Killing Clutter With The Antidesktop 542
Espectr0 writes "Hate window managers? Cannot live without one? Well, you can, kind of. A Freshmeat editorial called 'The Antidesktop' talks about how you can get rid of flashy, bloaty window managers without loosing functionality." It depends on how many tasks you want to keep track of in your head, too.
loose versus lose (Score:3, Informative)
Re:loose versus lose (Score:3, Informative)
Re:way OT, but Karma is cheap (Score:4, Funny)
But what about in the sentence:
"The mime's opinion was a mute point."
Re:way OT, but Karma is cheap (Score:5, Funny)
Well, that goes without saying.
Re:way OT, but Karma is cheap (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:loose versus lose (Score:4, Funny)
Footloose versus footlose (Score:3, Funny)
Re:loose versus lose (Score:2, Funny)
Re:loose versus lose (Score:5, Funny)
It's hard to find good minions these days.
Re:loose versus lose (Score:2, Insightful)
English has evolved throughout its history - I guess this is just another evolution, albeit one I would rather not see.
Q.
Re:loose versus lose (Score:2, Funny)
Re:loose versus lose (Score:3, Funny)
i maintain that the only reason you can do that is because so many people have made that common(?) mistake it has become allowed due to lack of education ^_~
Re:loose versus lose (Score:5, Funny)
Their spelling rules are as lose as a gose.
Re:loose versus lose (Score:2)
Then perhaps some of the people might learn the difference. (Yes, like most of those folks actually USE the preview function.)
But considering the problems of mod-bombing, egregious trolls, repeated stories, and moderators who have no clue what Funny is, I would not bet on that happening.
Re:loose versus lose (Score:3, Insightful)
Same goes for to/too/two, you're/your, their/there, the use of apostrophes, and so on. Because they used to teach spelling in school, you see. In elementary school.
Re:language evolves over time (Score:4, Funny)
How about "Luse." (Or "luze", to throw a bone to the 1337 crowd?)
As in, "I hereby loose the hounds of BOFH upon those who can't spell, for they luse badly."
It looks weird at first, but compare it with "fused". It even has similar connotations - burned out, no longer workable, etc.
So a loose fuse can't be fused, and is thus useless. A loose fuse is a lusing fuse until you unloosening it. A fused fuse worse that a loose fuse, it's a very lusing fuse. Luse that fused fuse, (you luser!) before something catches fire!
The proposed conjugation:
I luse, he luses, she luses, we luse. /rimshot.
I lused, he lused, she lused, we lused.
I'm erotic, my friend's kinky, those people are perverted.
I'm a BOFH, my friend's a luser, those people are MCSEs.
Now that we've loosed the tight fuses and lused the lusing fuses, can we talk about moose and mice? My sister was once bitten by a moose.
Darn. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Darn. (Score:5, Funny)
How do I get my girlfriend to have loose functionality?
Have her pop a few kids out her.. uh.. functionality.
First Desktop (Score:5, Insightful)
Console (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Console (Score:4, Insightful)
At home, for some strange reason, I run rxvts instead of Xterms. Now, the reason this is strange is because I run KDE 3, Mozilla, OpenOffice, and VMWare. Colour me quirky. ;)
If I want to use my computer in a lean environment, I'll use something along the lines of TWM, LWM, etc. where I can still have some of the window manager functionality (resizing of windows to optimize my desktop space usage, for example) without all the bloat of desktop wallpapers, flashing/pulsing icons, translucent menus, etc.. In my normal work environment, however, I do appreciate a lot of the glitz so I leave it all enabled.
All a matter of choice, of course, but I don't see the point of going out of your way to make a complex situation in the interests of simplicity.
Re:Console (Score:5, Insightful)
My take on the whole issue is that software (office suites, Mozilla, etc.) is what the computer is actually there for, and this stuff should be the focus of what I am doing when I sit down.
To that end, when I login on my computer, I am not logging in to goof around with Gnome or KDE, I'm logging in to browse the web, check my e-mail, or work on some project.
It's probably of note that I program enough that most of my time interacting with my computer is either done through a web browser or through CLI.
