Graphics Archive

While virtually all computer graphics professionals use Adobe Photoshop to do their artistic work, Photoshop is a pricey and proprietary application. If you're looking to do graphics design on a budget, or perhaps want a software package that is less resource-intensive than Photoshop, check out open source alternatives -- the GIMP, SodiPodi, and Inkscape. Our Take: While these apps are extremely valuable for Unix users, they can't compete in the professional marketplace with Photoshop or Illustrator. They just don't do as much or they don't always do it in an expected way. More here and here.

When in the 2.5 builds the GNOME project changed directions of the ever infamous Nautilus to make the interface spatially oriented I was one of the skeptics. Yet, over the years I have used almost every type desktop configuration imaginable with very few that I found not to like or learn from at least at some points. With this in mind I was bound and determined to find the positives of the spatial file paradigm and, glean what I could from it.

There is a certain thing about skinning. It's just relaxing. Changing skins, browsing for skins, adding icons, trying out different color schemes in order to find the best match. The skinning community is quite large, ranging from people who change only their WinAmp skin, to people who use different DE's on Unix-like systems. In fact, you are also skinning when you don't use a DE; since the command line is in fact a type of 'skin' as well.

Microsoft and Apple Computer are searching for the same thing with their next operating systems: a better way to find stuff on an increasingly cluttered hard drive. The article fails to mention the similar Beagle & Storage projects for GNOME (albeit not as integrated to the filesystem) and the original effort (that Apple's Spotlight is inspired from as it is developed by the same engineers), Be's BFS & Tracker.

The major competition of visual skins for Windows, the GUI Olympics, has ended. The site has now an all-around article showing the best themes from the competition. "The Last Order" icons look sweet.

From Slashdot: How do you exchange a file with a colleague or a photograph with a family member? Chances are that you cut the desired element and paste it into your e-mail program to send it. Now, imagine yourself in a meeting, picking a file on your PDA with a digital pen and using the same pen to drop it on your friend's laptop screen.

Already available for the Windows and Macintosh platforms, the new Macromedia Flash Player 7 for Linux is available for download and will be automatically bundled with the next batch of Linux systems distributed by Novell, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and Turbolinux.

The desktop metaphor, used in practically every modern operating system, has been around for many years and has been very successful in making computer usage easy for even the most novice users. Whereas once a user had to type commands in and navigate through directories by entering every single character in a path name, the desktop graphical user interface metaphor made it possible to perform the same actions by simply pointing to and clicking the iconic views of the various files and folders.

"Look at the first desktop screenshot at left. It looks like a Mac OS X machine, right? Wrong. It's a Windows XP box made up to look like a Mac. Look closely, and you'll see that its creator has done a very good job; although the machine is running Windows XP, the interface is almost indistinguishable from an OS X machine. Notice the dock, desktop background, menus, system font and icons for applications and folders. Even the keyboard shortcuts belong to the Mac OS X." Read the rest of the article with screenshots at Wired.

Jono Bacon is editorializing on his blog regarding usability on FOSS applications. UPDATE: Acts of Volition looks at how "creeping featuritis" has affected interface design in different open source software projects. The article notes that while some projects have succumbed to the problem, others have managed to tame the beast.

One place Stardock sees things moving in the future, especially as Longhorn nears and Windows XP becomes more widespread, is the concept of Micro-Shells, says Brad Wardell of Stardock. In the old days, programs tried to replace the entire shell (explorer). Micro-Shells instead extend pieces of the shell. Stardock is particularly interested in extending in the future is the folder views.

"Once we break the metaphor that each window needs to belong to one particular application and instead rely on the idea that an object is self contained, free to be embedded in drawers and tabs, rows and columns, docks and icons, or even inside other objects. A new user interface environment could be created, enabling our independent objects to be represented in the best layout according to the user's needs and desires." Read the editorial at TheMacMind.

Computer graphics have long been dominated by bitmapped images. However, the free software community has taken an innovative lead by adopting scalable graphic formats on its desktops. Inthis article I cover the history and rise of scalable graphics on the desktop from my angle - as a proponent of its use in the GNOME platform. This article mostly focuses on SVG's progress from a GNOME point of view, both because GNOME has progressed the furthest and because I am most knowledgable with GNOME's efforts. I will however mention major landmarks in other projects where appropriate.

This site is dedicated to the preservation of GUI systems. Would be great if readers with access to older versions or other systems could enrich the collection.