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I think the idea so so it can be run on older systems, or in other situations where resource usage is an issue.

Compiz, etc, only run on relatively high-end hardware.

It is relevant to those who develop it, so id say yes.
And they have a very small but loyal community.
Personally i love it since it is very resource efficient.

The E17 bling module will allow you do fancy effects in E17. Since everything is still in pre alpha, it is hard to say where it ends.

E17 + bling movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZovBpvhZbZM

e17 is a playground that rasterman guy.

It will never completely usable/stable/finished.

I use it everyday, find it more stable than gnome and no program is ever finished until it's obsolete.

I had been using it every day...until it started to display "rot" a couple of months ago. I leave my work desktop up perpetually. After several days or so all of a sudden E17 will start to utterly lag like mad when I switch desktops.

So something bad is going on...(back to windowmaker!).

E17 has spoiled me for other window managers, there's no going back.

Actually with Terrasoft's release of Yellow Dog for the PS3 which uses e17; We very well may see an actual release.

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/news/2006/2006-10-17.shtml

According to that press release they are working closely with the e17 team, which could mean Terrasoft throwing man power and money at e17.

Here's hoping to an actual release this year!

What? "Resource efficient"? Back in the late 90s/early 2000s people complained all the time that E is extremely heavyweight and bloated.

E17 is. Beryl, compiz and friends are just *window*managers*. Vista and Mac OS X does not stop at doing fancy effects with windows and menues. One of the Vista features, XAML, allows programmers to do fancy effects *inside* the apps (effects with widgets, images, embedded videos, etc). So does the Core Animation thing that Apple is releasing with 10.5

gnome/kde however does not have anything at all that allow programmers to do fancy effects inside an app. With beryl and/or compiz you get a fancy windows manager that can make many effects with the "raw" content of a window, with the menues, etc - but it does not allow programmers to do what XAML and Core Animation does. Only E17 does so yes, we need it. Even if never is going to become a mainstream desktop, I'd rather have this alternative to XAML/Core Animation than nothing at all.

Edited 2006-12-18 19:29

gnome/kde however does not have anything at all that allow programmers to do fancy effects inside an app.

This is what Cairo (http://www.cairographics.org/) is for. So this is being worked on, and has been progressing nicely.

No, that's not what cairo is for. Cairo is a lowlevel API that will indeed help to implement many of required capabilities, but to start with, it can't do things like ex:

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/GraphicsImaging/Conceptual...

What I'd like to have is an API that allows me to do things similar to the API described there, not a low-level thing that allows me to implement the API I'm needing - gnome/kde should provide it, I shouldn't need to implement it myself.

Edited 2006-12-18 20:16

There are API wrappers for many different languages:

http://cairographics.org/bindings

And...?

What I'd like to have is an API that allows me to do things similar to the API described there, not a low-level thing that allows me to implement the API I'm needing - gnome/kde should provide it, I shouldn't need to implement it myself.

Zack Rusin, one of the KDE developers, is working on a new image effect library that can add special effects to applications:

http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=116620003301584&w=2

This library supports OpenGL Textures, QPixmaps and QImages, thus it offers hardware accelerated effects if the hardware supports it. There is a screenshot:

http://chaos.troll.no/~zrusin/kimagefx.png

Please note that this is a really new project, thus a lot of work remains do be done.

Edited 2006-12-18 20:56

A new Java scripting language called F3 will offer simular features as well. I believe it's cross-platform and becoming open-source soon.

http://ajaxian.com/archives/f3-suns-new-declarative-java-scripting-...

Quote: "One of the Vista features, XAML, allows programmers to do fancy effects *inside* the apps (effects with widgets, images, embedded videos, etc). So does the Core Animation thing that Apple is releasing with 10.5"

Qt4 and therefor KDE4 will have support for alpha so you can draw your windows with full 32bit precision. Along with OpenGL accel, transformation, CSS properties! for widgets. Just do a "google" for "zrusin":)

Sure the windows are still 2D, but I think this is true for Win/Mac as well.

What kind of statement is that? Let's just tell the fluxbox, openbox, wmii, pwm devs, "sorry guys, time to go home Beryl has won." While we are at it let's cut out the BSDs, Linux, Haiku and the rest because gosh that Windows OS just has all kinds of momentum.

There is a place for this project. Just because you base relevancy on how well a window manager wobbles it's windows, doesn't make this useless.

Well, E has many things to offer Compiz et al don't have.


But it has hard times now, as being mostly overlooked.

Note also that e16 is not the new, completely rewritten version.

Tell me, what are these innovations that were stolen?

Not to discredit the E17 team, but they are pretty much unknown out there. Innovation in some graphical blings, maybe. But usability? Internationalisation? Standards? It's a nice WM used by many people, but it's not exactly a revolution in computing.

Come on dude, the snowflakes are innovative, the innovation is in the snowflakes falling down the screen

pretty much unknown???

ask a gnome user if they know what esd is?

Answers are likely to be "no" or "that obsolete sound daemon". Not to mention that the majority of desktop users are using different DE (MS-Windows or OS-X), so they couldn't answer...

You mean like transparency in an app window? Graphical blings *maybe*? Find it hard believe you have ever seen it much less used it, the run command alone is almost enough to make most power users dump kde, gnome or osx.

Transparency in a window? That's an "innovative" feature nobody would have thought of? While it can be really useful for some people, it can get easily in the way once you have more than terminal windows.

I did gave a try to E16 and a development version of E17 (eLive). No, "Run command" wasn't enough for me to dump anything. And I do consider myself as a power user.

Now, that's cool if you prefer this environment. The Enlightment team made quite a nice and fast environment with little ressources. But claiming that it's the only innovative environment? Right.

Once people see that plain steel wheels with plastic hubcaps do just as well the entire cast alloy custom mag wheel industry will quickly fade away.

I agree that at the moment, it is too over the top, but what should happen is that the effects will be cut back (*not* 'get normal again') untill they provide subtle visual clues to aid the user experience, kinda like Vista, but done right (and customisable ).