I also want X. As far as I can tell, the CLI jockeys who don't use X aren't using any applications that need X - say, OpenOffice or a web browser. The GUI people who say someone who wants to use X but have it get out of his way, on the other hand, have missed the point.
I like WYSIWYG word processors like OpenOffice, I like browswing webpages with web browsers that are capable of displaying images, and I don't know how in the heck I would maintain my webpage if I didn't have X to run a decent paint program from.
What I don't like is navigating endless menus, using the mouse to manipulate files, and not being able to efficiently switch tasks with only a keystroke. You know that feeling some people express that Windows is more of a roadblock on the path to efficient computer usage, and so is MacOS? I feel the same way about Sawfish.
This is a very different issue from Mozilla wasting resources - that has nothing to do with the interface. Frankly, the Web is a mouse-driven thing, and for that I can handle Mozilla being mouse-driven. Resource wastage is bad, but then again so is resource wastage on most any other decent web browser. Besides, Mozilla is an application, not a desktop environment.
Re:Console (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want graphical, mouse-driven web browsing even with anti-aliased fonts and JavaScript, backgroundable downloads - use Links.
Re:Console (Score:3, Insightful)
I do think that X is pretty resource hungry, but look at all of the useful things it can do. Just last night I ran it over a DSL connection using VPN. My upstream is only 128K and using 'lbxproxy' to compress the X data from the client apps, the response was pretty much on par with a VNC session. If anything, I think we need something like a local X proxy so that we can leave apps running for reattachment later. To be honest, I am still frustrated by the fact that I can't remotely reattach to a background job or one that was started in a session that was disconnected. (I think screen might be able to do this, but I'm still unsure) Look at Windows XP... a user can log off and let someone else log in to do other work, then log back in later to pick up where they left off. Damn cool. We need that in *nix. VNC can kind of do it, but with a real X proxy that supported acceleration, ANY app could be run this way. Now THAT would be damn cool. Of course that's just my opinion... and I'm sure you know what people say about opinions.
Re:Console (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as non-lean configuration goes, when I'm on mains power (which is actually the majority of its lifetime) I want to use an environment that's both functional/efficient and easy on the eyes. If I have to look at this thing for upwards of twelve hours out of a day, I want some eye-candy. Since I can do that without functionality or efficiency loss, I consider my situation to be the best of both worlds.
If anybody thinks their desktop of choice 'gets in the way' - disable all the features that you don't like, and re-map the rest of them the way you like it. Since I switched to Linux from OS/2, people will probably tend to find my desktop 'feels' more like OS/2 Warp than a typical Windows or Linux setup. (For the record - OS/2 with Object Desktop installed was a schweet environment to work in! For the lean side of things, FileBar was perfect. Man, I miss that operating system...)
Re:Console (Score:5, Interesting)
Simply put, don't knock it 'till ya try it.
Nice concept (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it just me? (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, a maximized emacs window with all the commands you can use without a mouse, and no bloat.
Also, how does one loosen functionality??
Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Funny)
I think that's the first time I've seen Emacs and no-bloat in the same sentence!
Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Informative)
My desktop at work is dual-head running several Ion frames, with emacs windows, xterms, and galeon windows. Its really all I need. If Emacs were to gain the ability to run graphical applications in emacs buffers similar to how it can currently run console apps, it would be the perfect window manager for what I (and I think a lot of other people here) want out of a desktop.
X-windows (Score:4, Funny)
It would be churlish of me not to mention...
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Re:X-windows (Score:2, Informative)
Re:X-windows (Score:5, Funny)
The following has been attributed to Dennis Ritchie and Bill Joy, but I seem to remember it being Rob Pike. When someone pointed out that X fills a much needed void:
"I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck. --- Rob Pike, on X"
Also, Dennis Ritchie was said to have been heard saying:
"Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be gone in two years. He was half right."
