There's no right way to do it, only ideas that are better than others in certain situations. But if you had the opportunity to head up the design of a new OS, one to Put Things Right, one that could be radical enough to varnish out those UI/X bumps that have clung on for years, but practical enough to be used every day, what would you design? How would you handle application management? What about file types and compatibility? Where would you cherry pick the best bits from other OSes and where would you throw away tradition? I've tackled this challenge for myself and present (an unfinished idea): KrocOS (warning: HTML5 site, will display without CSS in IE/older browsers). OSnews Asks: What would make your perfect OS?
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Member since:2005-11-02
I tend to agree with regards to the command line, which is what I use for my file management (and a lot of other things). Originally I did this because all GUI file managers for Linux sucked. Since then I have found three that do not suck, but it's far too late to go back now.
I sometimes think I escape to the simple elegance of the command line because all GUI interactions suck. Other times I am not so sure.
The idea that the computer adapt to what you're doing is a tempting fallacy, IMO. Until the computer can literally read your mind, via a neural implant, it can only guess or not guess. Guessing is always wrong (this is not true, but it is true enough of the time that it may as well be true all the time).
Kroc had some interesting things to say about window management elsewhere in this thread, which may interest you.
I find that many non-maxed windows per virtual desktop is a rare, but not unheard of. Since I began using 32 desktops and one window per desktop (more or less, somehow I seem to find an xterm on each desktop too) I find that in all but a few cases application use is modal. But you cannot require this, because sometimes it isn't and when it isn't you absolutely must have non-modal.
I have very, very rarely wanted drag and drop. It sounds like a good interactive idea (and extends the useless desktop metaphor) but outside of painting programs I don't think I ever use it. Without drag and drop there's limited need for same-time viewing for interaction. Not to say you don't want to view different sources of information side by side, which you do, but the fact that apps do not actually share data due to user manipulation means a lot when it comes to what your window management design can be like.
Some experimentation with window management optimizing for the case where windows don't need to interact and only one app is in use at a time would probably bring forth some useful innovations.
Member since:
2007-11-04
I really have to congratulate you on this post. I find it very informative and well thought out. Although I don't agree in all points with you I think we both have a very similar way of interacting with computers. Just a couple of things which I like to add which my ideal OS would have.
CLI:
Every program would be easily controllable from the commandline. I find myself doing 70-80% of my work using terminals. I don't understand why people want to use filemanagers, in 99% of the cases the work is done much faster using bash. This is also why I disagree with the whole KrocOS approach of contexts. If I go to a folder I know how I want to manipulate the files. And that could be very different from one time to the other. For example if I write an article in latex, sometimes I want to compile the file to ps sometimes to pdf, sometimes I just want to edit it or just grep a for a word. I don't want to set folder properties which decide how I interact with the file.
WindowManagement:
I agree with your premise of getting rid of maximized/minimized windows. I think virtualdesktops are far superior (and I can't believe how long it took OSX to get them). Also I want grouping of windows, e.g. all gimp windows are part of a group so I can set properties on the whole group, i.e. to have all the windows always open on the same desktop.