We have so many different Desktop "OS's" already. There's hardly a need for a _revolution_; strong stability and support is needed but there's just no paying market for it by the looks of it.
4 biggest desktop environments are by mega corporations (apple, microsoft) and by big open-source collectives (Gnome, KDE). But is that it?
No, there's also a bunch of tilling-window managers with their own desktop philosophies, there are entire terminal drawing frameworks with full GUI support.
Desktop is awesome. If anything mobile is the one needing to catch up. iOS and Android are awful, awful environments outside of casual usage. Just try writing up a document on your phone!
Just imagine what could be if they were on the level _desktops_?
Real question: Do we continue to dumb down software to exclusive casual usage for house-moms or we try to move our society to be more techn savy as we are clearly moving to a more tech relying world. Why shouldn't everyone know how to code?
To paraprashe Mr. Engelbart: it's a failed tool if you use it exactly the same way the day you bought it and a year after.
> Real question: Do we continue to dumb down software to exclusive casual usage for house-moms or we try to move our society to be more techn savy as we are clearly moving to a more tech relying world. Why shouldn't everyone know how to code?
Why shouldn't everyone churn their own butter? Why shouldn't everyone sew their own clothes? Why shouldn't everyone build our own homes? Should we continue to dumb down feeding, clothing, and sheltering ourselves for exclusive casual usage of <insert offensive stereotype>?
There are only so many hours in the day and time in our lives; why hide the benefits of technology behind arbitrary gatekeeping?
"Do we continue to dumb down software to exclusive casual usage for house-moms or we try to move our society to be more techn savy as we are clearly moving to a more tech relying world. Why shouldn't everyone know how to code?"
To quote a commonly-used Web meme: "Why not both?"
In my opinion, why should a software tool only have one interface to it? What if there were many possible interfaces available, from very simple interfaces with reasonable defaults for casual users, to more option-rich interfaces for power users, to an API for programmers. What if we could take advantage of today's AI technology to automatically construct GUIs that are tailored to a user's experience level? What if users could customize the GUIs in order to make the GUI fit their needs better?
What if the system supported a variety of languages, not only common languages such as Python that many programmers are familiar with, but also beginner-friendly languages? Users are willing to program provided it's not too difficult: AppleScript from the 1990s was a step in the right direction, and Excel's macro language is probably the most widely-used programming language in the world. With today's AI/NLP technology, we could go further by developing ways for users to describe repetitive, routine tasks using natural language.
I think there's still a lot of room for innovation on the desktop. But you highlight a very big problem: where is the market? Who is going to pay for this innovation? Outside of open-source projects, the major commercial desktop environments are platforms controlled by multi-billion dollar corporations. Building a new desktop environment that is capable of competing against the commercial giants will take a lot of time and capital. The last company to give this a try was Be, Inc. in the mid-1990s, and they had a hard time competing against Microsoft's OEM strategy. I wrote more about this at http://mmcthrow-musings.blogspot.com/2020/10/where-did-perso....
I feel the Classic macOS did one thing quite well. It was rather easy to manage the system.
System functionality could be expanded through various means, but most often devs used Extensions. And if a software issue arose, it was easy to disable all Extensions by pressing SHIFT key on start-up. Also, on start-up you'd visually see what Extensions were being loaded. So at start-up you would always be aware what you had installed.
In current macOS it's very hard to keep track of what I've installed. I install a lot of stuff using tools like Homebrew. Some software might install some system level hooks, etc... From my perspective it's kinda hard to keep the system "clean". And it's probably a good idea to do a clean install of my computers maybe once every year or so, since I might have installed stuff I don't really use anymore.
Also, there was the System Folder and that directory contains the Extensions, Preferences, Control Panels directories, etc... So you could also at the file system level manage your System Folder. You could just delete an Extension manually from Extensions directory in the System Folder to uninstall it. You didn't need any "uninstall" software most of the time.
A classic macOS like environment with a view more modern features (maybe a WindowMaker-like UI, multi-user and real multi-tasking) would be pretty neat.
> Just try writing up a document on your phone! Just imagine what could be if they were on the level _desktops_?
It's very, very difficult to beat a keyboard. Tablets and even phones become day vs. night more usable if you plug in a keyboard, even ignoring everything else that still sucks about them.
Good that you mention Engelbart, because none of the mainstream desktop OSes are close to his ideas, or what the Xerox workstations allowed for, ironically Windows is probably the one most closest to it.
While GNU/Linux have the necessary tooling for making it as well, but thanks to the fragmentation and some communities hatred against GNOME/KDE, it will never happen.
This is what a modern desktop OS should look like,
- not thinking about files: I can open Notes/Drafts on my phone and get a textbox. I kinda get this with Joplin, barely.