Here's the low-down (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most criticisms for X stem from the following reasons:
+ Adding fonts to X is, simply put, an absolute nightmare. Last I checked, it involves copy files to a directory, manually editing a text file, restarting your "font server", and other crap. This is just not acceptable
+ Back in the old days, writing apps for X was a nightmare. The low level drawing API that comes with X, called XLib, has more to do with drawing primitives like lines than with drawing and managing buttons, text fields, etc. AFAIK, the only decent API available for writing apps was Motif, which was only available commercially (note that many programmers will disagree with me that Motif is "decent" -- in fact, it is apparently a huge pain in the ass
+ XFree86 is a nightmare to configure. While Redhat does all kinds of fancy stuff to autodetect your video card/monitor, I tried Debian a few days ago and gasped at how little has changed in configuring XFree86 since 7 years ago. With a nervous laugh, I noticed that same line in xfree86config where you have to input your vertical/horizontal frequency ranges, and it warns you about how it might destroy your monitor. Aahhhh, fond memories of that very same config step that struck the fear of God in me as I installed Slackware for the first time when I was just a little tyke.
Fortunately, most of the above is being worked on. Despite all that I've said, I am an ardent X supporter. Its out of the box network transparency is a massive, let me repeat that, massive feature for anyone but the strict home user who only uses a browser and a chat program or two. Academic, scientist, programmer, administrator, office worker -- millions of professionals rely on X's network transparency every single day. No need to use/buy expensive, bulky, slow VNC clients or proprietary terminal servers. This is precisely why X is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Re:Here's the low-down (Score:3, Informative)
Not quite, buster.
Apple screwed up with it's Quartz/DisplayPDF display system by not providing display redirection over the network. According to what was said at WWDC conferences, they didn't think it was an important enough feature to go to all the work to implement. While I wish I had it, I tend to agree. Most users don't use it all that often, especially regular desktop Mac users. I know why it can be extremely useful, but most people don't need it, so Apple didn't bother.
However, since the first version NeXTSTEP, which relied on DisplayPostScript. Along with the other OSes in this lineage that used DPS- OpenStep, Rhapsody, and Mac OS X Server (up to 1.2), NeXTSTEP had network transparency. It worked just like it does in X11. On the machine on which the app will be displayed, you can check a box to allow such-and-such a host to connect to your DisplayPostScript server. Telnet to the machine. Run the app with "/Apps/RenderMan.app/RenderMan -NSHost 192.168.0.1"
This switch changed to "-NXHost" with OpenStep 4.0 and later. With it, you could run a full NeXTSTEP/OpenStep/Mac OS X Server 1.2 session on a Windows machine running OpenStep for Windows- Dock, Workspace.app and all.
Also, there was a little GUI app included with NeXTSTEP called "Open Sesame" that automated this, just had to enter in the relevant information and click OK.
Yup, just like that. Because NeXTSTEP used PostScript to display its windows, this feature was pretty straightforward to implement. You don't have to figure out how to encode the data for streaming. Apple could easily do it for OS X, but they decided to dick us in stead.
Sounds cool (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sounds cool (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe you farted?
EvilWM (Score:3, Informative)
One pixel is too much (Score:2)
(Disclaimer: I haven't used either one. I am analoquizing [slashdot.org] as usual.)
Re:One pixel is too much (Score:2, Interesting)
Well I just tried that by fullsizing Mozilla (easiest example to hand) using Ctrl+Alt+X, and whacking the mouse up to the top takes it outside of the click region on the menus anyway. Ho hum.
Warning (Score:4, Funny)
Do not chew bubblegum while attempting to use the Antidesktop.
thank you.
Re:Warning (Score:5, Funny)
Do not taunt Antidesktop...
Cheers,
Ian
I have NO clutter. (Score:4, Interesting)
I use Brushed Metal for my theme. It's clean. I have no graphics in my background (a holdover from my 256 color, 800x600, 8 bit days using a laptop). I have 2 virtual desktops. One's for Mozilla, the other's for whatever else (again a hold over from when I was using dual heads).
I don't need keyboard shortcuts, and I can easily cut and paste back and forth between the web and my other windows.
I like it simple, but "ratpoison" reminds me of Desqview/X (which went away for a reason).
I will keep screen on the console where it belongs and use X like *I* believe it was supposed to be used.
Re:I have NO clutter. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I have NO clutter. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I have NO clutter. (Score:5, Informative)
I use Windows 2000. My desktop is a mess of icons. I don't look at them, and I don't click on them either. I just hit Windows-D, type in the first couple of characters for the one I want, and press return.
