Changing the basics of a GUI

[ucosty]

*wonders if the SHELL= line still works in vista....*

As in the old system.ini (or was it win.ini?) setting? NT/2K/XP and by extension Server 08/Vista and Windows 7 have always had the Explorer shell reference in the registry.

[Troy Martin]

Ahh, that was the one... Good times, good times...

[MasterLee]

Ever played Transport Tycoon. Ever wanted to see which cargo is waiting on which station/harbour/airport. Multiple windows are so much usefull sometimes. Sometimes i have multiple windows open for the same Document(MDI). Or i have commented PDF open and report programm code in an window beneth it to correct it. Also is it not sometimes easier to youst drag one object from one window in another. Not only files also parts of documents or other kind of objects.

[quanganht]

What about this: Each app have its own virtual screen. In that screen, windows of the app can overlap others. Also, the message boxes or notification windows from others applications can overlap any window.

[salil_bhagurkar]

What about this: Each app have its own virtual screen. In that screen, windows of the app can overlap others. Also, the message boxes or notification windows from others applications can overlap any window.

Isn't that what we already have?

[quanganht]

What about this: Each app have its own virtual screen. In that screen, windows of the app can overlap others. Also, the message boxes or notification windows from others applications can overlap any window.

Isn't that what we already have?

Not really. I mean those message boxes is overlepping, floating windows, not cover entire screen.

[Osbios]

So we talking about SDI versus MDI now? But both systems use "windows". This is far away from tilt based systems like that one for example used in blender.

And btw. this massage boxes remember me on this annoying "feature" of any desktop system to just let new windows poping out of nothing. This is annoying for long loading applications like firefox or error massages that I did not expect.
It does not happen often, but I guess most of the forum members still remember how they pressed away a message box with space or enter by accident. Spending the rest of the day wondering what there might be written in this short life box of unknown and forever lost text.

[MasterLee]

I found the following in the description of an ancient os:

A unique feature of Workbench is multiple screens. These are conceptually similar to X Window System virtual desktops or workspaces, but are generated dynamically by application programs as necessary. Each screen can have a different resolution and colour depth. A gadget in the top-right corner of the screen allows screens to be cycled — as the OS stores all screens in memory simultaneously, redrawing is instantaneous.

Sounds like that what the author of this thread meaned. Each screen could have his own window manager but didn't need one.

[lcowles]

this is so strange that my researches concept GUI is a loose fit with your first diagram. I have actually conducted research on the GUI design that people currently use and found it grossly lacking and flawed in terms of usability but furthermore lacking in terms of "what the F**K".

uploaded is a 2D vision of the GUI as I and my research participants show it should be

my question is this why just change the basics of a GUI, why not revamp the whole thing, input etc???

[salil_bhagurkar]

Yes, I was thinking of changing the input too. But if you try to think of something new, you just end up in coming to the 'pointing device' and the 'keyboard'. I just want to change this pointing device and keyboard into one unified input device, which could key in asciis faster and reduce the redundancy involved with the mouse cursor.

Around 80% of screen pointer movement can be said to be wasted moving around in useless space. If you design the GUI wherein the pointing device is less redundant, then it will be way faster than mice.

I can't think of how it can be done right now though..

[lcowles]

how about using neither, my neice has autism and I made her a linux box with some specialist software for xmas, it uses an xbox / xbox360 controller as pointer with buttons for onscreen keyboard etc. now I'm thinking of using just a keyboard or a reduced keyboard, I men how many people use the Function keys or the numeric pd at the top any more

[Troy Martin]

I men how many people use the Function keys or the numeric pd at the top any more

I do. Often. They're important buttons/relics from typewriters and the QWERTY layout, so they shan't be changed anytime soon as long as we use QWERTY.

[UbarDPS]

I want to take the OP seriously but I have a hard time when someone keeps trying to tell everyone else how everyone uses their computer when they really don't know.

Excuse the run-on.

