Post #19,707
11/29/01 11:50:28 AM
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Desktop metaphor is dead?
What do y'all think of this. [link|http://www.technologyreview.com/magazine/dec01/tristramall.asp|The next computer interface.] The desktop metaphor was a brilliant innovation\ufffd30 years ago. Now it's an unmanageable mess, and the search is on for a better way to handle information.
"The desktop is dead," declares David Gelernter. Gelernter is referring to the "desktop metaphor"\ufffdthe term frequently used for the hierarchical system of files, folders and icons that we use to manage information stored on our home or office computers. At the annual gathering of technophiles at TechXNY/PC Expo 2001 in New York last June, he told the rapt crowd attending his keynote speech that the desktop metaphor is nothing more than virtual Tupperware. "Our electronic documents are scattered by the thousands in all sorts of little containers all over the place," he said. "The more information and the more computers in our lives, the more of a nuisance this system becomes."
For the past decade or so Gelernter has been campaigning for a new metaphor to overthrow the desktop\ufffdfirst in research he carried out at Yale University, where he is a professor of computer science, and now as chief scientist of his new company, Mirror Worlds Technologies, with offices in New Haven, CT, and New York City. In March, Mirror Worlds announced a novel metaphor called Scopeware, software that automatically arranges your computer files in chronological order and displays them on your monitor with the most recent files featured prominently in the foreground. Scopeware is far more sweeping than a simple rearrangement of icons, however: in effect, it transfers the role of file clerk from you to the computer, seamlessly ordering documents of all sorts into convenient, time-stamped files.
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Post #19,709
11/29/01 1:04:57 PM
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Eh?
Great.
So now instead of having to remember that I stored a funny article from here in my "zIWT" folder, I have to remember that I saved it in March. Or was it April?
</sarcasm>
-YendorMike
"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by the skeptics or the cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy
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Post #19,713
11/29/01 1:20:22 PM
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One interface update I've seen...
...although this isn't a major interface update, and I'm sure somebody else had it before.
In the next ver of a certain product, every dockable interface component also can be set to pop out and hide itself, based on mouse activity. So, you get an almost full-screen editor combined with almost every tool you need being very quickly accessible.
Quite nice. It's much easier to work with than Visual Studio 6 ever was.
Now just don't get me started on system requirements...
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #19,721
11/29/01 2:04:13 PM
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Blah blah yak yak
I rarely use the desktop. I usually use the "start" menu to launch things; I'm not sure what the author uses, but (IMO) putting everything on the desktop and using the desktop as your major launcher is dumb.
(OK so maybe using the start menu to start everything is dumb. Your mileage and so forth.)
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
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Post #19,728
11/29/01 3:22:53 PM
11/29/01 4:02:43 PM
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Long Live The Desktop Metaphor
I've seen this Scopeware mentioned in articles form time to time, and I never saw any real advantage to its approach. What it seems to do can be done within the desktop metaphor. And it can be done better IMO.
Take something like [link|http://www.be.com/documentation/User's%20Guide/01_basics/Basics05_Finding.html|BeOS Query Folders] and combine it with the list/preview pane layout that most popular email clients use and you'd have a more efficient ([link|http://www.scopeware.com/products/products_whatis.htm|look] at the waste of space in Scopeware) and familiar interface to the same functionality. Plus you could sort by arbitrary attributes; not just chronological order.
Plus its too proprietary.
[Oops. Forgot to add the following]
There is so much more that can still be done with the desktop metaphor. What I want is more folders and more icons.
I want smart folders where I can assign arbitrary actions/programs to events like drop-in, drag-out, and file-changed. Yes, I could write a script that monitors a folder for these events, but I want it as a property of the folder, not a standalone program. I want more folder integration like has been available for Windows since 95 (with a butt-ugly API) and like KDE's IOSlaves.
I want to be able to arbitrarily order the contents of a folder in list view by means other than the available attribute columns.
I want to be able to visually and automatically group icons in a folder (Windows XP does this in some places and the API for the icon view control is available to do the same for other purposes).
I want to be able to drop a document icon onto another document icon and have an action triggered. Think of it as an extension of the ability to drop a document icon on another _open_ document.
I want to add arbitrary searchable attributes to folders and files (BeOS had this. Windows as of 2K is going in that direction I think)
I want drag-and-drop installation/uninstallation/relocation of apps. MacOS had/has this. Hell, DOS had it if you slapped a GUI over it. .NET may be trying to get back there with its talk of no registry mods, manifests, and "xcopy" installs. We shall see.
I want (maybe) to have unamed documents, or have duplicate names in a single folder, as long as there is some other way (ie: other file attributes) to differentiate them.
I want my individual emails to be documents so I can route/move/copy them anywhere.
And I want it now. :)
--
Chris Altmann
Edited by altmann
Nov. 29, 2001, 04:02:43 PM EST
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Post #19,731
11/29/01 4:08:33 PM
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Sounds like you want...
OS/2. The Workplace Shell from what I understand had all that functionality built into it.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #19,733
11/29/01 5:25:01 PM
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I think I do...
I gave it a "try" years ago at ver 2.0 but some hardware incompatibility ticked me off and I gave up on it; a little too hastily now that I think of it. Its about time I try it again, so I just ordered a copy of eComStation.
--
Chris Altmann
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Post #19,735
11/29/01 5:26:39 PM
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Re: Sounds like you want...
Thats exactly what I was going to say.
You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! Laurie Anderson
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #19,759
11/29/01 10:05:51 PM
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It's what I've always had since 1994.
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Post #19,742
11/29/01 6:37:15 PM
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Sort by date? Ooh. Special.
On and on and on and on,
and on and on and on goes John.
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Post #19,767
11/29/01 11:30:01 PM
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But it needs to be in several dimensions.
So I can say "it might have been 2 weeks ago I last saw it, but I threw off to that side."
:-)
Wade, who is a fan of archeological filing.
"All around me are nothing but fakes
Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
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Post #19,793
11/30/01 11:45:25 AM
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But, that's the way my desktop IS sorted.
I pop from the top of the stack or the bottom of the stack depending on what era I'm interested in. Since this is a multi-tasking office, of course I have multiple stacks, some of which are only a few weeks from top to bottom and others that are a few years, even decades in range.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #19,794
11/30/01 11:50:46 AM
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I'm a little suspicious.
Whenever someone says "It's designed to work they way people do" I get a little wary. Maybe it's better that we're forced to put things into files and folders and order them that way. Trying to get something to function "the way people expect them to" isn't necessarily better or even possible. It's like if the first automobile companies had decided that before they built a car, it would have to work by someone grabbing some reins and saying "Giddyup".
I seem to recall some little word processor a few years back that was designed to look like a real notebook. It was supposed to work "like people do otherwise" but it never went anywhere. Some people liked it. I never did.
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Post #19,911
12/1/01 9:15:33 PM
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Words of wisdom
</blockquote type="cite">It's like if the first automobile companies had decided that before they built a car, it would have to work by someone grabbing some reins and saying "Giddyup".>
Or if the first automobile companies had decided to standardize on a lever rather than a wheel for direction. I mean, after all, a lever is more appropriate for levering the wheels right and left, correct?
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
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