For example, "i" launches Internet Exploer, "ou" launches Outlook, "ba" launches bash in cygwin, "v" launches vi... you get the picture. This has the advantage that anybody else can still use the computer.
For example, to type an email, I would do the following:
Windows-D
o (return)
CTRL-n
(to)
tab tab
(subject)
tab
(content)
CTRL-enter
... and the email is sent.
Command lines are all good and well, and I love bash to death, but don't knock GUIs if you're just using them wrong.
Re:I have NO clutter. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have NO clutter. (Score:3)
get a bigger monitor (Score:3, Insightful)
Not for the faint of heart (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy must have a good laugh at each GNOME/KDE flamewar ...
Ick (Score:4, Funny)
They're on street corners near my home a lot though.
someone had to right?
Lightweight window managers (Score:5, Informative)
jim
Great (Score:3, Funny)
If ratpoison is too minimal for you.. (Score:5, Informative)
It's not the eden of windows managers, but what it DOES offer is the ability to manage every window on your desktop via the keyboard, it maximizes the amount of your desktop you get to use for working, yet still retains the ability to keep the mouse useful. It also offers rudimentary window managing features so those odd applications that refuse to cooperate can still be used (such as gimp).
I use it full time these days, it took me a couple days to get into the rhythm but now, considering using anything else is unthinkable.
I tried ratpoison, liked the philosophy, but it seemed to me it took the keyboard driven GUI philosophy way too far to be useful for an X session.
I dig, man. (Score:2, Interesting)
I find that I do this, anyway. I'm one of those people can't work well with a lot of clutter around. A clean, sleek, minimalist desktop enviornment is an extension of this, especially if my desk has gone the way of junk (which it often has, and in fact, is at this moment).
Tons of little window bars, be they floating around or anchored or what-have-you, don't really help me get my mind in order. I'd just as soon hit a control key to switch between "windows" as I would search around my desktop for the right little bar.
Just an early word of enthusiam, as it seemed to be in an early minority.
Infuriated With Improper Spelling (Score:2, Insightful)
How many more times to I have to read the word 'loosing' where an author meant 'losing' before I am legally released from all obligations against torturing said authors? They're even pronounced differently, thus causing me to mentally trip on a conversational rock and fall in a pit of grammatical despair.
Re:Infuriated With Improper Spelling (Score:3, Funny)
How many more times do I have to read:
"How many more times to I have to read..."
when the author meant to say:
"How many more times do I have to read..."?
And for others....... (Score:5, Informative)
It can do tabbed windows, task switching, virtual desktops, keygrabbing (emacs style keybindings from all over your desktop) and so on. If you run it without a desktop, and if you have the Xscreensaver collection then you can run:
and get a beautiful animated dolphin as your "wallpaper". I think that's the command anyway, i'm at work so please correct me if wrong. If you're going to save CPU cycles in one way, you might as well spend them in another :)
And yet.. (Score:2, Funny)
Yes Ratpoison (Score:3, Interesting)
Window Manager without the bloat (PDF based!!!) (Score:5, Funny)
Check out its home page here [17.254.3.183].
Re:Window Manager without the bloat (PDF based!!!) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Window Manager without the bloat (PDF based!!!) (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately, I don't have the source handy as I tend to use their pre-compiled binaries. I really don't have time to compile their source everytime they update their code so I elect to use the binaries. If I were you, I would contact the author and see if you can get the source for usage on your x86-based UNIX system. It runs like a dream on my old PPC-based UNIX system. Much better than XFree86 and its various Window Managers.
I can't believe I forgot. You can get a copy of Microsoft Office that runs on it if you need that kind of application for your business environment. Which I hear a lot of people do!
Re:Window Manager without the bloat (PDF based!!!) (Score:2)
What other operating system would you want to use but UNIX?
time warp (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone else notice how his "screen split" looks amazingly like what Desqview did back in the day for BBS consoles?
