Tom
I am a FH squatter
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New 3D windows desktop?
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Shovel
Can't get enough of FH
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That would be Sun's Project Looking Glass.
Although I initially thought it was just going to be for Sun's projects (potentially Solaris, Java Desktop Environment) it appears that you can download prerelease versions for Windows and Linux. I have no idea how you get it working, mind.
Although I initially thought it was just going to be for Sun's projects (potentially Solaris, Java Desktop Environment) it appears that you can download prerelease versions for Windows and Linux. I have no idea how you get it working, mind.
The machine I'm on doesn't want to show that plugin, but speaking of 3D desktops I recently came across Sphere XP, an Open GL 3D desktop for Windows. I have no idea if it's any good (nor if its what's being discussed), and I believe it's still pre-release, but it's an interesting idea.
Longhorn and the Windows Graphics Foundation (read 'Direct X', apparently) will incorporate some degree of 3D visuals on the desktop for those with sufficiently powerful hardware (apparently a 128MB, shader model 2 graphics card for the full blown effects, but that's rumour at the moment).
Kind Regards
Longhorn and the Windows Graphics Foundation (read 'Direct X', apparently) will incorporate some degree of 3D visuals on the desktop for those with sufficiently powerful hardware (apparently a 128MB, shader model 2 graphics card for the full blown effects, but that's rumour at the moment).
Kind Regards
Shovel
Can't get enough of FH
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Longhorn will be hardware accelerated and thus might be capable of some of the interesting 3D desktop developments. However, there is zero chance of them implementing anything as bleeding edge as that (especially given their increasingly laughable release schedule).
I've seen one screenshot which shows a replacement for the existing Alt+Tab mechanism, layering all the open windows isometrically and transparently over one another (rather than the grid of window icons). I think that's as near as anyone's going to get.
That's not to unfairly criticise Microsoft's Longhorn team for not having some revolutionary 3D desktop, by the way. No one really knows if these 3D graphics enhancements to the traditional flat desktop are actually useful to people and beneficial to productivity. There's every chance that they might be, but there's a good few years of research still to do.
I've seen one screenshot which shows a replacement for the existing Alt+Tab mechanism, layering all the open windows isometrically and transparently over one another (rather than the grid of window icons). I think that's as near as anyone's going to get.
That's not to unfairly criticise Microsoft's Longhorn team for not having some revolutionary 3D desktop, by the way. No one really knows if these 3D graphics enhancements to the traditional flat desktop are actually useful to people and beneficial to productivity. There's every chance that they might be, but there's a good few years of research still to do.
FuzzyLogic
Kicking squealing Gucci little piggy
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I might be missing the point slightly, impressive as these 3d desktops are, what are the practical uses of them?
I mean, having a 3d game is all nice, since you basically just interact with the environment within the screen, but a 3d desktop is something i'd have thought is best left to something like VR.
In my experience 2d desktops are capable of doing everything I need them to, using the extra computing power for something like the desktop just seems somewhat superfluous.
I mean, having a 3d game is all nice, since you basically just interact with the environment within the screen, but a 3d desktop is something i'd have thought is best left to something like VR.
In my experience 2d desktops are capable of doing everything I need them to, using the extra computing power for something like the desktop just seems somewhat superfluous.
Escape
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This isn't a true 3D desktop, as only the objects in the foreground are 3 dimensional. It's good progress though and should lead to a real 3D desktop, in which you can interact with the background too!
Linux window managers should be leading the way. As I understand, the Linux GUI's are alot more flexible and better suited for these projects.
The way I see this going, eventually you'll have a landscape infront of you, with buildings, trees, or any object you can click on and pull the screen forward to zoom in on it. For instance this building is the 3D "My Computer" icon, upclose you can see all of your hard drives listed, perhaps on the window panes.
Zoom out, and rotate the view to a Dome and zoom in to where you left a movie playing. Come out again, to see the concert grounds which is your Winamp plugin
How much this will increase productivity is questionable, but it will give you a cleaner workspace. Desktop icons will become redundant, now a part of your background! You can lose the start menu and task bar, any open programs will be represented by highlighted objects in your landscape...
Linux window managers should be leading the way. As I understand, the Linux GUI's are alot more flexible and better suited for these projects.
The way I see this going, eventually you'll have a landscape infront of you, with buildings, trees, or any object you can click on and pull the screen forward to zoom in on it. For instance this building is the 3D "My Computer" icon, upclose you can see all of your hard drives listed, perhaps on the window panes.
