HelloWorld is a software application with a visual approach to connecting people, online messaging, search and transfer operations, and personal publishing, in a decentralized network environment that is owned and operated by the network community. The application (soon to be released for Windows, Linux and Mac) is literally an alternative user interface for our online needs.My take: This app won’t do as well as it could, for the simple reason that it takes up all of the desktop and doesn’t let you use your other apps at the same time. People mostly use IM in parallel to the app they are working with and when there is integration of their IM on browser or other apps that’s even better. This can’t be achieved as well with HelloWorld, even when you resize the app to a single 800×600 window, which still feels like “another app taking lots of space”.
This application can do well in specific markets, like Internet Appliances of a sort (where all apps are full screen at all times), but I don’t see it going anywhere in the desktop market where the needs are different…
I just don’t think it is practical enough to take up the whole screen. I’d accept it as an application that I can use along with others… Are you sure there is no mode where it runs like any other app on the system?
On the FAQ it says this:
“This [fullscreen] is the preferred screen modality for HelloWorld. However, you can run HelloWorld in a floating window. Just press CTRL-“+” or choose “Floating Window” in the Control Center to float HelloWorld in an 800×600 window.”
Still, it is a big blob of a window having a 800×600 window sitting on a 1024×768 screen. It still feels that the app is an “isolated” app, not integrated with the rest of the system.
That app would have been nice if the WHOLE OS that it runs on was on the same “mode” and principle. But as it is today, that app could only do well in embedded systems, not on a desktop.
Cooperating Systems is essentially re-inventing instant-messaging and combining it with some browser aspects to create something new.
A very intriguing product that looks easy enough to use even for the AOL crowd. Lots of potential here. Can’t wait to try it out for myself.
Think they are going to have a problem getting a trademark on the ubiquitous ‘HelloWorld’? I mean, 99% of the programming books out there start with program titled ‘HelloWorld’.
Chris
Who else thinks that thing looks like TraceRoute combined with AOL?
As always when someone announces something with A Revolutionary GUI: looks pretty, but usable? Bleh, there is this big difference between making a gui usable, and making a gui pretty. This looks pretty, but has every sign that it will be unusable. (I haven’t seen *any* standard control for example).
They should shoot all graphics designers who think they can make a gui. They suck at it even more than the average opensource programmer.
I would say thos who only looked at the first screenshot on their homepage would agree with you. Probably others browsed to the features page and checked it out in more detail.
Sounds like a lot of DoubleTalk to me. They can’t even clearly describe what their application does….at least I haven’t figured it out….
This looks a little like the basic principles in Rebol/IOS, which also provides an environment for networking across a bunch of different platforms platforms, only Rebol/IOS seems more cleverly designed. It does the same things only it can be expanded with custom applications, which you can write yourself and can interact with the underlying OS as any other program.
It doesn’t have a “pretty GUI” like this one, but it certainly is very powerful. It’s designed to be more of a corporate network integration system, though it could function the way HelloWorld does.
Take a look here: http://rebol.com/ios-intro.html
I hate to put a damper on all of this, but I have to ask: is this necessary? I’m using AIM, and I use Trillian, and I have to say: instant messaging is instant messaging is instant messaging. What does this product have to offer that others don’t? A map? Most of the people I talk to live within ten miles of me. Pictures? I can remember what people look like. I mean, what is it that this offers? It’s like the telephone: it cannot be improved. IM is a simple concept. You type, they see it. Other than minute details such as file transfers, that’s it. There ain’t nothing more. I think we need more IM clients, but they need to be simpler and more like the ones that we have now, not complicated and radically different. Does anybody else feel the same way?
Man, I like it … I appreciate the full screen mode strictly so I won’t have to look at that ass-ugly Win XP gui; I always envy Apple guys with their slick clean Aqua interface and now I won’t have to care that there are a billion icons on my desktop ‘cuz I won’t have to look at ’em. This thing is kinda like a funky screensaver. Don’t knock it ’til you try it.
Someone said “This looks pretty, but has every sign that it will be unusable. (I haven’t seen *any* standard control for example). ”
That’s got to be *the* lamest excuse for why it might look unusable, the only reason it looks unusable to me is that I can’t download it ..
<sarcasm>How stupid can these guys be by trying to improve usability by moving away from the accepted norm, it’s almost as if they think the current norm hinders usability… sheesh.</sarcasm>