Good gravy, we've advanced to the point of reverting to 10 year old technology
--trb
Re:time warp (Score:3, Interesting)
I think part of the stuff that MS got from Apple was the idea of operlapping windows. Originally, Windows only had tiling. This is so taken for granted now it's hard to remember that at one time the idea was new. In fact, the idea is so old that it practically is new.
Overlapping windows get you two different things: (1) the ability to work with multiple documents within an application (early MacOS required you to switch between applications), and the ability to coordinate multiple applications. The problem with this approach is that applications are the wrong way to chunk the user experience. What would really be interesting is something like this with a component architecture. Each document would get an entire screen, but bits of functionality from various sources could be embedded in the document.
In that case, we'd forgo the ability to view multiple documents overlapping each other (which is really not so important if you can tile them) in return for less clutter. But we'd retain the ability to use multiple applications on a document.
Ion is also good (not quite so extreme) (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been using Ion off-and-on recently, trying to decide if I want to switch. It is very great. I didn't like posion, because (a) it brakes my web browser, Konquerer, and (b) I find it akward to use.
Ion is similar. You can have multipal frames on the screen at a time (which is good), but the frames never overlap. One thing to note is that multipal clients can be in the same frame (one shows up at a time). Each frame (or the whole screen if you only have one) has a row of tabs at the top, one for each client. It's great.
Here lives Ion. [cs.tut.fi]slightly OT, screens question (Score:2)
Does anyone know of a console-land type of setup, a "getty"-ish app, perhaps, that would let me log in, start a task (say a big compile), detach, and then reattach later to 'check up on it'?
Re:slightly OT, screens question (Score:2)
man screen.
Re:slightly OT, screens question (Score:2)
That is exactly what screen does. CTRL-A d to "detach" from screen, then log off. When you log back in, do "screen -r" to reattatch, and everything will still be running.
On an X windows system, you can do the same thing with VNC or even Xvfb.
Re:slightly OT, screens question (Score:2)
This is precisely what GNU screen allows you to do. You start some long task, detach from it, and re-attach later. Greatest thing is that you don't need to re-attach from the same machine - start that big compile at work and check on it from home (without having to run "script", or redirecting output, etc).
GNU screen has nothing to do with X11: you can start the compile on the console and check on it from an xterm (it takes care of differences between xterm and Linux/BSD consoles all by itself).
Wonderful little program. Learn it by starting screen and then typing control-A, question mark.
xmove (Score:3, Interesting)
I've tried xmove [ensta.fr] once but never got it to run without segfaulting. Which isn't really a big surprise, since the last release is from 1995. However, if it worked correctly, it would sit between your X server and clients (guzzling some performance and probably making DRI, DGA, XSHM and the like pretty hard to configure). Maybe it would be possible to upgrade xmove to modern X11 revisions, but I'm not up to the task...
OTOH, would it be possible to implement this in X servers and/or Xlib itself? As far as I can see, an X client could just store its state, close its connection to the X server and initiate a connection with another X server to move from one server to another. Doing changes only to servers, it could be implemented with a little stupid redirection even without doing any changes to clients at all, but that would cause a lot of connection overhead...
Screen is great (Score:2, Informative)
Try pwm (Score:2)
Unfortunately, it does not support iconification of programs...I'm trying to convince the developer to include that as an alternative to window shading.
Imo, PWM's the best light window manager, providing a good combination of a clean graphical interface with minimalism.
For a more heavy-duty WM, I recommend WindowMaker over GNOME or KDE. WindowMaker is fairly light-weight, and has a much cleaner appearance and feel. Another nice feature about WindowMaker is that it has a lot of the nice Apps that you see in OSX, like the mail program and the column-file navigator. Better, its easy to port an OSX program to WindowMaker if you have the source, as its based on OpenStep.
X's Multiple Personalities, and OS X (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, while Mac OS X (my choice) doesn't use X (but can with the XDarwin OSS project [xdarwin.org]), a user can get quite minimalistic even with Apple's OS X interface. For instance, unlike previous versions of the Mac OS, you don't have to show one damned icon, or even the dock, in Mac OS X. To do it:
1) From the Apple menu, choose Dock-->Turn Hiding On. This hides the dock until you move the mouse towards the dock's hidden location.
