead Jim, but not as we know it.

Re:And here I was...

[TommydCat]

You grab the tricorder, I'll take the wallet...

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait to hear Jakob Nielsen or Tog put this abomination 6 feet under before anyone wastes time on it. A third of the screen is taken up by the menu. Another third consists of mostly non-working buttons with random numbers, while more random numbers serve to distract your attention. The font is so narrow that it's unreadable.

"Functional" and "Futuristic" don't go necessarily hand in hand, and the latter always has to take a backseat to the former.

Enlightenment DR16 theme

[diodegod]

There exists an LCARS theme for Enlightenment DR16 at http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/lcars/

Some freshmeat searching reveals that there's themes for GTK+ too at http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/lcars_/

I used to use this theme years ago to show off, although the thick vertical bar at the left of the windows sort of wasted space on the 800x600 monitor.

Hell,

[Anonymous Coward]

NO!

LCARS is an ugly ulgy interface

[Anonymous Coward]

LCARS Sucks.

Cardasian interface on the other hand... awesome
dig those beeps!

Re:LCARS is an ugly ulgy interface

[mikeron]

Cardasian interface on the other hand... awesome

Especially with the Terok Nor mood lighting.

Can be useful

[jackharrer]

That system can be quite useful for specific purposes. Especially in hospitals, factories and silmilar places where nice GUI is not so important as clear and informative one. By using certain colors and patterns for displaying data you can easily notify user about information and changes. That can be very useful.
Think that you have 5 warnings and one 1 critical message. On PC that would take 6 message boxes popping on screen. In LCARS you can blink some some of the buttons for warnings and pop-up message with critical information. It looks more uniformed that icon in tray blinking. Or MS Clippy :)

Another good advantage is that system is designed to use touch screen. So nice big buttons and everything generally easy to read.
Which is good in places you don't have space for fully blown PC + monitor + keyboard. Like in hospitals. It's much easier to clean and disinfect screen that keyboard. Not to mention that staff don't need to learn how to use computers, only some fancy GUI.

The only thing that project needs is proper standardization - if not all users will be totally lost. And every company will use it's own model.

Re:Can be useful

[Anonymous Coward]

Hospitals? You must mean sickbays!

Re:Can be useful

[Anonymous Coward]

By using certain colors

And how will we handle colorblind users? Eugenics, apparently

I don't understand the purpose of it.

[master_p]

What's the purpose of developing an LCARS specification? putting aside the fantasies of travelling in other planets on the USS Enterprise, I do not see playing role in the development of user interfaces. It looks cool, but it is confusing: it is not easy to see what is clickable and what is not, since the flat graphics give no indication of what can be clicked (I had to move the mouse on every element to see if it is clickable). The LCARS interface is nothing more than the old style text mode menu navigational system with flashier graphics. And overlapping windows where developed for a purpose: to allow the user to manage more information than what a computer screen can hold at one time.

Don't get me wrong, I am a Star Trek fan and certainly LCARS is very exciting to use, especially while imagining being on a starship (!). It may also be useful for certain real-life situations like Star Trek conventions or even in tactical systems' consoles in military ships or airport terminals...but it does not seem useful as an altenative for desktop GUI.

I also did not understand the term 'LCARS hardware'. They say in a link that they are developing such a thing. If it is not part of the fantasy, then what is it? it certainly can not be a massively parallel computer with AI like the one of the USS Enterprise, because such a beast is not possible yet.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fish gotta fly, birds gotta swim, Trekkies gotta pretend they're in the future. Maybe playing with toys having this interface makes life slinging burgers more tolerable. Have some empathy for these poor souls. Once they get married and get a real job, their lives will only get worse.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The LCARS interface is nothing more than the old style text mode menu navigational system with flashier graphics.

Did anyone ever stop to think that the old text menu navigation systems were in fact very usable indeed. Ncurses interfaces are typically extremely straightforward to use and uncluttered. You get what you want without all that mucking about with the mouse, and buttons, and menus, and submenus, and bips and bops and etc, etc.

Text, is the new GUI.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[sumdumass]

What's the purpose of developing an LCARS specification? putting aside the fantasies of travelling in other planets on the USS Enterprise, I do not see playing role in the development of user interfaces.

The purpose would likely be to address the concerns you latter mention and provide a uniform way of avoiding them.

It looks cool, but it is confusing: it is not easy to see what is clickable and what is not, since the flat graphics give no indication of what can be clicked (I had to move the mouse on every element to see if it is clickable).