- Real sandboxing, with a nice permission layer
- Extremely easy sharing of data between apps. Of course files are theoretically a great sharing mechanism, but the sharing mechanism in mobile OS's are the logical conclusion of the clipboard
- URIs that go deep into other apps. Lets you easily say "go over here to see details" from a completely separate system
The fact that lots of stuff are webapps lets you get pretty far on Desktop too but I think these metaphors are power user features that the desktop could learn from
We continue to dumb down interfaces because of the assumption that people won’t learn and the reality that building a complex usable interface is hard and teaching is almost never done.
I remember when video games came with elaborate manuals, this discussion reminds me of that and how it stopped happening (and just now the smell of opening the box for a new game, i don’t think i’ll ever experience that again)
I think that we should have a third DE with the same level of UX for configuration and simple customization as Gnome and KDE. But focused in Tiling WM. Pick something like Awesome or Sway and creating the whole ecosystem. Pick a OS that suits it like Manjaro (look to the logo, its tiling wm for sure!) and offers the DE as an initial option in the installation.
But considering the "natural selection" that happens here, it may be the way that is because only technical people care about this kind of thing… Idk…
> or we try to move our society to be more techn savy as we are clearly moving to a more tech relying world
This is what I telling non technical friends for years now: as they spend more and more time with computers and the internet the investment to learn what is under the hood and to have more efficient interaction with better tools becomes worth it more and more. You can't say any more you don't fancy or care about IT when you spend hours each day on a computer.
>Real question: Do we continue to dumb down software to exclusive casual usage for house-moms or we try to move our society to be more techn savy as we are clearly moving to a more tech relying world. Why shouldn't everyone know how to code?
Well, the way of progress has always been simplying operations.
Do you know how to fix your car and do you make your own clothes, cheese and bread, in today's "bread and cheese eating", clothes wearing, car driving world?
Honestly I think a lot of ideas about where to go with Desktop OSs these days are just complexity fetishist slashfiction. I don't think we need new complicated paradigms, instead we should take a look at our history of what worked and what didn't and build based a simple combination of good ideas we already have.
My opinion, short version, hastily written, and incomplete:
1) Applications are self-contained objects that can be simply copied and deleted instead of installed and uninstalled. They should run from any location on any media. AppImage implements this in Linux and modern Mac application bundles are already this, but the concept goes back to almost the beginning of desktop computers.
2) Spacial file manager (MacOS), drag and drop saving (RiscOS), desktop and quick-launch menus are just views of a folder structures (Windows).
3) All applications in their own namespace and they only get access to what the user configures for them (do not do "allow/deny" popups!).
4) Everything scriptable and something like AutoHotKey built into the OS at a fundamental level.
5) Switchable "user profiles" instead of "user accounts", which are an artifact of giant shared computer systems. User profile just contains personalized settings and can be located anywhere, including removable media so you can take yours to other computers. If you want to keep things safe from others, encrypt them. Otherwise there are no permissions except those applied to applications themselves.
6) Sound and video should be routable like you see in DAWs. Plug outputs into inputs, add filters, split, mix, etc. This is of course scriptable so you can make it do what you want on arbitrary events.
7) Backwards compatibility should be a high priority, but accomplished via shim layers and/or emulation and/or vms when clean breaks are necessary. A wide array of such should be included with the OS from the beginning. In 2020, there is no excuse for not being able to run old software.
I am working on a side project where I am building a desktop environment for Linux and the BSDs that implements OpenDoc-style components using Common Lisp, where components are objects and where they could be combined not only by using code, but graphically as well. This is inspired by Smalltalk, Lisp machines, and OpenDoc. Another aspect of this desktop environment is its support for very flexible user interfaces that can be easily modified. This project is motivated by my frustrations with existing desktop environments (I lament the stagnation of macOS) and my desire to see something like a modern Lisp machine.
I'm still in the very early phases of this project; there's no code available, and I'm currently in the process of learning Wayland and graphics programming (I have a background in systems programming and I've been getting up to speed on graphics programming in order to carry out this project).
Those are some great ideas that dovetail together in powerful ways! Thanks you for sharing your work in progress.
In the hopes of inspiring you and others, here's a kind of messy draft of an article I haven't completely finished, but it's all about HyperLook (a user-editable desktop GUI system inspired by HyperCard and implemented in NeWS PostScript) and some components and applications I developed with it, like SimCity, a cellular automata machine, pie menus, a customizable clock editor, a customizable window manager, and "Happy Tool":
SimCity, Cellular Automata, and Happy Tool for HyperLook (nee HyperNeWS (nee GoodNeWS))
HyperLook was like HyperCard for NeWS, with PostScript graphics and scripting plus networking. Here are three unique and wacky examples that plug together to show what HyperNeWS was all about, and where we could go in the future!