2) Click on the Finder button in the dock (or click on the desktop) and choose Preferences from the Finder menu. Uncheck the options under "Show these items on the Desktop." That rids you of any hard drive, removable media, or network drive icons.
3) Move any other document icons (the only things that can be left) into a folder in your Home folder, or elsewhere.
4) Change your desktop background to something pleasant.
The only thing left on the desktop now will be the menu bar.
Users who prefer to navigate their applications in a menu-centric style can create an alias (shortcut/symlink) of their Applications and Documents folders and place them in the dock. From there, users can just click on the folder and, ala the Start button or typical window manager menu, navigate through to the item they need.
Re:X's Multiple Personalities, and Windows (Score:5, Funny)
All that was left was the text and those tiny icons, which I arranged in a single row and gave a silver background color in the "Appearance" tab. I then set my desktop background image to a screengrab of my code editor.
Now, whenever the boss is coming while I'm busy playing "Bejeweled", I just hit Win-D to hide all open windows, and casual passers-by think I'm terribly busy working on something very difficult.
scwm (Score:2)
Uhm.... Okay, But, You're Missing A Few Things... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a good editorial. Its always good to see people thinking differently about how to do the things we all do on a daily basis.
However..
The notion of using a text-based backdrop to GUI applications certainly isn't a new idea, and its not without merit -- The only problem is, what the editorial discusses can be replicated in X, and represents a set of personal preferences, not something that would be inherently better than what you or I would make for ourselves.
For example, the layout of my own GUI has been relatively unchanged in the past 10 years, since thats how I like things. A large work area, bordered by a few shells down below, and a single line of information at the top that reflects system conditions. Take AmigaDOS 3.1's desktop, for example. It tells me everything I need to know at any given time using a single slat of text that not only doubles but *triples* as an information display, a File/Edit/View/Options bar, and a grab point for moving the screen up and down to expose screens beneath. Best of all, it conveys the same information a Dock would, but doesn't waste real-estate like a Dock would.
The problem with a Dock is that it it offers very little *useful* information for the real estate it encompasses. It also offers a wealth of information that isn't particularly useful to anyone. Most screenshots of desktops with Docks confirm this -- A comparably large piece of real estate is taken away from other applications for the purposes of eye candy. Big mistake.
Not to dismiss this guy's editorial, however, but he fails to distinguish how his method is any better or any different than simply running an xterm in the root window and simply utilizing pre-existing keyboard shortcuts for his applications.. (*shrug*)
Cheers
screen (the application) rocks!! (Score:2)
Find the GNU page here [gnu.org]. It's the VT100 equivalent of the "Antidesktop" -- check it out.
Perfect Sawfish theme (Score:2, Interesting)
F.O. Dobbs
Pointless (Score:3, Interesting)
Loads of people have tried to make a better FVWM, and a lot of them even based their window managers on FVWM, but at the end of the day, FVWM is something of a standard for a lightweight window manager. It's perfectly happy running on X on Linux in 16 Mb of RAM, and I personally find it runs happily in 8. It can run in 4 Mb of RAM, but then X is hardly useful in only 4 Mb of RAM.
Simple point - why re-invent the wheel? FVWM2 does what 99% of people who are looking for a simple window manager want, and it is very well known, and customisable. What is the point in yet another lightweight window manager.
Nice idea, but pointless.
Id like to see this guy (Score:5, Insightful)
...who "doesnt need a mouse" use Mozilla (or any other graphical web browser) for any length of time without the mouse, and be faster than anyone with one. While the keyboard certainly has its places, browsing the web certainly isn't one of them. There is a reason for all these insane web accessability standards everyone talks about yet no one follows, because navigating the web without a mouse is slow.
Re:Id like to see this guy (Score:3, Funny)
Me too. (Score:3, Informative)
I run a SunBlade 100 with two heads, and a SunPCi Intel coprocessor card (since I need to dip into our the company exchange server). I use the ion window manager, which gives not only split-screen windowing, but multiple tabs per window. Monitor one is usually debugging output or programming reference material on the left, emacs on the right, console and email at the bottom (a second full-screen workspace gives me Oracle GUI stuff). Monitor two is my windows (Outlook, instant messengers, etc..) Eventually I'm going to integrate some more Afterstep/WindowMaker type applets, but no rush.
