OSNews:

OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/21323/Grape_Impresses_OSNews_Gives_Away_Beta_Access_ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Fri, 27 Nov 2009 05:17:24 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Beta-access http://osnews.com/thread?358912 http://osnews.com/thread?358912 Looks like a useful way to manage your desktop. I would like beta-access. Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Arno) Comments Invite Please http://osnews.com/thread?358917 http://osnews.com/thread?358917 I'd like to try it out as well. Do you know if it works with Compiz? Since it runs as a program and not as a desktop I imagine it would. Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Laughing Man) Comments (sees bandwagon) *spacebar* http://osnews.com/thread?358918 http://osnews.com/thread?358918 ...yes I too would like a beta invite. I really hope someone gets the refference i made in the title of this post

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (poundsmack) Comments me too http://osnews.com/thread?358920 http://osnews.com/thread?358920 I want beta access too. And I think people who ask if it works with Compiz should not be given access for obvious reasons. Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (broken_symlink) Comments Looks interesting.. http://osnews.com/thread?358921 http://osnews.com/thread?358921 ..and I would of course like beta access. Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (cm49) Comments Count me in. http://osnews.com/thread?358922 http://osnews.com/thread?358922 I would like access to the beta as well. Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (the_webers_inc) Comments Thanks http://osnews.com/thread?358924 http://osnews.com/thread?358924 Okay guys, I'll process everybody's requests tomorrow CET (it's 00:14 here, bedtime).

Keep 'm coming! Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments Beta me up! http://osnews.com/thread?358925 http://osnews.com/thread?358925 I'd love to be in Grape beta testing. Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fsolerio) Comments EMAIL ADDRESS! http://osnews.com/thread?358929 http://osnews.com/thread?358929 By the way, I do require an email address. If you have no valid email address, you're out of luck. Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments beta http://osnews.com/thread?358936 http://osnews.com/thread?358936 I'd love to try this out Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jemmyw) Comments Looks nice http://osnews.com/thread?358940 http://osnews.com/thread?358940 I'd love to play with this, sounds promising. Count me up too. Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dragossh) Comments RE: Invite Please http://osnews.com/thread?358946 http://osnews.com/thread?358946 It's for Macs only. Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (csasso) Comments Interesting http://osnews.com/thread?358947 http://osnews.com/thread?358947 The video on their website looks promising. I'm definitely interested in the beta Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (galaxstar) Comments beta please http://osnews.com/thread?358948 http://osnews.com/thread?358948 I'm also interested in the beta Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (atompowered) Comments I want! http://osnews.com/thread?358954 http://osnews.com/thread?358954 I want a grape beta invite!

grape@tijuana.otherinbox.com

regards! Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tijuana) Comments I'd try it :) http://osnews.com/thread?358957 http://osnews.com/thread?358957 Looks interesting. At least is seems different.

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Gryzor) Comments Comment by merkoth http://osnews.com/thread?358960 http://osnews.com/thread?358960 Looks interesting, it's a shame I don't have a Mac though. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (merkoth) Comments great http://osnews.com/thread?358963 http://osnews.com/thread?358963 Considering my level of clutter this may be a new paradigm, I would definitely love to test it. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nrgexplosion) Comments RE: me too http://osnews.com/thread?358964 http://osnews.com/thread?358964 I agree.. does it work with DirectX? Please sign me up. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flanque) Comments Hmm http://osnews.com/thread?358966 http://osnews.com/thread?358966 The in-place, resizeable preview is very cool, but aside from that, I fail to see the point. Why would anyone keep a bunch of unrelated photos / videos on his or her desktop? Most desktops I've seen are either empty (like mine), or full of links to programs (most in Windows).

Granted, the search box is a good idea in the latter case as well. I'm just wondering if the same can be achieved by a folder view on KDE4. Is the folder view searchable?Edited 2009-04-17 00:44 UTC Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Savior) Comments I'm game, http://osnews.com/thread?358967 http://osnews.com/thread?358967 I have a Mac to try it on. Thanks. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jimbofluffy) Comments beta please http://osnews.com/thread?358970 http://osnews.com/thread?358970 I would like to try the beta out. Thankyou Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (smc100) Comments oooh pretty http://osnews.com/thread?358973 http://osnews.com/thread?358973 Look there, I finally registered at osnews to request a beta invite. Please? It looks real purty. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (SnowBuddha) Comments RE[2]: me too http://osnews.com/thread?358975 http://osnews.com/thread?358975

I agree.. does it work with DirectX? Please sign me up.

First, NO it won't work with DirectX and to an earlier poster, most likely not with Compiz either. Requests like this show that you may not have read the article properly as Grape is ONLY for MAC OSX. Not Windows, Linux, BSDs etc. Admittedly I don't know if Compiz is available on Mac or not, but the article did list the technologies that it works with.