There once was a time not far long ago were a user was expected to know how to use the computer. The user was expected to know that if you click this or type that, something would happen and you actualy had an expectation of what would happen.

I say this not to ridicule you but to point out that you could figure it out. and you would probably only need to figure it out once or read the documentation that came with it like in the old days. If your not willing to do this, then it apears it isn't marketed to you. However, the interface design is quite clean if you have a specific application intended for it. Using it with a touch screen as a KIOSK or control interface for some machinery of some sorts would be ideal. I can imagine a game console with web browsing support fitting well. you could use it for about anything but as you later point out, there are some drawbacks so keeping them in mind when using it will probably suite you best.

Don't get me wrong, I am a Star Trek fan and certainly LCARS is very exciting to use, especially while imagining being on a starship (!). It may also be useful for certain real-life situations like Star Trek conventions or even in tactical systems' consoles in military ships or airport terminals...but it does not seem useful as an altenative for desktop GUI.

imagine a world without star treck, now imagine a desktop with a user who only uses 3 maybe 4 applications. The user doesn't need MSPaint, Wordpad, the Startmenu, My Documents or any of that, just a few programs that do certain things directly related to thier job. would it make more sence now?

I think your concetrating too much on the star trek connection. Even though the connection is a "video game" UI that gave the user control of a few functions specific to achieving a few tasks. (see above for reference). I think you might have been burned by a treky in the past or maybe forced to convert from being one your self. Maybe treky reality training conflicted with your D&D

You seem to think trek fans aren't hip or something. but they designed most of the stuff you enjoy today. Everything from cordless phones and cell phones- because of star trek. cdroms and thier respective child devices built from them(like DVD and SO on) were inspoired by trek. And this is just the start, there are tons of things you use that started as a "if they could do it in star trek, why shouldn't we be able to do it now" thought.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[cerberusss]

Text, is the new GUI.

And ncurses is its prophet!

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[ronanbear]

LCARS interface isn't really optimised for web browsing. Where it might be really useful would be in some sort of Labview style interface. It's a control console that has a large range of information available quickly. It's specialised but should be useful for some people. It's optimised for touch screens and for mixing rich content with data that needs to be constantly monitored. It's actually quite intuititive and fast. I can see it being very good in embedded systems.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[mwvdlee]

You're giving Star Trek slightly too much credit.

CD's invented because of Star Trek? You do know we had a medium very similar to CD's before Star Trek right? If you replace "needle" with "laser", the rest of the technical implementation will follow. All it takes is a LaserDisc to show you the missing link.

And obviously, cordless phones were invented due to Star Trek. Even though Star Trek was probably broadcast over radiowaves just like the ones we use for any other kind of wireless technology. All they did was combine transmitter and reciever in one unit and refine it.

I dare say these would have existed without Star Trek too. The only thing Star Trek might have done, is encourage some people to go study technology. A noble achievement in itself, which should be enough for Star Trek zealots.

As for the LCARS interface; it looks nice but is useless from a functional point of view. it emphasizes look over feel to the extreme. Understandably, since it was never designed to be useful. It just means you shouldn't expect it to become useful without significant redesign.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[LWATCDR]

Well the flip Cell phone probably does owe a debt to the Star Trek for styling.
While I am a Star Trek fan let us all get a grip. Star Trek was a reflection of the time. Star Trek existed because of the space race. As a tiny child I enjoyed watching the Apollo missions a lot more than than Star Trek.
The space program is in large responsible for most of the current technology we have today. Star Trek really was the cultural/entertainment relfection of the space program. To put it bluntly the space program was the first chapter of Star Trek to us. Star Trek was the goal.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[Provocateur]

putting aside the fantasies of travelling in other planets on the USS Enterprise

Some of us have problems with that frst hurdle.

*teleports back
...you insensituve clod!

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[sumdumass]

You're giving Star Trek slightly too much credit.

CD's invented because of Star Trek? You do know we had a medium very similar to CD's before Star Trek right? If you replace "needle" with "laser", the rest of the technical implementation will follow. All it takes is a LaserDisc to show you the missing link.

And obviously, cordless phones were invented due to Star Trek. Even though Star Trek was probably broadcast over radiowaves just like the ones we use for any other kind of wireless technology. All they did was combine transmitter and reciever in one unit and refine it.