Anyway, for you screenshot junkies, check it out:
Screenshot 1 [well.com]
Screenshot 2 [well.com]
I can't say exactly what's caused my frustration with the overlapped windowing metaphor, but whatever it is, it's gone now. I urge people to try it out before dismissing it as a joke.
ion is available here: http://modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~tuomov/ion/
Minimalist??? Keyboard? (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, I keep three "root" GTerm's on desktop 1 which is bound to "F1" -- yep, a single keypress and I'm on my first desktop. More GTerm's on 2, email & Galeon on 3, etc. I can get from app to app with single keypresses and occasionally an alt-tab if I want to "overload" a given desktop.
The biggest obstacle to eliminating the mouse in GUI land isn't the WM anymore. Metacity finally fixes the keyboard bindings for moving/resizing windows like -- [ahem] -- that other OS has had since 3.11.
What's the biggest obstacle then? The apps. Tell me, in Mozilla, how do you navigate a web page*? How, in Gimp, do you select a rectangular region? How, in Dia, do you create five objects? The theme? You use the mouse. You don't use the keyboard. You can't use the keyboard.
GNOME2.0 is addressing the problems. I'm not sure where and with what document, but every GNOME2.0 app I've seen thus far is so much more keyboard-compliant than any other Linux app I've seen to date, there must be some central document explaining in simple checkbox style what keyboard shortcuts apps must support.
* Yes, I know you CAN navigate a web page in Mozilla using the keyboard, but scroll down seven pages until you see a link you're interested in, press "TAB" and notice how it scrolls all the way back to the top where the first link is. F--king brain-dead. Useless.
i'm trying it out, and it's pretty cool so far (Score:5, Informative)
after reading the article a couple days ago, i thought i'd give these ideas a try. I'm a longtime screen user, and it's really changed the way i administrate and use *nix boxes. it's wonderful.
Once i got ratpoison going, i needed some other things to make it truly useful and comfortable:
this setup definately has some advantages: i'm not obsessing over the right KDE theme and color, there's no clutter at all on the screen, and, as a screen junkie, it just feels right.
there's a lot of bashing these ideas going on (at least right now) in this discussion, but i'd advise you to try it out for a while, particularly if you're a screen-keyboardy kind of person.
I don't know if i'll keep this setup or not. next step for me is to stop using mozilla and play around with phoenix instead. but, with today's earlier story of the cool new stuff coming in KDE3.1 [kde.org] this experiment, though useful, might be short-lived.
For the sake of continuity (and gratuitous attempt at scoring a few karmasnacks), here's my setup:
My $HOME/.ratpoisonrc:
My $HOME/.keylaunchrc:
What i have right now feels like gnu screen for X, which is a marvelous thing, right now, for me. My opinion will most likely change in the future, as i have yet to find the setup that's perfect. At least with X i have a choice. But so far, i'm optimistic. Not bad. Not bad at all.
My thoughts along the same lines (Score:4, Insightful)
Screen is, in fact, the coolest piece of software ever. I've been logged into my home server continuously since the morning of April 30th, when I installed a new version which wasn't happy with sessions from the old version. I've had sessions going nearly all the time since 1998. My
I use emacs server mode with a chunk of elisp to make each new buffer invoked from the command line appear in a separate frame. This puts the file name in the title (which appears in fvwm's window list), and I then have icons and window list entries for all of the file I'm currently working on.
Other than windows for programs I'm running (which are generally xterms, emacs, and a web browser), I have a digital clock. I sometimes have a modern art moving background (kind of hyponotic and relaxing, sort of a white-noise generator).
A tip to the fanatic (Score:4, Funny)
alias startx='killall -9 *tty*'
splitvt (Score:5, Informative)
You can check it out here [devolution.com].
It only has three keybindings and includes a ^O for command mode that allows you to resize the windows.
BlackBox? (Score:4, Interesting)
Keep your console sessions in a different tty - or even open one full screen and throw it on a different desktop.
This guy is nuts.
