[weystrom]

Hate to be that guy, but did we?

Sure it looks different, but I'm still dragging windows on a virtual desktop.

You'd think there would be some innovation. For example I've always dreamed of a scrolling-timeline-like interaction with desktop, where your activities would scroll to the side when you switch to the new one and then you'd be able to "scrub back in time" to see what you were doing before.

[netsharc]

Windows 10 has that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeqYVFChpMM&t=120s although I don't use it at all. And obnoxiously it's a "join the Borg so you can see up to 30 days" feature.

[logicprog]

I mean, there is GNOME, which to a certain extent is pushing the desktop metaphor forward (IMO, by removing the useless and fiddly concept of minimization in favor of just using virtual desktops, and favoring fuzzy searching to launch applications instead of panels, and finally eliminating the superfluous taskbar in favor of solely relying on expose views), especially when combined with tiling window managers, which are doing even more by themselves to advance things.

There's also PaperWM, an extension for GNOME that pretty much does what you want IIRC.

[drpixie]

Yup - we're doing almost the same things. Only with nicer graphics - sigh.