I e recently arrived at the conclusion that we need semantic interfaces (think semantic web). Where things are naturally cross referential and indexing is useful beyond clever search hacks. With so much of our day to day lives being digital it would be UI 2.0 to finally break this barrier. It struck me like a brick wall how I released that my interactions with the “machine” are incredibly isolated from one another and despite advances in Machine learning it still doesn’t build a great predictive index locally that I can leverage for finding or surfacing my own precious content or natural suggestions for whom I may want to share a certain piece of knowledge with and that’s just a small example I can think of quickly
Some of the tech mentioned in this Twitter thread is pretty neat too. Maybe I should take a second look at Pharo
It’s my dream to work in some kind of next level browser/app that would leverage this kind of thinking. One day I hope
I want less in the "lets make the desktop good" vein, and more in the "lets stop making the desktop crap" vein.
Things that seem to be making things worse, ironically, are all things that ostensibly are there to make them better. Web technologies, I'm mainly looking at you.
Definitely. Windows got worse after XP, mostly with 8. Why did they move things around and setup multiple ways of doing things? Gnome got worse after v2, and what was Ubuntu thinking with ads? OSX/macOS/iOS got worse with flat design (which thankfully morphed) and AppStore and awful windows-style install nanny.
It’s not just the interface. iOS and macOS got embedded spyware years ago, and it’s still there; they can backdoor whenever. Dig through your logs and sometimes you’ll see output of a menu choice upon being connected to. Windows has similar from what I’ve read. I’m willing to give up some privacy, but it seems like B.S. to make people pay for things that do that in such a hidden way. It leaves things exposed. Unfortunately, the desktop OS alone is not enough for security either. Hardware doesn’t lock down, with potential openings for instructions in multiple places in modern computers.
I think the portability of web technologies make them super appealing to new developers, which is what I think the appeal of languages like Java were a decade (or more!) ago. I think web tech has all of those advantages plus the ability to get started so much more quickly (it takes so little effort to get a simple website online).
I started writing some Swift recently and built a small app, and it kinda shocked me how simple it can be to get such great interface performance from so little code. I kinda wonder if there's some sort of middle ground, like web assembly with a more standardized starting point, base language, and set of UI components.
The next desktop OS, I hope, will be a real, physical desk. I'd like a computer that doesn't have a glowing screen and a tortured simulation of a space that doesn't exist. Instead I would prefer that I could simply write on a sheet of paper under a calm lamp and move to the white board when I feel like it. I could use my voice if I needed to or gestures as my abilities allow. The computer is there but you can't see it and it doesn't have to impose itself on my and force me to adapt to its interface. It adapts to me, my space, and my context.
I want old pre-AppStore OSX/macOS that doesn’t nanny my installs or screw old drivers, with a good package manager, and easily tabbed and gridded terminal windows without tmux necessarily.
I’d also like GPL’d Windows XP running flawlessly like a mac.
I’d use Linux on the desktop, but I’ve never liked any of the desktop managers and it was never as reliable as OSX/macOS.
The goal is to get things working suitably well for vanilla 2D apps on standalone headsets, and then start building the actual 3D OS apps geared towards office work/tools for thought (things like: 3D programming code graphs, 3D spreadsheets, and other things that VR uniquely can facilitate).
Since the advent of Windows 10 ordinary people have gained the kind of virtual desktops that only wealthy Mac or tech-aware Linux users could have in the past (Win+Tab, new desktop at the top; Ctrl+Win+right arrow). Multiple clipboard copy/paste with a clipboard history (Win+V to paste). A running program history (Win+Tab and scroll down) to go back to them, and maybe to sync between devices when signed in with a Microsoft account. Ordinary programs reopen after a reboot, including things like Notepad coming back with unsaved file content. Windows' photo app on desktop does the same kind of image recognition and face recognition that smartphones do, enabling search-within-image. Windows tablet devices have handwriting recognition in basically any input box in any program
Nobody in tech will consider them "ambitious" since tech people could do them years ago, but what use is a video of live editing in Smalltalk on a research machine to most people?
In my workflow all I need is a good window manager. The one on MacOS is not good even with extra apps (Rectangle). There is too much degree of freedom in moving a window pixel by pixel. I want it to automatically lay out the windows.
The other problem is a lot of things open are Chrome tabs nested within a Chrome window. I wish there were no tabs and the OS window manager would automatically surface the right tabs and windows and pick the right layout (eg. Four windows tiled or two windows side by side, etc.) With an easy keyboard search across the content of everything open
The timing isn't great for me to show anything, but I'm working on a UI framework that is exclusively vector graphics based. A few of the interesting things that I've come up with so far are: screenshots can be exported as SVG files rather than bitmaps; a lightweight remote graphics protocol is possible thanks to the desktop being described as a scene graph; apps can easily scale to any DPI/resolution; new and interesting widgets and app designs are possible - pie menus and the like.