With all that said, I'd love to try it but I don't have a Mac so I can't.Edited 2009-04-17 02:24 UTC Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Ian Christie) Comments Yes please http://osnews.com/thread?358976 http://osnews.com/thread?358976 I'd love to beta-test it - and I do have a Mac

Jim Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jimaz) Comments RE[3]: me too http://osnews.com/thread?358977 http://osnews.com/thread?358977 Uh... It was a bit of a joke about the other person asking about Compbiz.... Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flanque) Comments Comment by mith http://osnews.com/thread?358978 http://osnews.com/thread?358978 I would love to be in the beta too.

Seems like a great application. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mith) Comments doing good http://osnews.com/thread?358980 http://osnews.com/thread?358980 I saw the original movie demo when the story broke last year and was quite impressed with the vision too. Glad to see a developer has taken up the challenge of building it, so add me to the beta list please.

As a user of OSX, Windows, Ubuntu and also BeOS, I have more or less given up on any real progress in UIs that force modality at every single turn. Apple used to be all about no modality, but really all the current OSes are as bad as each other but in very different respects.

Of course one should have continuous zoom control over all objects in ones possession, real or virtual. I regard a desktop as nothing more than a database of objects with windows/folders or other tools used to organize and view them by media type, name, size, content or any criteria one could think of and the OS should remember what the user wants it to remember and forget what they don't need to keep. We currently got the exact reverse of this.

Any half decent CAD program that can view chips, machine designs, buildings, cities or whatever has capabilities that no mere mortal will ever see in current OSes but Grape gives a glimpse of that and their UIs are often quite easy to use. CPUs have had more than enough power to do this 2d/3d rendering since FPUs were integrated too, but the UI pros locked us all up in the 80s desktop theme. All we get now is endless tinkering of trivial theme issues, wobbly this, animated that.

Look forward to seeing this puppy fly! Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (transputer_guy) Comments Beta http://osnews.com/thread?358982 http://osnews.com/thread?358982 This looks great! Please send me a beta invite as well. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (brother bloat) Comments Get your stinkin' paws off ... http://osnews.com/thread?358983 http://osnews.com/thread?358983 ... my regimented desktop of 32x32 icons that are arranged according to their rank and division, you damned dirty code monkeys!

More seriously though: sounds like a cool idea. Wish you luck with it. But I will reserve the right to use the tried and true. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (MacTO) Comments another note http://osnews.com/thread?358984 http://osnews.com/thread?358984 I'll assume the developer has built Grape on the Cocoa APIs which is fair enough.

But I'll just mention that the Qt4.4 platform which is cross platform also includes classes or widgets that do 2d zoomable rotatable collection spaces but they come inside a window view so not Grape like. Perhaps Qt might also be capable of implementing portable desktops that look more like Grape and less like KDE or Finder. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (transputer_guy) Comments Yeah! http://osnews.com/thread?358990 http://osnews.com/thread?358990 Gimmee a copy, this looks proper bo' ! Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Chicken Blood) Comments Comment by me http://osnews.com/thread?358996 http://osnews.com/thread?358996 Beta access, please? Thanks.

Grape sure looks nice, but I believe it wouldn't hurt to be able to turn on/off the filenames. I imagine it would be pretty hard to distinguish between two text files based on a tiny preview. Sure, you could zoom in and actually see the content, but what if you have two very similar but not identical files? Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pandronic) Comments RE: doing good http://osnews.com/thread?358997 http://osnews.com/thread?358997 Err, last I checked, CAD programs required an underlying OS for them to run: therefore, they can only do as much as the underlying OS, and that's how I remember things being when I was employed writing 3D CAD software. Is there a distinct CAD system that is its own entire OS that I haven't heard of before now? If so, I'd certainly like to know

That being said, Grape is also limited by the underlying OS: nothing in the Mac OS X GUI absolutely requires modality: the OS-provided GUI shell applications often have modality designed and implemented in them, for whatever reasons they saw fit, whether that's because they thought it was the most correct way to apply things for what it acts on, or sheer laziness. Pages demonstrates in many cases that modality is not an absolute of the underlying OS in terms of what it is capable of doing: at best, one can only surmise that the developers of the native desktop applications that come with OS X were developed by people that couldn't be bothered to go out of their way to make them modeless, where it may have actually made sense for them to be modeless. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JonathanBThompson) Comments Looks intriguing http://osnews.com/thread?359000 http://osnews.com/thread?359000 That's what desktop/stacks should look like. I kindly ask for beta licence. Thanks! Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dimitrij) Comments ooo beta-access http://osnews.com/thread?359002 http://osnews.com/thread?359002 I have already seen this and went to their page for beta but unfortunately haven't heard from them since.

