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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Function of a Menu
Nov 17 2011 on group New Computer Interfaces Discussion
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Well said. My opinion on devices is same.
The sub-screens is a good idea and almost a need to the future desktops.
GUI as scripting application - exactly. The GUI is an independent part of an application, thus it is a independent application itself. Scripting? Yes, unless we find better solution.
What is a goal? Look at this video. It is one of the examples of what I meant by non-standardized 2D GUI (i.e. GUI-LEGO or another technique if we find better solution):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=vaiRLpuwDZ0
Also try to imagine you have this display at your home/work and you use it with touch/stylus/other devices standing or sitting at it. The display may be placed on the moveable rotating-articular gear, so you can rotate and move the display as you wish.
This video of Microsoft Surface2 shows a brush-stylus in action (the physics drawing part of the video (starting at 1 minute and 50 seconds - 1:50s):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmbW8zRrRbs&feature=related
The prices of these displays will most probably go down in near future. |
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Re: Re: Re: The Function of a Menu
Nov 14 2011 on group New Computer Interfaces Discussion
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Menus. Well in thinking I returned to the basic question. Application can do a bunch of things. The question is: How to express application functionalities to a user and how user interacts with such applications?
Thinking a while about it I realized one thing. Let's say we have an office application. Text processor for example. Now we must know how to work with it. So we buy a book and learn, or we go to a learning course etc. If we know how to work with it, when we have some more problem or want to know advanced user interaction, we go to a Help and look for a solution. The Help usually show us a solution and explains to us step by step the way we can do it. Then we do it.
Thinking of it, we (our group) can merge application and Help together. In menus (which are customizable) we have the most frequent ways to work with applications. Then we have a search box, where we can type what we want to do. Then instead of that the application opens the Help, the application will open found solutions with descriptions and we choose one of it which applies to what we want. Then the started solution with further interaction (similar is for example a Wizard - opening wizard, new document wizard) do the things necessary to apply the solution.
Let's say we write a text in a text processor. Now we need it to be bold. We just select the text and press the bold button in a toolbar. The text changes to the bold text. This is common task. Now we want that every "homepage" word in a whole text will be a link to "http://www.FluiDE.org". In today applications we need to search every that word and then apply a link to it (probably we can make a macro)".
But with our application we just enter some text to the search box: >> revert every "homepage" into a link <<. The application starts to search for a solution. Then it finds a solution it is capable of. It opens a window where it asks to enter some informations it needs: Apply this solution to the selection or page or whole document (radio buttons). Which link to use (user types the link: "http://www.FluiDE.org"). Style of the links (underline, color). Etc. User can preview the changes and when he finishes the wizard (or the interaction with the wizard) and the application have all necessary information in order to apply the solution, user then can apply it.
We can then imagine a lot of things around this idea. We can make the solution to be included in the menus by user. We can have favorites or history of applied solutions. We can download a new add-in to the application (handling unknown solutions) from the Internet. We can imagine a solution-LEGO (some programmable functionalities). We can imagine some kind of artificial intelligence with solution-LEGO etc.
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To the keyboard/mouse/touchscreen.
I don't think the mouse will completely go away. I don't think that touchscreen will be only the main one part of interaction. I think that there will be more interaction devices used. Speaking of today. Although we can fully control computer by only a keyboard, we also use mouse, because it is better and quick.
I cannot imagine when I go to a bank the officer will silently dictate my account number and name and amount of money to the computer. I can't imagine writing a book or programming code with a touchscreen or handwriting it with a stylus. I can't imagine controlling a computer only with a voice (unless with advanced artificial intelligence and perfect speech recognition). I cannot imagine playing today 3D first person shooter games with touch-screens. I can't imagine make an architecture plan or car design with a touchscreen or by voice.
Well I think that always it will be a set of specific devices that will be used to interact with computer. Today I took my 22" LCD to my hands and tried to imagine I work with it with touchscreen and stylus. First of all I realized the LCD resolution. I saw every pixel. Also the LCD shined to my face, what was inconvenient. This problem although can be solved soon.
Main problem with touchscreen is a touch itself. The finger touch is a big area. What about accurate drawing or selecting. With stylus it is possible. To use stylus and finger touch is good. But entering longer text is better (quicker and easier) with keyboard. Also I can't imagine 10 people in a room dictating a text to a computer. Just imagine that mess of voices with a radio station listened in a work place (can you concentrate in this environment?).