From Plan 9: 9wm (Score:4, Informative)
If you get nothing else from this article... (Score:3, Insightful)
Mainframes Session Managers There First (Score:3, Informative)
Each session can be swapped onto the screen as the primary Current session (sound familiar?), and the other sessions can be switched to at the touch of a button. One extra doodad we have even allows a list to be called up in the middle of ANY app and another session selected straight off that list.
In addition you can have instant messaging between any session manager sessions so authorized, cut-and-pasting between dissimilar apps, broadcast messages that can be targetted at different users on specific apps on different host machines, and all sorts of other spiffy things. Plus, to get really esoteric the Session Manager can be used as middleware (albeit kludgy).
Now mind you this is the well-defined very specific very character-only world of TN3270E as oppossed to X-GUI issues, so this is very much apples-and-microsofts, but the concept is well-defined and in production at mainframe sites all over, so any SCREEN fans ought to check them out.
The two primary products in this category are Multsess and Candle Supersession.
TWM rules (Score:4, Funny)
It doesn't have virtual desktops, which is really a matter of taste (I don't like them), but there are twm-derivatives that do.
Xfree86 isn't the problem. (Score:2)
Well yes it;s KDE's fault.. but XFree86 using it's "network" everytime you start an app doesn't help either.
Load twm, or fvwm, or any other light window manager. Notice how zippy things are?
Xfree86 isn't the problem. Features in window managers aren't free.
Re:Oh wow (Score:4, Interesting)
Err....we aren't doing anything. He is. He's found his way of making it faster, more responsive and more intuitive for him. That's one of the advantages of Linux - it can be set up more or less as you choose it to be.
For example, Linux is very heavily used in my house, yet both my desktop and laptop run XP. How is Linux used then? Well, in a co-lo Raq box that handles my web and email (web front-end), and also in a Tivo. Neither interface is 'standard' - the Raq has its own web front-end, and the Tivo's UI is totally geared around its PVR function. You'd expect nothing else.
What works for one may not work for another. With Linux, or more accurately OSs that seperate system management from GUI, everyone can be accomodated.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Oh wow (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't consider that a problem. That's what makes OSS so good, to me. Obviously it's not so good for people who don't work the way I do. It seems to me that the people expressing my viewpoint are often lambasted as being elitists, but I think that's rarely the case.
I'm not one of those people who wants Linux to stay "1337," by keeping all the current non-users away. Instead, I simply find it irrelevant whether people use it or not. If they do, and it works for them, good. If it doesn't work for them, no loss.
Uncompassionate bastard that I am, I only see secondary benefits to Linux becoming more popular, namely that device and software manufacturers may be more willing to enable their products to be used on Linux. But I distrust non-OSS, and they are unlikely to make their products OSS, so I would probably find that benefit rather limited.
Re:Oh wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Er... if you say so. Personally, I'd think that anyone who can remember
cp <source> <destination>
can remember
grep <pattern> <files>.
Of course awk is going to take longer to learn, since it's a Turing complete programming language, but you can get a lot done with
<some command producing columns of output> |awk '{print $<which row of output>}'
It'll take a while to learn, sure, but it's worth it if you need that functionality.
The only excuses for not learning the command line are laziness or (misplaced) intimidation. Anyone willing to put forth a miniscule amount of effort can learn enough command line to accomplish certain tasks faster than with a GUI.
I'm not saying everyone should use a command line, because certainly GUIs are useful and have their place. But really anyone who considers himself a power user owes it to himself to learn some command line.
Fuck pretty (Score:3, Insightful)
I say this as a graphic designer- my job is to *make* the pretty. I don't feel an overriding urge to put the pretty on the desktop- and if I do want it, I don't want it built in. I want to stick my own prettiness on top of everything if I want it, and I want it to be consistent- and dismissible if it gets to be too much.
I am a major fiend for theming and customization, but *I* want to be the one doing it, and I don't want different applications having their own ridiculous ideas of how to "improve" the base appearance of the system.
Re:Textmode XMMS (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with the real problem: XMMS needs X to run. Therefore I run it in Xvfb, the virtual X server which has no display (thus no need for graphics hardware either).
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