It would be great to try this new technology and maybe write a blog post about it. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (alpayerturkmen) Comments Beta access too please. http://osnews.com/thread?359004 http://osnews.com/thread?359004 I just got a Dual 1.42ghz PowerMac G4 and this would be cool. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (andy_js) Comments Seems interesting... http://osnews.com/thread?359010 http://osnews.com/thread?359010 Seems like a very interesting idea indeed. No hardware here with which to test, though I could probably emulate.

I hope files of different types can be grouped together without creating a folder.

One, as of yet unimplemented, feature of my yet-to-be-released LoonTracker ( for Haiku ) is file grouping - even naming of groups if you desire. The idea is to select various files/folders of any type, right click on the group, then click something akin to "Create Group."

From then on the group could be manipulated as a whole in various ways. Files and folders need to be capable of being in more than one group, but I am still stuck on my choices for handling this scenario - if anyone has an idea, I'd LOVE to hear it.

On the whole it sounds interesting, a beta invite would be nice - I can always find a way to get into whatever version of MacOS I need ;-).

--The loon

EDIT: stupid me ending sentences with propositions...Edited 2009-04-17 07:33 UTC Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (looncraz) Comments RE[2]: doing good http://osnews.com/thread?359014 http://osnews.com/thread?359014 I was thinking of Calma GDS and some others of the 80s. Of course there was still an OS underneath, but it was merged somewhat with the CAD command set. No other apps came with these beasties. My employer also built its own hardware just to run some CAD too, as did others. Also Lisp was often used in CAD work, it was it's own OS if I remember right.

Anyhow the point I make is that Grape looks like an outside the box desktop replacement for Finder but not ready to replace it and likely never could, but still useful as an alternative way of browsing whatever mime types it can support. If you have a GUI kit that supports all of the file types you want to manage, then it becomes easier to prototype something like this. Perhaps Qt could too.

While current OSes allow one to change the zoom scale of window icons to some degree or almost no degree, they are too clumsy to bother with and hopelessly modal, I have given up spatial for plain detail lists, not that I ever wanted to do that. The fact that they all moved to using tons of white space for stuff like side panels just tisses me more.

One thing CAD programs do is to puts lots of tools in front of the user with quick access to tool changes, something Apple has long put down, forcing us into the one button menu bar roundtrips model better suited for ...... At least we still got 2 buttons. As an engineer I miss having direct control of my objects. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (transputer_guy) Comments Beta Access Please http://osnews.com/thread?359015 http://osnews.com/thread?359015 I would like beta access

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (chr1skearney) Comments Beta invite http://osnews.com/thread?359016 http://osnews.com/thread?359016 I'd like to try out Grape, it looks very promising and interesting. Please, send me an invite at mrfabbri@gmail.com . Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mrfabbri) Comments count me in http://osnews.com/thread?359017 http://osnews.com/thread?359017 I'd like to give it a try as a beta test... Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (witold.bolt) Comments Great Concept http://osnews.com/thread?359018 http://osnews.com/thread?359018 This Sounds very pomising, I'd Love to have Beta Access!

Regards
Patrick Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (inetman) Comments Comment by boyfarrell http://osnews.com/thread?359020 http://osnews.com/thread?359020 Would also love to try this out! Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (boyfarrell) Comments hmmm http://osnews.com/thread?359021 http://osnews.com/thread?359021 Even though the idea is not bad, it is still not very usefull if it is only some kind of desktop alternative.
My desktop is 99.9% of the time not visible and I am not going to minimize all applications to just go play with the stuff on the desktop.

As Thom pointed out, when they integrate this with finder windows or for windows alternatives in windows explorer, then it might be a little more usefull but I am not admiring the nice stuff on my desktop all day. Work needs to be done ;-) Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Darkness) Comments oooh. http://osnews.com/thread?359022 http://osnews.com/thread?359022 This looks pretty cool and i'd love to play with the beta. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Tommie_Hammr) Comments yes please http://osnews.com/thread?359023 http://osnews.com/thread?359023 i would be interested in the beta test.

Thanks Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (REM2000) Comments Comment by caspy7 http://osnews.com/thread?359025 http://osnews.com/thread?359025 I would very much like beta access! Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (caspy7) Comments nice http://osnews.com/thread?359026 http://osnews.com/thread?359026 Nice Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kometen) Comments would love beta access http://osnews.com/thread?359027 http://osnews.com/thread?359027 If its still offered, would love to try this.

Fanks... Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (siraf72) Comments damnit! 51st http://osnews.com/thread?359028 http://osnews.com/thread?359028 just my luck. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hyriand) Comments RE: damnit! 51st http://osnews.com/thread?359030 http://osnews.com/thread?359030

just my luck.