Unfortunately the GitHub build is currently broken and I'm probably 2 months away from sharing anything here. I'll post something when it's more presentable.
I don’t want to re-invent the desktop. As a software engineer, I’m annoyed that I can’t do my entire job on my phone. I’d like to see dramatically better portable input interfaces.
I’d even be happy if more love was paid to “desktop light” environments. I have an iPad Pro that’s useless for software development without SSHing into a machine.
I’ve had this thought for a while that the Desktop UI needs to be reinvented to fit the user in two main ways:
- People Centric. Associate files, notes, alerts, calendar entries, emails, documents with your contacts or contact group. Chat using an open protocol. This is in stark contrast with the data silo approach we have going on now.
- Project Based. Want to create a new app? Create a new project. All files associated with a project can live in a container and be shared in other containers. Filter for types of files that you are looking for. This basically reinvents the Finder/Explorer UI to avoid creating complicated hierarchies for the user.
I’d argue that this approach to a more people centric UI would be scalable to mobile as well.
Network effects are huge. People are on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/etc. because other people are on them. The control over the network is of paramount importance to those companies, and they do not want to give it up. They don't want an open chat protocol. They want their branded experience with their specific font and their specific shade of blue (and it's always blue - Facebook, Twitter, Skype, it doesn't matter, it's always blue).
In the end, while the UX mocks were grand and there was the potential for some interesting flows, it was impossible to get the platforms interested. They don't WANT your contact list to sync to your device and integrate in your OS surfaces, they want to own that data.
I think the "hide the file browser" has had some pretty mixed results when attempted on mobile. File browsers and file extensions come in handy.
For example, the zip/archive workflow. Does it make sense for all archives to live under the zip app? Does it make sense to have to share files to and from a zip app in different bespoke app level UI? If its OS UI how is it really any different than a file browser?
I'm looking forward to the day Genode brings capability based security to the desktop. We can actually have computers that don't turn traitor at the first string buffer overflow.
I want computing as secure as when we had MS-DOS and floppy disks. You knew what disk (and therefor what data) you were risking at any given time. You could write protect the OS.
For a long time what I've wanted is to be free of devices altogether, instead displays and input mechanisms should be universally available. I should be able to walk up to a wall, sit at a desk, stand in the street, and summon up a display for me to work with, laid out appropriately according to what I am trying to do: listen to messages, paint a landscape, design a car. It should offer the same applications and data wherever I happen to be. Form factor and OS should become something invisible to 99.99% of users.
Until then, we can fully expect that 2021 will be the year of the linux desktop ;-)
What I dislike instead is my Android phone's UI. It's 100% proprietary, meaning I have little influence over some decisions.
E.g., if I don't want to be disturbed on my PC, I just quit all messenger apps. On Android, but only since very recently, there's a DnD mode. I don't use it because I don't understand what it is doing + it has been burried somewhere as OS-level app.
Then of course, there's this problem that on Android they want to hide files from you and that the whole experience is optimized to keep you on the screen.
I know it's not IntelliJ, and there are still some warts to it, but VSCode's remote capabilities have been good enough for me to use full time for python development.
Personal opinion I think a lot of opportunities for innovation and growth in the desktop OS market have stagnated, as increasingly 90% of what people do is contained within a browser window and performed through some sort of network-dependent cloud service/saas/web app. Inside chrome, edge, firefox, safari, whatever.
For many non technical consumer users it no longer really matters whether they're running Windows 10, MacOS or something weird like a linux+xorg/KDE desktop environment.
I think that one of the primary reasons things have stalled is the fear we all carry around because we don't have any decent operating systems. With MS-DOS you could copy the OS disk, write protect it... load up any random piece of shareware and just try it out. There was zero chance it would toast anything, and you might find a gem.
We don't click on links that go to web sites we don't trust. We don't open email attachments, we're paranoid... because our operating systems weren't designed for the age of the internet.
I agree. With the exception of the Linux desktop, desktop computing is controlled by two very large companies: Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft still makes plenty of money from Windows licenses, but its business model has become more reliant on its cloud offerings. 15 years ago Apple was virtually synonymous with the Mac, but today the iOS platform far outstrips the Mac in terms of revenue. Back when there was money to be made selling personal computers, we got innovation. But now that Apple is making tons of money from its iPhone/iPad ecosystem and Microsoft is increasingly becoming a cloud vendor, innovation on the desktop has stagnated, in my opinion.
