• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Sun's 3D operating system GUI

I haven't seen any evidence that a 3d desktop has any real advantages. The only thing I saw in that video was osx-like minimization, turning the windows on their side a la shading that most any X11 window manager already does, and putting notes on the back of the window, which seems like a nightmare -- "damn, where did I write that down! *starts opening up a bunch of apps*" Every 3d desktop idea I've seen just seems like a cheap gimmick. "Toss in '3d' and it'll be cool! Everyone will love it!" The only "new" thing I really saw there was the interactive 3d rotating of windows along an axis, but how exactly is that useful? I could take a book and start rotating it around in funny ways but I never do. I just look at the pages and read it.
 
Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
I haven't seen any evidence that a 3d desktop has any real advantages. The only thing I saw in that video was osx-like minimization, turning the windows on their side a la shading that most any X11 window manager already does, and putting notes on the back of the window, which seems like a nightmare -- "damn, where did I write that down! *starts opening up a bunch of apps*" Every 3d desktop idea I've seen just seems like a cheap gimmick. "Toss in '3d' and it'll be cool! Everyone will love it!" The only "new" thing I really saw there was the interactive 3d rotating of windows along an axis, but how exactly is that useful? I could take a book and start rotating it around in funny ways but I never do. I just look at the pages and read it.
Click to expand...

Have to agree.
Kinda like the GUI's you see in movies sometimes, they look kinda cool, and they'll make cool noises and stuff, but after the coolness factor wears off(probably 5 minutes, max), they'd be horrible to work with.
 
Productivity is important to an interface. Adding 3D doesn't add productivity so 3D desktops shouldn't succeed. But I have a feeling the 3D in Longhorn will succeed just because everyone will feel Bill G's desire for them to upgrade.
 
but just imagine how evolutionary, no, revolutionary, it would be to navigate your file system in first-person shooter mode.
 
Actually I think it's pretty cool. It's a tech demo in that page, so don't expect anything revolutionary.

The notes thing is pretty stupid but it's just there to show you what is possible.

Remember midnight commander much?

How about increasing the usefullness of current tools by adding another demension to them.

How about instead of pasty notes you have each app have something different, something usefull for that application. What if it's selectable.

For instance you have a media player, plays music, plays videos whatever.

Well on the front you have the full size version. You flip it around backside and you have the playlist/playlist maker. You flip it so it rotates on the bottom and it minimizes to a line. You flip it so it rotates towards the top then you have a mini version off the player UI.

You can explode it so the thing unwraps and fills up the entire screen so that you can get all sides at one.

So it's 3-d world. Apps can have many faces without having to open up 3-4 windows for something complicated you just have one interface.

How about a file manager like nautilaus. On the front you have the clean spacial interface. On the top you have the path you can type in, on the bottom you have the options for that window (color, stuff like that), and on the back you have a command line that has that particular window'd directory as the current directory. So that way you can interact with files on the command line as you see it in the directory without having to open up a bunch of new windows.


And as far as the Sun EULA?

STUFF the EULA. Sun is going to GPL it.

Hopefully..... (time will tell)
 
Originally posted by: KB
Productivity is important to an interface. Adding 3D doesn't add productivity so 3D desktops shouldn't succeed. But I have a feeling the 3D in Longhorn will succeed just because everyone will feel Bill G's desire for them to upgrade.
Click to expand...


The '3D' in Longhorn isnt a 3 Dimensional world. Its a 3D Accelerated interface. So things like shadows and alpha blending and such will be offloaded from the CPU to the GPU.

OS/X has had the same type of '3D Desktop' as Longhorn will have, for 2 years now.
 
What just OpenGL? What MS will use DirectX instead?

I donno, when I use OpenGL output when I use mplayer it doesn't seem nearly as nice (or use as little cpu time) as when I use XV video extentions. but I don't realy know a whole lot about it.

on a nice quality AVI image: "mplayer -vo xv filename.avi" uses about 25% of the cpu time, "mplayer -vo gl2 filename.avi" uses about 60-75% of the cpu time. I have a 2.0ghz (2400+?) XP AMD proccessor and a GeForce FX 5900 video card. XV=the hardware accelerated XV extensions, and GL2 is the multiple texture version of X11 OpenGL.

To me what makes OS X gui special (IMO) is the PDF-ness of it. Everything is rendered and then the compisite image is put together into one big picture. So that way special effects and stuff (real transparencies, lighting, shadows and so on and so forth,) get added to the image last to make everything look coherent, unified, slick, and nice. Of course it's kinda slow doing all that, but there is no visual artifacs like in X windows when you move windows around very fast (with the jerking and the tearing and stuff like that).

Personally I am looking forward to the off-screen rendering stuff to get finished for X windows. That way we can get all the nice eye-candy like alpha effects and "real" transparencies.
 
Originally posted by: LiLithTecH
Metisse looks like an slightly updated version of DESQview (circa 1990).
Click to expand...

Your mistaken the project for the window manager that they are using. Which is FVWM, which is a old-school type window manager that people still use today. Based off of TWM if that rings any bells.

Would you expect them to use full KDE desktop for their initial public beta release of a experimental X server?

This is Unix, not Windows. Everything is built up from peices, they use a relatively simple piece (FVWM) for their developement because the Window manager isn't what they are worrying about. It's the X server. The window manager is mearly modified slightly to take some of the extra window interactions that the 3-d desktop provides.

Some people have no imagination...

plus you must have a pretty bad memory of what DESQveiw looked like
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top