I dare say these would have existed without Star Trek too. The only thing Star Trek might have done, is encourage some people to go study technology. A noble achievement in itself, which should be enough for Star Trek zealots.

Well, not really. Recently on the history channel's How shatner changed the world, wich was a documentory based off shatner's booky "i'm working on that", they interviewed the original creators of the CD-ROM and Cordless phone and they said they were inspired by star trek. They never would have worked on the ideas if it wasn't for star trek. The show (and book) goes on to interview others who claim they invented stuff directly because of star trek. Everything from smaller computers (altair 8800 was even names after a solar system in star trek) to MRI, cat scans and such were supposedly inspired by star trek. One quote from the guy who started looking into non-invasive surgical imaging because of how it was done on star tek. Most of them said either, "we can do that now" and set uot to prove it or saw what was being shown and said "that is the way we need to go" then directed thier reseach in that direction. Ironicly, They admit that Star Trek's inovated furturistic vision was the sole product if fiction writers and set makers who could only do so much with the materilas availible at the time.

If you get a chance, read the book or watch the show. It will surprise you.

Now, this isn't to say that some one else wouldn't have invented a cdrom or record player because of other developments. But it does mean that they wouldn't have been made when they were and thier influence on normal life today might not be the same.

As for the LCARS interface; it looks nice but is useless from a functional point of view. it emphasizes look over feel to the extreme. Understandably, since it was never designed to be useful. It just means you shouldn't expect it to become useful without significant redesign.

Think appliance not computer. Think application not general computing. The design, although I havn't used it, can be fully functional for specific applications. Your seemiong to want to compare it with windows' or mac's desktop and in that sence you are right. But imagine it used for the limited functions needed for a UI on a (cell)phone, dvd player, security alarm pannel, router or television programing menu. You see, I could easily be usefull for several things without a rewrite. It just probably isn't usefull as a desktop OS UI.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[sumdumass]

Now, this isn't to say that some one else wouldn't have invented a cdrom or record player because of other developments.

damn preview button.....

That should read from a instead of or. like this..

Now, this isn't to say that some one else wouldn't have invented a cdrom from a record player because of other developments.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone ever stop to think that the old text menu navigation systems were in fact very usable indeed. Ncurses interfaces are typically extremely straightforward to use and uncluttered.

Oh, of course, you're absolutely right!

ncurses.... nfoiled ngain.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[aztektum]

The hard to tell what's clickable could easily be avoided by dimming boxes after you make a choice (short of removing them altogether.)

I've always felt, despite the gimmick factor, an LCARS styled interface showed promise of being a fast and efficient way to completing tasks and accessing information.

You would have to move away from showing useless information like they do (hence all the non-clickable buttons).

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[mabhatter654]

But LCARS was "published" on TNG well before Microsoft had Windows! That's what makes it interesting. Most computers in 1988 were still text only MS Dos.. or Mac. The art directors came up with a way of using computers that's still slightly ahead of what we have now. Yes, it was just "play" but they used that method for nearly 15 years of sets and props.. it's had a lot of thought put into it, even if not by "programmers".

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And overlapping windows where developed for a purpose: to allow the user to manage more information than what a computer screen can hold at one time."

Check out ion3 and ratpoison and other tiling window managers. At least in concept, they seem compatible with LCARS. Overlapping windows are not the only solution here. I use ion3 on a daily basis for development and find it a much more useful paradigm.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I could definitely see an LCARS style interface on an appliance. In some ways, the buttons on a microwave aren't too far off, I'd think. (Though they're quite static and not on a screen.. at least on any microwaves I've seen.)

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[mwvdlee]

There were a lot of graphical user interfaces, even Windows-like, that were published well before Microsoft released Windows.
X11 was released in 1987. The first X was released in 1984, so was classic Mac OS. The Amiga and Atari ST were released in 1985.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Text, is the new GUI.

Text is the anti-GUI.

GUI is great for novices discovering interfaces, but they're slow. I once wrote up a step-by-step of how to fire a photon torpedo via a standard GUI. "Tactical... Weapons ... 'Weapon type' checkboxes, scatter type radio buttons, Are You Sure? box, etc."

Needless to say, it's too slow for pasting the Ferengi.

There's not a problem training your tactical officers with slow-to-learn, fast-to-use computer interface.

LCARS is the Lotus Notes of the 24th century

[QuantumG]

Everyone knows it blows but Starfleet mandates its continued use.