Moreover, the desktop is a very difficult market to enter. Writing a new desktop environment that is competitive with even Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard is going to take a lot of work, even if they piggyback on existing operating systems such as Linux in order to avoid the full work of writing a new operating system. Moreover, where is there a viable business model for selling desktop operating systems? Be, Inc. tried with BeOS in the 1990s; the company had a hard time getting PC companies to agree to shipping their PCs with BeOS preinstalled due to agreements these companies had with Microsoft regarding preinstalling Windows. There's also the problem with software incompatibility, though, interestingly enough, this may be less of an issue today than it was in the 1990s due to the dominance of the Web and due to the "Electronization" of desktop applications.
My opinion is such innovation on the desktop will come from a hobbyist open-source project or from a small business that is willing to cater to a niche of users who want compelling alternatives to Microsoft, Apple, and various Linux desktops.
My 2 cents from running Linux for 13 years (on / off, mostly on) and windowz / macOS. Full disclosure, I run Xfce / Xubuntu now with ZERO modifications.
I have to agree with @wraptile and say that we don't need a desktop revolution. In the open source / *nix world, there is a desktop for EVERYONE. Gnome is the corporate DE, then you have folks who run Firefox and everything else in a terminal. I think the desktop is akin to a car. Things have obviously changed, but the base will _always_ be there. Cars have 4 wheels, a steering wheel, and cockpit tools. Desktops need to open applications, field graphics, and navigate you through your computing tasks. And those are different for everyone. Someone driving their kids to school has different needs than a forktruck driver in a factory.
One thing that always interests me (I don't work in "tech") is that everyone is always trying to make things "new" or "revolutionize" it. I think the DE world is fine. We have the 2000 Toyota Tacoma (Xfce), The Teslas (macOS), and the Honda Civic (windowz). I'm not sure revolutions are needed. Tweaks and changes here and there to make things more stable or better tech (akin from x11 to wayland) but large overalls have already been tested and came and went.
[+] [-] wraptile|5 years ago|reply
We have so many different Desktop "OS's" already. There's hardly a need for a _revolution_; strong stability and support is needed but there's just no paying market for it by the looks of it.
4 biggest desktop environments are by mega corporations (apple, microsoft) and by big open-source collectives (Gnome, KDE). But is that it? No, there's also a bunch of tilling-window managers with their own desktop philosophies, there are entire terminal drawing frameworks with full GUI support.
Desktop is awesome. If anything mobile is the one needing to catch up. iOS and Android are awful, awful environments outside of casual usage. Just try writing up a document on your phone! Just imagine what could be if they were on the level _desktops_?
Real question: Do we continue to dumb down software to exclusive casual usage for house-moms or we try to move our society to be more techn savy as we are clearly moving to a more tech relying world. Why shouldn't everyone know how to code?
To paraprashe Mr. Engelbart: it's a failed tool if you use it exactly the same way the day you bought it and a year after.
[+] [-] bobthepanda|5 years ago|reply
Why shouldn't everyone churn their own butter? Why shouldn't everyone sew their own clothes? Why shouldn't everyone build our own homes? Should we continue to dumb down feeding, clothing, and sheltering ourselves for exclusive casual usage of <insert offensive stereotype>?
There are only so many hours in the day and time in our lives; why hide the benefits of technology behind arbitrary gatekeeping?
[+] [-] linguae|5 years ago|reply
To quote a commonly-used Web meme: "Why not both?"
In my opinion, why should a software tool only have one interface to it? What if there were many possible interfaces available, from very simple interfaces with reasonable defaults for casual users, to more option-rich interfaces for power users, to an API for programmers. What if we could take advantage of today's AI technology to automatically construct GUIs that are tailored to a user's experience level? What if users could customize the GUIs in order to make the GUI fit their needs better?
What if the system supported a variety of languages, not only common languages such as Python that many programmers are familiar with, but also beginner-friendly languages? Users are willing to program provided it's not too difficult: AppleScript from the 1990s was a step in the right direction, and Excel's macro language is probably the most widely-used programming language in the world. With today's AI/NLP technology, we could go further by developing ways for users to describe repetitive, routine tasks using natural language.
I think there's still a lot of room for innovation on the desktop. But you highlight a very big problem: where is the market? Who is going to pay for this innovation? Outside of open-source projects, the major commercial desktop environments are platforms controlled by multi-billion dollar corporations. Building a new desktop environment that is capable of competing against the commercial giants will take a lot of time and capital. The last company to give this a try was Be, Inc. in the mid-1990s, and they had a hard time competing against Microsoft's OEM strategy. I wrote more about this at http://mmcthrow-musings.blogspot.com/2020/10/where-did-perso....