+1 funny

(I was thinking the same when I opened OSNews)

Back on topic, this project does look good Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Laurence) Comments opensource version http://osnews.com/thread?359045 http://osnews.com/thread?359045 I think it wouldn't take much to implement such thing for Linux, if a team of python coders start doing it.. using gtk or the compiz plugin framework.. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Tanner) Comments RE: opensource version http://osnews.com/thread?359084 http://osnews.com/thread?359084 Depends on your definition of "much". I don't have too much in depth knowledge of the compiz plugin, but I know the Mac has the core image api which makes it simple to do a lot of cool image manipulation tasks.Edited 2009-04-17 14:53 UTC Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bill Shooter of Bul) Comments Nice idea http://osnews.com/thread?359096 http://osnews.com/thread?359096 That video looks quite slick. Maybe longer-term they could combine it with some Expose-like functionality - so that you could iconify running applications and manage them the same way (E.g, drag icons to the trash to close an application, or use drag-and-drop to move multiple icons to another virtual desktop, etc). Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (StephenBeDoper) Comments RE[3]: me too http://osnews.com/thread?359104 http://osnews.com/thread?359104 Does it work on Be? Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (google_ninja) Comments Comment by Shane http://osnews.com/thread?359109 http://osnews.com/thread?359109 Why is it a private beta now? I downloaded this a few days ago from their website. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Shane) Comments RE: another note http://osnews.com/thread?359154 http://osnews.com/thread?359154

I'll assume the developer has built Grape on the Cocoa APIs which is fair enough.

But I'll just mention that the Qt4.4 platform which is cross platform also includes classes or widgets that do 2d zoomable rotatable collection spaces but they come inside a window view so not Grape like. Perhaps Qt might also be capable of implementing portable desktops that look more like Grape and less like KDE or Finder.

Qt 4.5 is still quite a ways away from the Cocoa APIs. It's nice that Cocoa interfaces were added to Qt4.5 but pretty interfaces are just the top of the iceberg of what makes up Cocoa. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tyrione) Comments RE[2]: another note http://osnews.com/thread?359168 http://osnews.com/thread?359168 You would have to be a developer of Cocoa for awhile to appreciate everything it has to offer and I admit I haven't and have no interest to ever be limited to one platform API or its special language. I prefer to remain platform agnostic and use cross platform tools where possible. Don't even care if they don't conform to the platforms guidelines as long as they are self consistent.

Even with Qt having less mass than Cocoa, it still has more than enough to build cross platform desktops far more interesting than what I saw in KDE3. I am investing my energy there for now.

One example of what I am thinking about follows.

Suppose in a better designed desktop, you group select 2 or more folders that you know or believe to contain the same duplicate content or substantially the same or overlapping in file content to a very deep level. You could go find a dedupe type of app and run that to remove dupes, but shouldn't the desktop already have ways to highlight that 2 files or folders are the same or how similar they are. Then offer the possibility to replace all redundant dupes with 1st class references. In fact multiple references to the same file should be much better managed too with tools for navigating between any instance to any other instance to same file or object. These ideas are usually built into CAD tools where all instances of an object are equal to begin with.

In the real world we use our senses to tell us alot about the objects in front of us with out having to get special tools to tell us what we can already judge with senses fairly well. We get the tools out when out senses are not precise enough. In desktops, we mostly have to use special apps for every little task because the OS can not be bothered to tell us even rudimentary things about relations of things. None of this thinking requires Cocoa to build it, maybe if you want to bling it to death.

I am reminded of that StarTrek NG episode where the shy engineer got his IQ boosted by alien influence. No longer was the Enterprise computer UI good enough for him, it became so frustrating he had to go to the Holodeck and instruct the dumb computer how to build the UI he needed in order to accomplish his immediate task. Unfortunately we can't really do that with the desktops we have unless we can code, but that is so tedious.

Anyway I can go look at the beta now. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 22:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (transputer_guy) Comments Lowfat http://osnews.com/thread?359241 http://osnews.com/thread?359241 This looks a lot like the Lowfat demo on Linux from a few years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkrM4ymkiDo Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (abraxas) Comments RE: beta please http://osnews.com/thread?359412 http://osnews.com/thread?359412 I'm in the first 50, but I didn't receive an invite. Did I miss something? Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (atompowered) Comments Grape Beta access http://osnews.com/thread?359417 http://osnews.com/thread?359417 Its sounds to be good Idea, i tried BumpTop and realdesk too... so give me beta access ...
that would be nice to find out which one is the best... Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (speedytangent) Comments RE: Grape Beta access http://osnews.com/thread?359652 http://osnews.com/thread?359652 Still did not receive any invitation....

Please Mr Admin... Im waiting Sir.....

) Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (speedytangent) Comments