Re:LCARS is the Lotus Notes of the 24th century

[LiquidCoooled]

Does that mean that Linus is playing Dr. Noonien Soong?
Fighting the Microsoft monopoly and providing an alternative.

Data units represent less than 0.00001% of all installed computers but attract a huge following.

Data vs Lore is the logical followup to Vi vs Emacs.

Ha

[cheese-cube]

I've already seen the "LCARS Standard Board" when it was featured as an Awful Link of the Day on Something Awful.

Tried it, deleted it!

[j35ter]

I loved the idea, when I saw it on maemo.org
Just dont use your 770 in the sun with this theme, its basically unreadable and I did not have the time to fiddle around with the colors. Cool idea, bad implementation (I hope the developers will follow some additional ergonomy guidelines)

Re:Tried it, deleted it!

[Anonymous Coward]

On the site it tells you how to change the text color, if you're willing to edit your gtkrc file...

Want to set up an LCARS interface on a tablet...

[QangMartoq]

I have come into possession of a Fujitsu Stylistic 3500ST tablet for cheap (dead HD). I replaced the HD, and considering its design tradeoffs, it seems to be a decent machine for an LCARS home control interface. (500 Mhz Celeron, 256MB RAM, 12 GB HD, 1 USB, 2 IR, 1 COM, 1 PC Card - Other propietary ports).

I've set it up with Win 2K w/ SP4 & all critical updates. It loads any software by way of a wireless card, sharing out a folder & the DVD-ROM on my laptop.

I've been a trekker for a long time, and myself and a friend were discussing turning it into an LCARS terminal a few days ago. The problem is that while I can find mos, if not all of the LCARS interface elements online, I have no idea how to use them to turn the system into a seamless functioning terminal.

Any ideas?

For Gods' Sakes Trekkies!

[Anonymous Coward]

LCARS is such an efficient and useful system solely because the writers of the show declared it so because they needed a good explaination for why characters could do so much with so little hand activity NOT BECAUSE THE ACTUAL GUI DESIGNED BY THE ART DEPARTMENT DOES SQUAT.

You'r enot supposed to "click"

[brunes69]

LCARS is a touch screen interface. It was in Star Trek and it is in these designs.

Anything that looks like a button can be pressed.

ooh

[miruku]

I'd like to see an LCARS theme for this.

Re:ooh

[Jonah Hex]

Looks like an actual workable theme on there, why mess it up by changing the colors to all the same shades of yellow and blue?

That'll go over great in a factory

[karlandtanya]

I can hear the phone call now...
"How much of my time and money you WASTE trying to make this automated weld station look like it belongs on...what did you call it, Eugene?...(the starship "Enterprise")...the startrek enterprise!? This is a manufacturing plant, not a dork convention. Get in here and fix it.

Awesome and intuitive!

[Rob T Firefly]

On no other theme could you just press whatever random buttons you like, and have it do exactly what you need it to do to get to the next part of the plot. So what if you pressed the upper left button to launch a browser last week? This week you'd rather press the middle right one to do it, and it'll damn well launch your browser!

The only downside is the extremely dramatic expression of concentration you need to exhibit while using it.

Re:Awesome and intuitive!

[docrmc]

Absolutely! LCARS should be backronymed "Links Change At Random Segments". Now, if they could combine it with a tap-to-midi, we can play "you tiny little lifeforms" in strange and public places. The dramatic concentration will freak out the passersby- bonus!

Re:Awesome and intuitive!

[hawaiian717]

So what if you pressed the upper left button to launch a browser last week? This week you'd rather press the middle right one to do it, and it'll damn well launch your browser!

I believe it's been explained that the panels are user-configurable. Each user can have their own layout of how they want stuff, and presumably can change it whenever they want to. I can do it today with KDE, so I see no reason LCARS can't do it too.

File folders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the "file manager" have folder icons? Who the hell in the 24th century has seen a manilla folder? For that matter, who the hell needs a file manager in the 24th century?

"Computer, open folder 'My Pictures'. Now open the subfolder "Romulan Ale Binges". Now open the subfolder "Counselor Troi Flashing Her Tits". Now open the subfolder "2365-12-31". Select pictures 1 through 137 and display, continuous loop."

Goes over to replicator and punches up warm lotion and a roll of paper towels...

Re:File folders?