Zoom out, and rotate the view to a Dome and zoom in to where you left a movie playing. Come out again, to see the concert grounds which is your Winamp plugin
How much this will increase productivity is questionable, but it will give you a cleaner workspace. Desktop icons will become redundant, now a part of your background! You can lose the start menu and task bar, any open programs will be represented by highlighted objects in your landscape...
Shovel
Can't get enough of FH
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In terms of publicly consumable product Open Source will be there first, simply because you'll have access to the pre-1.0 versions of whatever projects emerge. Bear in mind that Sun (above), Apple and Microsoft do a gigantic amount of research into this kind of thing too.
I'm not sure we'll ever see anything like what Escape described, mind. Years ago there was a Microsoft product called "Microsoft Bob". It modelled your computer like a real world office. It never launched because rather than make life easier through association with real-world objects, the dressing up just got in the way.
I think the benefits of hardware acceleration will be somewhat subtler. There's certainly no need for some kind of "3D World" desktop - by definition that would obscure tools that you might want to use and force users to physically hunt for them. What might be useful though would be an effect like that in the Looking Glass demo - where you can fold Windows out to the side and see what's below. On paper it's not much different to minimising something down to the task bar, but in practice it's all about spatial awareness (something that Microsoft Windows is shite at, Mac OS X is somewhat better at but far from perfect and which an awful lot of people don't understand).
Right now, to move a Window out of the way In you minimise a Window, you get the Window title and the application icon in the task bar. Spatial speaking, what is that? It's not the "Application", surely that's the Window itself? On the Mac, if you minimise something then a small representation of the window (with the icon overlayed) appears in the Dock (a sort of equivalent to the task bar/quick launch bar). Now, in MacOS rather than your window having disappeared, it has instead been 'shrunk down' and put in the Dock (it doesn't appear in the dock when not minimised). Note the spatial awareness this gives - the application window can only exist in one place at one time.
The limitation on the Mac boils down to normal sized windows, the Dock and also Expose (which all currently open Windows shrunk down so they fit on a single screen - think Alt+Tab on steroids). However, if you take what is seen in Looking Glass and hardware acceleration you gain more possibilities. If you wanted to 'peek' at the Application window below your current one you could push it to one side and then pull it back again. The window never disappears, it doesn't even need to get shrunk down.
You can read the content of the window below (maybe a help file or reference document) while still knowing that the Microsoft Word window you're typing into is still right there. You don't have to look for it because it's still there, just taking up less screen space through clever manipulation of perspective.
Long term it will probably make sense to use some combination of these existing and new concepts.
I'm not sure we'll ever see anything like what Escape described, mind. Years ago there was a Microsoft product called "Microsoft Bob". It modelled your computer like a real world office. It never launched because rather than make life easier through association with real-world objects, the dressing up just got in the way.
I think the benefits of hardware acceleration will be somewhat subtler. There's certainly no need for some kind of "3D World" desktop - by definition that would obscure tools that you might want to use and force users to physically hunt for them. What might be useful though would be an effect like that in the Looking Glass demo - where you can fold Windows out to the side and see what's below. On paper it's not much different to minimising something down to the task bar, but in practice it's all about spatial awareness (something that Microsoft Windows is shite at, Mac OS X is somewhat better at but far from perfect and which an awful lot of people don't understand).
Right now, to move a Window out of the way In you minimise a Window, you get the Window title and the application icon in the task bar. Spatial speaking, what is that? It's not the "Application", surely that's the Window itself? On the Mac, if you minimise something then a small representation of the window (with the icon overlayed) appears in the Dock (a sort of equivalent to the task bar/quick launch bar). Now, in MacOS rather than your window having disappeared, it has instead been 'shrunk down' and put in the Dock (it doesn't appear in the dock when not minimised). Note the spatial awareness this gives - the application window can only exist in one place at one time.
The limitation on the Mac boils down to normal sized windows, the Dock and also Expose (which all currently open Windows shrunk down so they fit on a single screen - think Alt+Tab on steroids). However, if you take what is seen in Looking Glass and hardware acceleration you gain more possibilities. If you wanted to 'peek' at the Application window below your current one you could push it to one side and then pull it back again. The window never disappears, it doesn't even need to get shrunk down.
You can read the content of the window below (maybe a help file or reference document) while still knowing that the Microsoft Word window you're typing into is still right there. You don't have to look for it because it's still there, just taking up less screen space through clever manipulation of perspective.
Long term it will probably make sense to use some combination of these existing and new concepts.