This isn’t nearly as elegant as anything Stubear has put out, but I just wanted to get something together for layout as well as a couple ideas we’ve been talking about on GE.
Notice the scrollbar is actually made out of content. 
Antithesis:
http://www.brantaero.com/lack/ukiah.jpg
Proposition:
http://www.brantaero.com/lack/haiku.jpg
Kev
err … whats with the windows screenshot ?
Sorry, I forgot the explanation. The UI takes up over half the vertical browsing space, which inspired me to make a mockup where NO vertical app space is taken up by the OS’s nor the app’s UI, because most documents we view are vertical by nature. In the Windows screenshot the view’s practically in a widescreen ratio.
Kev
Kev, your concept is an example of vertical thinking at its finest.
This morning before bed (2AMish) I had writen a few paragraphs for this topic, but alas! I lost it in a daring cut and paste manuever in lieu of tying it in with my GT forum post:
(http://haiku-os.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=121)!
Anyway, I’m glad to see a response there and let me respond with (loosely, paraphrased) what I had planned to post earlier this Morn:
"Kev, this design is amazing! I love the “page bar” at the right! Kev: “Notice the scrollbar is actually made out of content. :)” I like it! I WANT it now! I glance over at my “little grey scroller that could” and chuckle… Maybe I’m thinking this could warrant a patent? Iv’e never seen it implemented.
Although by default I invision the bar inside a thin line box with a yellow tab (love it) up top and to the left, and also, by default, I continue to imagine the Haiku menu (Haiku, date, time, etc.) to the upper right corner, I must admit Kev, your conceptual configuration has a definite naturality to it, one that exhibits practicality, innovation, and insight!"
Look, this guy Kev has vision. See clearly his motivation for the design; his concept is trancendant! Thin, open, I could go on, but, just having awaken from slumber, I lack the momentum I had in my afformentioned “lost post of cut and paste oblivion” (BRAIN POP! : IDEA: multiple cut and paste levels! Yes! Can I get an Amen (and a sticky, lol)!)
but, I went on to say something like:
“This particular configuration seems dependant on conforming to the “page bar” at the left, is this set in stone? Possibly could we incorporate sheer and utter customization in allowing the page bar and all other components “float and stick” freedom like a start bar or quicklaunch folder under Winsick?”
Ah, im getting dispondant, I keep reading back and wishing I had the clarity of words and emotion I had last night, La! Lol, if you want to feel how i feel about this guys work, look here:
http://haiku-os.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=117
~VinceHehe…thanks, I’m flattered.
As far as stickiness, I really like the way Be has it already with replicants. You turn it on, customize it, then turn it off. So it feels solid while you’re using it, but you can also change it easily.
Uhoh… gotta go. That was the essence anyway, but I hope we can brainstorm more on this later.
Kev
I’ve got to say it is an excellent theory. Of course you need to worry about the trend in LCD monitors that rotate between landscape and portrait, but counter that will the trend of windscreen displays (especially laptops).
I don’t like the scroll bar. I feel it’s too involved in terms of screen clutter., but that’s just personal opinion. I think it is something that could easily be done at present inany app, but not something that is easy to do natively at the OS level as a standard feature. Take a look at Adobe PDF reader’s page view side bar. It’s quite similar to your mock up.
I think it’s possible to force all apps to have a side orientated menu interface. You should do a mock up taking an existing app’s standard menu, toolbars etc, and showing what they would look like forced to be aligned at the side.
Keep up the good work however.
Well, don’t let it get to your head so quickly. The “Emotion of Haiku” post goes for all work on Haiku.
Now, let’s talk about coding for R2. Who can code well enough to begin to bring these apps to fruition? I know very little on the matter, but I’m begining college in late August to study CS, so my apparent lack of knowledge should soon be replaced with an abundance of skill, you know, 'cause I’m cool. :twisted: <speed deamon|
Again, by default I’ll be persuing seemingly unnatainable mastery of C++ soon enough, but look here though:
http://cgibin.erols.com/ziring/cgi-bin/cep/cep.pl?_total=1&_format=full&_userlink=1
It just severly pains me to have to “succumb” to the, well, pains of C++. It just doesn’t seem elegant. From most opinions I’ve read, it’s usually the least elegant solution against say Ada, APL (longshot, i know), others… Is there anyone who’ll disagree with me? And don’t mistake “elegant” for cushy and sugar coated (or should i say coded?), I just mean C++ (even though the base of all pillars) seems weak, too much trouble, flabberghasted. I understand It’s a bare (or should I say bear? beer? what?) neccesity of core software such as the OS kernel (although I think LISP could make an interesting Kernel), couldent more ostentatious extensious sutch as the entire UI be coded in something faster? Sleeker? Logical?