[mbessey]

"Computer, open folder 'My Pictures'. Now open the subfolder "Romulan Ale Binges". Now open the subfolder "Counselor Troi Flashing Her Tits". Now open the subfolder "2365-12-31". Select pictures 1 through 137 and display, continuous loop."

Congratulations. You've just (re)invented AppleScript!

-Mark

Intersting concept, but really missing the point

[jbarr]

OK, I know that Star Trek was just a TV show (and movies) but the concepts shown were often meant to demonstrate "what could be" technologically. But why do LCARS developers insist on incorporating all the supeerfluous Star Trek branding stuff when they could better focus on designing a user interface that was truely useful and productive?

After looking at the Flash demo, I think it's an interesting concept. I've seen the LCARS concept tried on the PalmOS, and on the PC, but I think they always miss the point. LCARS implementations are always filled with Star Trek logos and references. Why? And they're always filled with lots of meaningless, superfluous eye candy that simply serves no purpose other than to closely imitate a Star Trek screen. (For example, the upper right section with the flashing numbers.) Yes, it looks cool, but what's the point? Are LCARS designs supposed to make us roleplay Star Trek, or are they supposed to leverage concepts to provide a more productive and useful user interface?

obnoxious

[headonfire]

LCARS is one of the most obnoxious, unusable interfaces I've ever seen. The colors are eyebleeding and the contrast is retina-melting. the amount of real estate taken up by useless widget space is tremendous, and actual data displayed is
minimal.

Sure, it looks cool - from a distance, glanced over by a TV camera. Where it was created, and meant to stay.

I like star trek and all, fun shows - but christ. Let LCARS die, or at least continue its life where it belongs - in fiction. It's a terrible idea to find a design that "looks awesome" then try to work usability into it, all while adhering some canonical dictates that are arbitrary and unhelpful.

Re:obnoxious

[rainmayun]

Grumble, grumble. Next you'll be complaining about how the Enterprise-D has no bathrooms.

Re:obnoxious

[headonfire]

I think you missed the whole point of my post. The Enterprise doesn't need bathrooms, because there aren't a whole lot of scenes that you can film in a bathroom and still be eligible for prime-time TV, versus direct-to-video release in that funny room in the back of the movie shop. The Enterprise is a TV (and occasionally movie) set. It's designed to look cool, not to poop in. The actors go off-set for that.

Comparatively, nobody is designing and building houses to look like the Enterprise on a day-to-day basis, complete with "no bathrooms"; and then publishing it as the next greatest thing in architectural design. If they did, the first thing a real designer would say is "where the hell are the bathrooms?" I bet the Las Vegas Hilton "Star Trek Experience" remembered the bathrooms.

My point is simple. Any time someone tries to bring something from the Star Trek screens into the real world, there is often a much, much better way of doing it that has already been done. It may not look as cool, but that's life. The hall of the Enterprise (pick a model) look like a cubicle farm anyways, and I'm not really too keen on living in that environment any more than I already do.

It's fun to pretend that Star Trek is real, it really is. It's something I've been watching almost since -birth-, and it's always been there, shiny and glamorous and full of the mystery of space. But - it's not real. More importantly, it's not intended to be entirely real. Extrapolation from the source material by fans is cute, but you shouldn't confuse "cute" with "real" or "workable".

Neat idea but lets consider usablity...

[mefdahl]

Now I don't really have any problems with people attempting to work out new useable GUI variations (ever tryed to use windows/x.org with a touch screen?). The general premise if LCARS is great, but rather than trying to be true to the pictures thrown up on the TeeVee, why arn't they taking the basic idea and creating something functional out of it?

All the ?random? colors and numbers are useless fluff, get rid of that junk and start with basic functions, like how submenus will come before the elbows, with primary information on top and wigets below...

Not to paraphrase Shatner, but ...

[writermike]

Guys, it's a TV show. Why do we assume that LCARS is efficient at all? I don't quite understand why, in many an-episode, they have to press so many buttons anyway. It seems sometimes the whole thing isn't very context efficient. If Worf is at tactical and he's gotten check out something on scanners, why is he pressing _anything?_ Shouldn't that all just be there?

Nuke Nielsen

[Anonymous Coward]

Jakob Nielsen can suck my Klingon dick.
Wasn't he the prick that tried to stop Flash on the web?
If you pay attention to old sods like that you only encourage their irrelevant whinings

UAC

[Anonymous Coward]

Make an UAC (United Aerospace Corporation) theme from Doom 3. :)
Like the one in the PDA.