I can imagine the construction designer making a mechanical drawing by stylus and hand gestures. And the designer can stand in front of a big display instead of sitting in front of small LCD display. Problem would be probably the price (surely today). I can also imagine an artist drawing a picture with a chock (by stylus and touching a screen) - the artist draws lines with chock and then smudges the lines with fingers. I can also imagine the stylus to look like drawing brush or a stamp rectangle.
There is a lot of things we can imagine.
Yes the keyboard with dynamic LED keys is very good.
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Quote:
Question: Why do you want to use anything except tiling ?
To be honest I would like to have tiled windows only. But they are inconvenient in todays applications. When I had a 17" display all I did to almost all opened applications was to maximize their window. Now when I have 22" display I unmaximized the windows and make them larger (overlapping). The large window I have centered because of not to have my head rotated constantly to one side. Sometimes when I have a window aside and work with it for a long time I change a position of my chair to have my look centered according to the window. When I have a big window I have small space at sides of desktop where when tiling windows is a place only to display a vertical menu or a sidebar. Thus on sides I have less frequent windows underlying the main working window so I can just press the sided window to have it in the top level.
Many times many years ago I was thinking of an application UI to be changeable according to a window size. Similar to HTML. I'm not talking about toolbar to show an arrow one side when being smaller than a window. I'm talking of changing an application's layout completely (in our project this can handle the UI-profiles).
The idea of Desktop Environment I had 2 years ago is a nice solution to tiling vs overlapping windows, to full workspace of overlapping windows, and to managing desktops. The solution I have is very nice and easy. Probably I make a mockup to demonstrate it.
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Re: Re: Window Managing
Nov 13 2011 on group New Computer Interfaces Discussion
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Is this animation what you meant by saying:
Quote:
I can imagine a system - call it sub-tiling - where the windows at a particular level can be moved around and shove each other aside when they collide. I have never seen such a thing implemented.
Animation: http://novomente-activities.blogspot.com/2011/11/dynamicly-tiled-windows.html
BTW - Look at Project Looking Glass - 2D interface in a 3D world. I had a demo CD but it's out. Can for example Windows be minimized aside desktop as in Project Looking Glass, or as you say be shoved aside?
link to project (it is turned down since Sun Microsystems does not exist):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcPIEMvyPy4&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass
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Re: Re: Re: Window Managing
Nov 13 2011 on group New Computer Interfaces Discussion
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Handling windows and desktops by Mike is interesting. Also David's commentary to it is interesting. So I thought a few tens of minutes and then realised, that we can have overlapping windows which can become tiled to each other and to a desktop. I made an animation describing the basics of this thought. It goes well with Mike's windows and desktop handling (Blender style) and also with Mike's Dynamic Panel System.
Moreover every last ideas on windows handling solves my problem on one of my 2 years old idea on managing desktop and managing/launching applications. Although the idea I had is perfect easy solution, for me, it sounds a bit conservative. I would like to push imagination more forward to the future. But I understand that conservative solutions must be part of our project. And I know exactly that new ideas comes out from old grounded ideas.
So lets continue by bringing the ideas around today's computer UI. More lets imagine we have more toys to play with. For example lets imagine that we have an LCD very close to our keyboard and we can multi-touch it with fingers, draw and write with stylus and other yet unknown toys and imagine we are working with today's applications and desktop with those toys. We can for example draw a desktop in GIMP or Inkscape (concept or some easy image, or use pasted images), place it fullscreen on the LCD and imagine we touch it with fingers and stylus and manage it. When you would like to make for example opening a menu, you can just modify the GIMP image by adding a menu there, save new image and place it to a new folder with the previous image and then... Open the first GIMP image fullscreen on the LCD, do or imagine the move or touch with mouse/fingers/stylus/other-toys and then switch the previous GIMP image to the second modified image (where opened menu is) to see the action. Or you can do it in your imagination but sometimes, when you see the action in reality, it shows a new functionalities to you.
You can also use a web interface with link images in a web page or with image-mapped links (Kompozer + Firefox/Chrome), or OpenOffice.org Presentation, or use Salasaga, Synfig etc.
