begin quoting Jason Brower as of Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 09:43:38PM +0200: > Would it be possible to actually do some effects in the desktop. In
s/desktop/manager/ > it's day the effects it did were host stuff. Remember solid windows > when moving was an effect. > It would be nice to have things like: > * Push Window to edges of screen to fill halves of the screen. (And seen > the animation of it!) I've seen folks who depend on this. I generally don't like resizing things once I've gotten everything arranged, but that just means I don't have to use it. > * Alt tab shows actual windows rather than icons. This might prove potentially useful, so long as we offer a way to disable it. > * Shadow on windows and grouping of windows. > * Icon or cool notifications in the Iconfied windows. > * Sliding effect when moving between desktops > * Logout and login fadeout and fade in. > * Fade-in and out of icons on close and open > * Softer edges on window borders > * fade-in or fade our on window open and close or other effect Meh. Some of these I've seen in other environments, and I've mostly found them annoying. > I know many of you like the snapy feeling of this desktop. But these > effects can be done without compromising alot of processer. Effects can > help the user better feel in control of there environment and that's > what I want to see. I am not saying we need a framework with piles of > effects and options. But on and off would satisfy both worlds. > What are the groups thoughts on this? I'd like to be shown how some proposed effect or another actually makes my system more *useful*. Fades aren't all that useful[1] -- they're just ways of consuming time. Showing scaled-down windows is useful when trying to select between different windows on a cluttered desktop. Hesitating at a screen border is useful as it helps mitigate the imprecision of a mouse. etc. etc. > Next wasn't made to be the same forever, it was made to be the next > thing in the computing world. I feel changes like this help use get in > the right direction. My suspicion has been that NeXT involved a lot of design and weighing of tradeoffs, not just "what cool think can we do now?" -- but I have no actual confirmation of that. -S. [1] At least, not that I can think of. I'd love to hear an argument for how they'd help me do something better. -- To unsubscribe, send mail to [email protected].