[+] [-] wsc981|5 years ago|reply
System functionality could be expanded through various means, but most often devs used Extensions. And if a software issue arose, it was easy to disable all Extensions by pressing SHIFT key on start-up. Also, on start-up you'd visually see what Extensions were being loaded. So at start-up you would always be aware what you had installed.
In current macOS it's very hard to keep track of what I've installed. I install a lot of stuff using tools like Homebrew. Some software might install some system level hooks, etc... From my perspective it's kinda hard to keep the system "clean". And it's probably a good idea to do a clean install of my computers maybe once every year or so, since I might have installed stuff I don't really use anymore.
Also, there was the System Folder and that directory contains the Extensions, Preferences, Control Panels directories, etc... So you could also at the file system level manage your System Folder. You could just delete an Extension manually from Extensions directory in the System Folder to uninstall it. You didn't need any "uninstall" software most of the time.
A classic macOS like environment with a view more modern features (maybe a WindowMaker-like UI, multi-user and real multi-tasking) would be pretty neat.
[+] [-] ohazi|5 years ago|reply
It's very, very difficult to beat a keyboard. Tablets and even phones become day vs. night more usable if you plug in a keyboard, even ignoring everything else that still sucks about them.
[+] [-] pjmlp|5 years ago|reply
While GNU/Linux have the necessary tooling for making it as well, but thanks to the fragmentation and some communities hatred against GNOME/KDE, it will never happen.
This is what a modern desktop OS should look like,
"Eric Bier Demonstrates Cedar"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_dt7NG38V4
Including the part of being written on a memory safe systems programming language.
[+] [-] rtpg|5 years ago|reply
- not thinking about files: I can open Notes/Drafts on my phone and get a textbox. I kinda get this with Joplin, barely.
- Real sandboxing, with a nice permission layer
- Extremely easy sharing of data between apps. Of course files are theoretically a great sharing mechanism, but the sharing mechanism in mobile OS's are the logical conclusion of the clipboard
- URIs that go deep into other apps. Lets you easily say "go over here to see details" from a completely separate system
The fact that lots of stuff are webapps lets you get pretty far on Desktop too but I think these metaphors are power user features that the desktop could learn from
[+] [-] colechristensen|5 years ago|reply
I remember when video games came with elaborate manuals, this discussion reminds me of that and how it stopped happening (and just now the smell of opening the box for a new game, i don’t think i’ll ever experience that again)
[+] [-] garou|5 years ago|reply
But considering the "natural selection" that happens here, it may be the way that is because only technical people care about this kind of thing… Idk…
[+] [-] trabant00|5 years ago|reply
This is what I telling non technical friends for years now: as they spend more and more time with computers and the internet the investment to learn what is under the hood and to have more efficient interaction with better tools becomes worth it more and more. You can't say any more you don't fancy or care about IT when you spend hours each day on a computer.
[+] [-] coldtea|5 years ago|reply
Well, the way of progress has always been simplying operations.
Do you know how to fix your car and do you make your own clothes, cheese and bread, in today's "bread and cheese eating", clothes wearing, car driving world?
[+] [-] cookiengineer|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] AnIdiotOnTheNet|5 years ago|reply
My opinion, short version, hastily written, and incomplete:
1) Applications are self-contained objects that can be simply copied and deleted instead of installed and uninstalled. They should run from any location on any media. AppImage implements this in Linux and modern Mac application bundles are already this, but the concept goes back to almost the beginning of desktop computers.
2) Spacial file manager (MacOS), drag and drop saving (RiscOS), desktop and quick-launch menus are just views of a folder structures (Windows).
3) All applications in their own namespace and they only get access to what the user configures for them (do not do "allow/deny" popups!).
4) Everything scriptable and something like AutoHotKey built into the OS at a fundamental level.
5) Switchable "user profiles" instead of "user accounts", which are an artifact of giant shared computer systems. User profile just contains personalized settings and can be located anywhere, including removable media so you can take yours to other computers. If you want to keep things safe from others, encrypt them. Otherwise there are no permissions except those applied to applications themselves.
6) Sound and video should be routable like you see in DAWs. Plug outputs into inputs, add filters, split, mix, etc. This is of course scriptable so you can make it do what you want on arbitrary events.
7) Backwards compatibility should be a high priority, but accomplished via shim layers and/or emulation and/or vms when clean breaks are necessary. A wide array of such should be included with the OS from the beginning. In 2020, there is no excuse for not being able to run old software.
[+] [-] linguae|5 years ago|reply
Below is a document that describes my ideas:
http://mmcthrow-musings.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-proposal-for-...