To look forward we can place our minds in the future and then we can look back from that point of view. It is like to travel in a ship to the space and then see our Earth from there. And suddenly you can realised that you have a lot of conservative ideas than you had staying on the Earth ground. I'm talking from my experience (with imagination and ideas of course not with travelling the space :) ).
link to animation: http://novomente-activities.blogspot.com/2011/11/dynamicly-tiled-windows.html |
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Re: Front End - Back End
Nov 6 2011 on group New Computer Interfaces Discussion
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Right now I'm thinking of the other idea I mentioned. Multithreaded modular programming of applications. It'll take some time.
BTW - your work with gedit as you described above is good. The disadvantage is what you said - efficiency (probably). I'm thinking about it right now and probably continue tomorrow. |
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Front End - Back End
Nov 6 2011 on group New Computer Interfaces Discussion
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Wow you are quick :)
I found that google code project has 4GB free space and maximum size of an uploaded single file is 200MB. The project is well to administer and to join the group must be made by project Owners under People page. For info I'm adding a link:
http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/HowToJoinAProject
I think that for making attachments it is necessary to be a Committer. Commiters are allowed to create downloads but not allowed to delete them. To delete downloads are allowed only Owners. This help describes permissions:
http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/Permissions
You can also create User Groups and make permissions to each group:
http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/UserGroups
And last thing. Could you add a FluiDE Google Group address to the Fluide-attach project's link? It should be a regular link (added in Administer -> Project Summary -> Links
The FluiDE Google Group could be a mailing list where another people can ask for join the group (aside gnome-look.org group). There is also a special Google Group link there under Administer, but it is for automated emails. For info here is a link:
http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/FAQ#Google_Groups
Take your time. Make it when you have time for it and only if you decide it is the thing to be done. |
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Re: Re: File Manager layout and menu
Nov 6 2011 on group Free Desktop Environment
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Quote:
And I have decided to deplore those secondary columns in menus (that are indicated by '>'; if they have a name I don't know what it is). In your example, of course, you must use at least one set of them because of the way the menu is displayed. Which makes me wonder whether the right click might rather bring up a different kind of sub-interface - for example a dialogue.
This article I don't understand. What you mean by secondary columns? Do you mean the arrows ">"? Can you explain it little bit more?
In the picture there are 2 menus. The main menu is on the left and is similar to the GIMP menu when right-clicking the image (i.e. contains the application menubar in a vertical menu). The menu on the right is a sub-menu of the main menu.
In today applications (GIMP) when you right-click the main menu will pop up. Then choosing an item in the main menu brings a sub-menu of that item.
In the picture I draw a main menu. Each item of it has its own sub-menu which pops up after selecting an item of the main menu. First item of the main menu is a "Context" item. This item, when selected, brings up the context menu (usually popping up after right-clicking in todays applications). In the picture the main menu with preselected "Context" item and pre-opened "Context" sub-menu are shown right after right-clicking anywhere in the application. Only the "Context" sub-menu varies depending on the place where user right-clicks. So both menus are today usual menus (main menu and its sub-menus).
To your last sentence: I also think that after right-clicking in the application brings up some kind of a space where graphically should be the application functionality offer provided (i.e. for example toolbars, tabs, icons, text, radio buttons, videos, animations, and very different visualizations which I was talking in comment about UI-LEGO).
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Front End - Back End
Nov 6 2011 on group New Computer Interfaces Discussion
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Can you join FluiDE group on google site here (anybody can join):
http://groups.google.com/group/fluide/
You can paste XML as a new post there. Unfortunately Google Groups don't allow attachments anymore. So I suggest Mike to create FluiDE on Google Code (with name like "FluiDE-attach" or some name, not name "FluiDE" which could be used for FluiDE sources) which we could use for attachments (2GB space). In discussions we can then post URLs to the files stored on FluiDE-attach google code. |
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File Manager layout and menu
Nov 5 2011 on group Free Desktop Environment
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I made some File Manager layouts to make smaller window height. Get a closer look here:
http://novomente-activities.blogspot.com/2011/11/file-manager-window-layout.html
Also I thought the application menu could be visible only after right-clicking anywhere in an application window as shown here:
http://novomente-activities.blogspot.com/2011/11/application-menu-after-right-click.html
Of course everything is possible with application profiles. But something is a matter to discuss before creating the FreeDE (namely application icon and window titlebar). |
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