[rescue] VirtualBox anecdotes - was Re: A wee bit off-topic

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

I realize you think I was talking about window managers, however, it goes far, far deeper than that.

With Next, first, everything you saw was based on Display PostScript - which was then rendered onto the bitmapped screen.  So there was no dichotomy between display and print.  This is basically the guts behind the PDF part of OSX's Quartz code (PDF is basically a dumbed-down PS without certain unsafe primitives).

Second, the real power of NS was in the integration - drag and drop was very intelligent and could be extended by apps you installed.  

While you can have some trivial integration in Linux, the reality is that it doesn't go very far, if at all.  None of the apps understand each other and so the whole messaging and delegation part simply is not present.

Third, the Dock was genius.

BTW look at the evolution of the OSX Dock and Windows bars here:  http://www.neowin.net/news/mac-dock-and-windows-7-superbar---part-1

lots of innovation in the last 15 years, eh?

Cheers

Patrick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Stracchino" <phils at caerllewys.net>
To: rescue at sunhelp.org
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 2:54:35 PM GMT -07:00 US/Canada Mountain
Subject: Re: [rescue] VirtualBox anecdotes - was Re: A wee bit off-topic

On 06/23/15 16:42, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> The "integrated, sleek" vision continues to elude Linux GUI
> designers/users BTW.  Hell, I could be 100% happy using Nextstep 3.3
> with a modern browser, PDF viewer and email client - that was my most
> pleasant computing experience.

That's a matter of opinion, and depends heavily on whether you use some
packaged distribution's out-of-the-box almost-certainly-Windows-alike
desktop, or roll your own.  Gnome in particular seems to have
historically tried to look as much as possible like Windows, and I
believe it's a mistake.  But there are highly configurable window
managers out there such as fvwm or Enlightenment that let you customize
your desktop almost any way you want, or if you like the NextStep type
environment, there's Windowmaker.

Personally, I roll my own using fvwm.  The only things visible on a
desktop page without an application open on it are the pager, the system
load monitor (procmeter3), and a couple of gnubiffs, and both the pager
and the system monitor are integrated into my desktop.  (The gnubiffs
used to be, but current versions won't let you remove window
decorations.)  You want anything else, you click on the desktop -
*anywhere* on the desktop - and open a menu or an xterm.  All of my most
common applications are accessible with a single modifier key and a
single click on the desktop.  I'm not sure how it could be made cleaner
except to get rid of the pager and procmeter altogether.


-- 
  Phil Stracchino
  Babylon Communications
  phils at caerllewys.net
  phil at co.ordinate.org
  Landline: 603.293.8485
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