I'm still in the very early phases of this project; there's no code available, and I'm currently in the process of learning Wayland and graphics programming (I have a background in systems programming and I've been getting up to speed on graphics programming in order to carry out this project).
[+] [-] DonHopkins|5 years ago|reply
In the hopes of inspiring you and others, here's a kind of messy draft of an article I haven't completely finished, but it's all about HyperLook (a user-editable desktop GUI system inspired by HyperCard and implemented in NeWS PostScript) and some components and applications I developed with it, like SimCity, a cellular automata machine, pie menus, a customizable clock editor, a customizable window manager, and "Happy Tool":
SimCity, Cellular Automata, and Happy Tool for HyperLook (nee HyperNeWS (nee GoodNeWS))
HyperLook was like HyperCard for NeWS, with PostScript graphics and scripting plus networking. Here are three unique and wacky examples that plug together to show what HyperNeWS was all about, and where we could go in the future!
https://medium.com/@donhopkins/hyperlook-nee-hypernews-nee-g...
[+] [-] DonHopkins|5 years ago|reply
https://schneegans.github.io/news/2020/08/13/flypie
http://schneegans.github.io/news/2020/10/10/flypie3
http://schneegans.github.io/news/2018/05/31/openpie
http://schneegans.github.io/gnome-pie
http://schneegans.github.io/news/2017/07/09/gnome-pie-071
https://schneegans.github.io/news/2012/10/10/bachelor-thesis
https://vimeo.com/51072812
https://vimeo.com/51073078
[+] [-] no_wizard|5 years ago|reply
Some of the tech mentioned in this Twitter thread is pretty neat too. Maybe I should take a second look at Pharo
It’s my dream to work in some kind of next level browser/app that would leverage this kind of thinking. One day I hope
[+] [-] taeric|5 years ago|reply
Things that seem to be making things worse, ironically, are all things that ostensibly are there to make them better. Web technologies, I'm mainly looking at you.
[+] [-] _where|5 years ago|reply
It’s not just the interface. iOS and macOS got embedded spyware years ago, and it’s still there; they can backdoor whenever. Dig through your logs and sometimes you’ll see output of a menu choice upon being connected to. Windows has similar from what I’ve read. I’m willing to give up some privacy, but it seems like B.S. to make people pay for things that do that in such a hidden way. It leaves things exposed. Unfortunately, the desktop OS alone is not enough for security either. Hardware doesn’t lock down, with potential openings for instructions in multiple places in modern computers.
[+] [-] bichiliad|5 years ago|reply
I started writing some Swift recently and built a small app, and it kinda shocked me how simple it can be to get such great interface performance from so little code. I kinda wonder if there's some sort of middle ground, like web assembly with a more standardized starting point, base language, and set of UI components.
[+] [-] agentultra|5 years ago|reply
Prior art:
http://screenl.es/
https://dynamicland.org/
[+] [-] _where|5 years ago|reply
I’d also like GPL’d Windows XP running flawlessly like a mac.
I’d use Linux on the desktop, but I’ve never liked any of the desktop managers and it was never as reliable as OSX/macOS.
[+] [-] georgewsinger|5 years ago|reply
The goal is to get things working suitably well for vanilla 2D apps on standalone headsets, and then start building the actual 3D OS apps geared towards office work/tools for thought (things like: 3D programming code graphs, 3D spreadsheets, and other things that VR uniquely can facilitate).
Sample video of what it looks like right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm72Qmi8Bik
[+] [-] jodrellblank|5 years ago|reply
Nobody in tech will consider them "ambitious" since tech people could do them years ago, but what use is a video of live editing in Smalltalk on a research machine to most people?
[+] [-] thunderbong|5 years ago|reply
Win+V itself had been an eye opener for many of my colleagues.
[+] [-] gerash|5 years ago|reply
The other problem is a lot of things open are Chrome tabs nested within a Chrome window. I wish there were no tabs and the OS window manager would automatically surface the right tabs and windows and pick the right layout (eg. Four windows tiled or two windows side by side, etc.) With an easy keyboard search across the content of everything open
[+] [-] glippiglop|5 years ago|reply
Unfortunately the GitHub build is currently broken and I'm probably 2 months away from sharing anything here. I'll post something when it's more presentable.
[+] [-] firloop|5 years ago|reply
I’d even be happy if more love was paid to “desktop light” environments. I have an iPad Pro that’s useless for software development without SSHing into a machine.
[+] [-] ZephyrBlu|5 years ago|reply
I would hate to have to use a touch interface to write code.
[+] [-] mmackh|5 years ago|reply
- People Centric. Associate files, notes, alerts, calendar entries, emails, documents with your contacts or contact group. Chat using an open protocol. This is in stark contrast with the data silo approach we have going on now.