The proposal is a usability disaster that has been tried before, and failed. It will work on small screens, and, perhaps on resource limited commodity systems that cooperatively multi-task (or are single-application appliances). However has no use in modern computer outside of certain niches. Obviously that is my opinion, and that is why I think it's a bit ambitious to basically say "this is how most people use/don't use their computers."

Even some Linux/UNIX OSes are shipping with the default to 2 Virtual Desktops, because many (most?) people simply don't use or need that many virtual desktops. Half of the most known productivity applications know how to minimize themselves to the system tray now, lots of background applications (like IM Programs) know how to flash a taskbar button instead of change your window focus. Current GUIs have progressed to a point where it doesn't really matter whether or not people multitask in the way you think they don't. The alternative offers no advantages over the current, but more than a few difficiencies when compared to it.

Rhetorical questions/statements like "how many people use the Function keys or the numeric pd at the top any more" just don't work...

There are various levels of failure, and statement like those are of the Epic level...

How do you type your email address? Alt + ASCII code on the Numeric Keypad for the '@' symbol?

Seriously, how many people do you think use that row of keys. Characters: @ ! $ % ( ) = are all on that row...

In any case, even if I don't generally agree with that design philosophy; I'd love to see a working prototype/implementation (even in application form). Maybe the OP is planning some things that are unexpectedly cool that most of us haven't really thought of. I always try to leave room for that posibility, since it has happened on more than a few occasions

[NickJohnson]

I want to take the OP seriously but I have a hard time when someone keeps trying to tell everyone else how everyone uses their computer when they really don't know.

Even some Linux/UNIX OSes are shipping with the default to 2 Virtual Desktops, because many (most?) people simply don't use or need that many virtual desktops.

Isn't this sort of hypocritical?

I use a lot of virtual desktops - it is significantly faster than bringing windows to the top, because it is one key command instead of one mouse movement and click. In my experience, the keyboard is almost always faster than the mouse if you use it correctly. I generally only use 2-3 virtual desktops when programming, but that's because I only have 2-3 windows *open*. If I'm doing other things, like word processing or general multitasking, I'll use 5-6. Having 1-2 windows per virtual desktop means that people don't use many virtual desktops, but that doesn't mean that virtual desktops are not really useful.

[earlz]

I believe the answer is in using transparency properly.. it makes it so you can see two windows at once in the same place..

Anyway.. I usually use 2 and sometimes 3 virtual desktops. I split them up according to what I'm doing. Usually one is programming and the other is some other task and the other another task.. I never have a desktop for web browsing cause I hardly ever have more than 1 window of firefox open. Instead, I use a lot of tabs(once I spent like 3 minutes closing tabs from a firefox session I started 4 days ago) and for programming I commonly use multiple windows. Including the over lap feature(made my IDE a small window on a big PDF document that I was writing code out of that I couldn't just copy and paste, nor could I really remember it well enough to keep from switching back and forth windows, so I did that) (intel manuals when writing a emulator I think it was.. )

so the overlap feature is good, and multiple windows per screen is good.. I think it would be really handy if it was easy to "sticky" a window on top of others loosely, as in put it anywhere you want, but have keyboard focus for the bottom window

Also, I'm curious as to how tabbing can play in a GUI. Like I think it would be neat if you could build a "group window" where basically you drag windows into it and it converts it to a tabbed layout. It would basically be like a middle step to virtual desktops, but I think it would be more useful as tabs are really easy to use for me.

and transparency.. well I'm really not sure how to use this much more than a novelty effect, but I'm sure it has some potential to actually increase productivity: no one has just thought of how it should work yet..

edit:
wait what about mouse gestures(or key combos?) to navigate between layers of windows(being able to see all of them with transparency) and something like ESC-scroll adjusting the transparency so you can make it fully opaque or translucent so you can navigate between windows without having to move the mouse everywhere, just a key combo and scroll and such...

also, when is the batchable GUI going to come? lol