Red Hat Art and Gnome Themes
Garrett LeSage published some screenshots of the recent redhat-artwork/Bluecurve updates. In other art news, new version of the Gnome Themes Extras is released. Wasp, especially, is very nice.
Graphics Archive
The Future of OOP UIs is Coming Soon: DesktopX 2
After over a year of work, we're almost ready with DesktopX 2. We even have a public beta of it now here. Here is a Windows media video with DesktopX 2 in action. I've also written an article for the OSNews readers about DesktopX 2.
Graphics Conference Plays up Interaction; Sketch Recognition
Hay Young, a researcher at the Center for Media Arts at City University of Hong Kong, believes computing should be a full contact sport. Elsewhere, this article describes work being done at MIT on Multi-Domain Sketch Recognition software. The technology allows users to draw basic shapes, and then applies rules to determine what objects the shapes represent and how these objects should behave.
ATI Announces Excellent Results for 3rd Quarter
X-bit labs published a story regarding ATI being profitable and managing to raise its gross-margins and revenues substantially. The Radeon 9600 sold so well that the company can't even fulfil the demand.
The End of Progress Bar Dialog Boxes
Have you ever been frustrated by the presence of the various progress bars on your otherwise beautiful desktop? As it happens there are many tasks that take more than a couple of seconds to complete even on a fast computer, regardless of the platform used.
Proposal for a New GTK+/Gnome GUI
A few months ago I was designing the UI of Sequel OS. I am not part of the project anymore, but I kept developing the UI in my free time, just when I was feeling a bit creative. Yesterday, in my Gnome 2 article I mentioned that it would be nice if Gnome/GTK+ adopt a new default theme. So, here is my proposal for the project, mockups seen for the first time in public... Update: One more mockup I just (quickly) created just to show to some readers that the theme is clean when used in a normal app. Update2: Vote for the poll inside. Update3: Download the Gnome window manager theme here.
The History of Object Desktop
The 10-year history of Object Desktop. It's about 50 pages long and has lots of screenshots and also neat insights and OS history and how skinning grew more important over the years.
Create a Window Manager Theme, Get a Free Tech Book
One old Sawfish theme I always admired is "Friday". I liked its concept of having its window manager buttons shaped after the purpose they served (the Min button was a triangle looking down, and the max button a triangle looking up). I modified the theme to my liking (undoubtly it could still be done better by a pro graphics person) and here is its mockup. Update: An alternative design, possibly much better.
Microsoft Research Focusing on Search Interfaces
Found a couple interesting links over at NooFace, a site dedicated to user interfaces. First, Microsoft Research is plugging away at one of the growing dilemmas in computing: so much data, so little time. XTend is a next generation product which uses a powerful Relational File System to deliver the world's first "Save With" oriented interface. And speaking of Knowledge Management (where XTend can be useful), you can read this recent interview over at TheIdeaBasket with the CEO of YellowPen, Inc.
Longhorn M5 4015 and Mac OS X Panther 10.3 Screenshots
Unfortunately, these days people seem to not be able to keep... any 'secret'. Longhorn 4015 has leaked and Neowin has aquired some tailor-made screenshots showing off a few of the new features taking shape in what is becoming known as Milestone 5. Also, Apple-X.net claims to have the first leaked screenshots of of MacOSX Panther 10.3, clearly showing the "piles". UPDATE: Gsurface writes: "A quick look at what's new in the new 4015 build. To my surprise, it was actually an upgrade rather than the full version. Luckily, I still had my Longhorn 4008 installed on my D:\ drive. Continue to read with tons of screenshots here."
Underwater View Real-Time Simulation
The paper discusses various aspects of the waved water surface and underwater bottom video representation simulation and also expands on the math models and algorithms of the following related tasks: waved water surface simulation; calculation of reflected and refracted rays directions in 3-D space; underwater caustics (extra illuminated areas) forming; refractive distortion of the bottom view account; reflected skylight addition.
Debunking Some Myths About Graphical Installers
I can't take anymore comments like "Debian/Gentoo/OpenBSD/etc. are not good/user-friendly because they lack a graphical installer." Searching the web, I couldn't find a comprehensive site describing the good and the bad about graphical installers for various OSes throughout the years, so in this article I hope to debunk a few of the myths on the basis of my own personal and professional experience.
Poll: Which is your Favorite Desktop Environment?
Lots of talk and comments about our recent feature article "The Definitive Desktop Environment Comparison" recently (new OSNews comment # record). But what do the readers of this site think? Which is your favorite DE? Update: The poll is down.
Visualizing Source Code in 3D
The interesting NooFace web site reports: "This page describes the kernel3d program, which produces a 3D animation of Linux source code development. Shapes and different colored lines are used to represent files, function dependencies, variable dependencies, file size modifications, files being moved across directories, and new files".
The Definitive Desktop Environment Comparison
So many operating systems and so many graphical desktop environments... This article is a comparison of the UI and usability of several Desktop Environments (DEs), that have been widely used, admired and reviled: Windows XP Luna, BeOS 6 (Dano/Zeta), Mac OS X Aqua and Unix's KDE and Gnome. Read on which one got our best score on our long term test and usage.
Download OSNews Wallpapers
OSNews reader Jess Tipton was very kind to design really nice OSNews background images for various resolutions. Please download only the file that corresponds to your monitor's resolution (so we can save some bandwidth) from here. Also, please note that users who use older versions of Windows, will need to save these images as .bmp files before they can use them. Additionally, let's not forget that OSNews always is in search of people who would like to publish their articles on this site.
Web Front-Ends Versus Windows
Web-based applications have range, Windows programs have more functions. Can Java or .Net resolve the stand-off, and can CIOs get the best of both worlds? Read the article at TechUpdate.
Lost Marble Releases Moho Beta for Linux
Most of you probably remember the Moho competition we ran about a month ago. After that article, our friends over at PCLinuxOnline ran a story asking Lost Marble to port Moho to Linux. While the popular cartoon-making application runs fine under WINE, Lost Marble actually did the full port with the help of GTK+ 2.0. The (small) company recently released version 4.0.2 for Windows, MacOS9/X and now, for Red Hat Linux 8.0. They are looking for feedback, bug reports and they would like to know if their port actually works on other distros additionally to Red Hat 8.0. Here is a screenshot under Red Hat 8.
THE Key to User-Friendly Computers?
Jef Raskin, who helped design Apple's classic user interface, is working on a new system, THE, that could be a big improvement. BusinessWeek features an article introducing the technology. Jef also replied to our forums here and here a month ago, explaining his system.
Humanizing The User Interface
"I've been thinking about this at great length for the past year or so. The W.I.M.P. interface is going to be with us for a while no matter what we think of it. It will evolve and get enhanced by other developments in input devices (eye tracking, speech recognition, humanoid virtual androids, etc..), but will probably largely remain the same. The real "innovations" (for lack of a less used word) are to be had in new approaches to using the computer to actually get work done." The editorial can be found at the interesting NooFace web site.