- Project Based. Want to create a new app? Create a new project. All files associated with a project can live in a container and be shared in other containers. Filter for types of files that you are looking for. This basically reinvents the Finder/Explorer UI to avoid creating complicated hierarchies for the user.
I’d argue that this approach to a more people centric UI would be scalable to mobile as well.
[+] [-] Arainach|5 years ago|reply
Microsoft tried to build People-centric experiences with the short-lived MyPeople experience: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3216489/windows-10s-my-peopl...
In the end, while the UX mocks were grand and there was the potential for some interesting flows, it was impossible to get the platforms interested. They don't WANT your contact list to sync to your device and integrate in your OS surfaces, they want to own that data.
[+] [-] jayd16|5 years ago|reply
For example, the zip/archive workflow. Does it make sense for all archives to live under the zip app? Does it make sense to have to share files to and from a zip app in different bespoke app level UI? If its OS UI how is it really any different than a file browser?
[+] [-] mikewarot|5 years ago|reply
I want computing as secure as when we had MS-DOS and floppy disks. You knew what disk (and therefor what data) you were risking at any given time. You could write protect the OS.
We can have it back... it's a matter of time now.
[+] [-] abdulhaq|5 years ago|reply
Until then, we can fully expect that 2021 will be the year of the linux desktop ;-)
[+] [-] timdaub|5 years ago|reply
What I dislike instead is my Android phone's UI. It's 100% proprietary, meaning I have little influence over some decisions. E.g., if I don't want to be disturbed on my PC, I just quit all messenger apps. On Android, but only since very recently, there's a DnD mode. I don't use it because I don't understand what it is doing + it has been burried somewhere as OS-level app.
Then of course, there's this problem that on Android they want to hide files from you and that the whole experience is optimized to keep you on the screen.
And so on...
I don't like my mobile phone UI at all!
[+] [-] mynameisvlad|5 years ago|reply
Also pretty much every phone allows you to turn on DnD from the notification drawer.
[+] [-] saagarjha|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nt2h9uh238h|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paol|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] x87678r|5 years ago|reply
1) Web based (something lightweight like ChromeOS can do it)
2) Command line (easy to ssh into a remote box)
3) IDE (heavy)
I only need a light weight terminal for 1&2 but 3 keeps tripping me up. Would be great if IntelliJ ran with remote back end.
[+] [-] efitz|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/ [2] https://github.com/features/codespaces
[+] [-] ubercore|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scarbutt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] l0b0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xnx|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walrus01|5 years ago|reply
For many non technical consumer users it no longer really matters whether they're running Windows 10, MacOS or something weird like a linux+xorg/KDE desktop environment.
[+] [-] mikewarot|5 years ago|reply
We don't click on links that go to web sites we don't trust. We don't open email attachments, we're paranoid... because our operating systems weren't designed for the age of the internet.
[+] [-] linguae|5 years ago|reply
Moreover, the desktop is a very difficult market to enter. Writing a new desktop environment that is competitive with even Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard is going to take a lot of work, even if they piggyback on existing operating systems such as Linux in order to avoid the full work of writing a new operating system. Moreover, where is there a viable business model for selling desktop operating systems? Be, Inc. tried with BeOS in the 1990s; the company had a hard time getting PC companies to agree to shipping their PCs with BeOS preinstalled due to agreements these companies had with Microsoft regarding preinstalling Windows. There's also the problem with software incompatibility, though, interestingly enough, this may be less of an issue today than it was in the 1990s due to the dominance of the Web and due to the "Electronization" of desktop applications.
My opinion is such innovation on the desktop will come from a hobbyist open-source project or from a small business that is willing to cater to a niche of users who want compelling alternatives to Microsoft, Apple, and various Linux desktops.
[+] [-] happyjack|5 years ago|reply
I have to agree with @wraptile and say that we don't need a desktop revolution. In the open source / *nix world, there is a desktop for EVERYONE. Gnome is the corporate DE, then you have folks who run Firefox and everything else in a terminal. I think the desktop is akin to a car. Things have obviously changed, but the base will _always_ be there. Cars have 4 wheels, a steering wheel, and cockpit tools. Desktops need to open applications, field graphics, and navigate you through your computing tasks. And those are different for everyone. Someone driving their kids to school has different needs than a forktruck driver in a factory.
One thing that always interests me (I don't work in "tech") is that everyone is always trying to make things "new" or "revolutionize" it. I think the DE world is fine. We have the 2000 Toyota Tacoma (Xfce), The Teslas (macOS), and the Honda Civic (windowz). I'm not sure revolutions are needed. Tweaks and changes here and there to make things more stable or better tech (akin from x11 to wayland) but large overalls have already been tested and came and went.