I’m open for suggestions on where I should divert my language education. Ada intrigues me, anyone have experience with it? Suggestions welcome.
Yeah, those swivel things are pretty cool. I think I’d just have it can the UI columns altogether or go horizontal (although the latter kinda defeats the purpose of the swivel…) when the user swiveled the base.
The scrollbar’s debateable. I think it’d be more useful in some docs than others. There are a lot of cases that would invite strange behaviour, though, I guess. There are other possibilities with it, too, though, like having intradocument links highlight the page they’ll be flipping to in the scrollbar when you mouse over them.
The middle column, though, is actually an app roster, like the Deskbar’s listing or the Windows Taskbar. I would definitely argue to keep this idea, because it’s far easier to identify what program you were using with a thumbnail that captures the exact way you left it. It can also show things that are going on, in case the apps are legacy or don’t integrate with the R2 Alert Server and so on. Movies was a neat mention–that’d be a really cool application of it, to be able to switch between movies by clicking their thumbnails and such. Eventually it could be like a hugely enhanced PiP if you had a bunch of Internet or satellite video streams incoming, or video chat windows, or whatever–you can keep an eye on all of them at once.
Kev
The reason I’m not so keen on it is it seems to be a single application at once design, like maximising apps in windows or MacOS. I really like the way BeOS doesn’t have this - it has an “active app” of course, but usually it doesn’t take over the whole screen - the way the “zoom” button in the tab doesn’t really maximise but just sets the window as big as it needs to be really encourages multitasking.
I like maximizedness. I can only use, strictly speaking, one app at a time, so it should take up most of the view. Don’t get me wrong, I multitask like crazy, but the fact is, only one app gets the keystrokes and mouse-clicks at a time, unless you’re talking drag-and-drop, which this thumbnails setup supports well.
When I get around to it, I think I’ll make the following changes to this:
workspace 1, containing:
-app a
-pane-combo x, split vertically, containing:
-app b
-app c
-pane-combo y, split horizontally:
-app d
-and then vertically:
-app e
-app f
workspace 2, containing:
-app g
-app h
So if you’re on workspace 2, your taskbar/thumbnaily thing contains three thumbnails: app g, app h, and workspace 1, the last of which would consist of a thumbnail of either app a, pane-combo x, or pane-combo y, whichever last had the focus. Dragging onto the workspace 1 thumbnail would have it expand to show all three thumbnails.
If you were on workspace 1, your thumbnails would be app a, pane-combo x, pane-combo y, and workspace 2, being either a thumbnail of app g or app h, whichever last had the focus.
Here the distinction between pane-combos (containing other apps) and workspaces (also containing apps) is starting to blur, so maybe we could do away with it, and just have every thumbnail view be a workspace containing either a single app or a pane-combo of apps.
There could also be a thumbnail at the bottom always representing “new workspace,” since the number of workspaces would be limited only by how many apps you want to run at the same time.
Some apps don’t lend themselves to panability nor maximization. These could just float like they do now, each having their own thumbnail, but this is breaking the flexibility that workspaces have in R5, if workspaces merge with panes. I’ll have to think more about this…
Kev[/i]
I have been looking at user interfaces and been thinking about changes while still easing transitions. I also thought along the same lines of verticle space, but my whole OS design if I ever have the time to get to it, is in a different direction (focused on simplicity, features, and transition)
I really liek the look of this system. One thought to take into account the comment about wanting multiple windows up is this. Have the taskbar equiv scale with screen real estate so that if the screen is big enough, so that they can be fully usable open programs.
Ive contemplated the active program not being in the list, but I do like it being in the list now that I think about it, since it then makes less re-shuffles and keeps the list of programs more predictable.
The direction I was thinking of going for menus is kind of a sidebar system. The root menus are in a verticle bar, clicking on one opens up the bar, clicking closes it. One reason for this is menus can be difficult to browse, I agree with their flaw of inacurate mouse use and you lose where you are at, so this is a more static method that still has the option to not take up much space. My thoughts were in the direction towards a system wide one that gets topic specific menu items or status boxes (like your left most column)
The other main part of this is the focus on projects. I find that I like virtual desktops and I usually focus them to a specific project. So how about have the computer work for me? Windows does this to a degree with its focus on tasks but it is too micro managing without solving the overall problem of the screen being clutter with all the windows from several projects being opened at once
So you have an attribute on files, people, etc that is a list of associated projects. In my system-wide sidebar/menu there is a section for “projects” that lists everything that is assigned to that project. It is divided into categories (Documents, Contacts, Tasks, etc) Then for the less used ones, it has a “more…” button, when clicked, opens a query window for a list of only items for that project.
I like Google’s approach of inbox and archive for email. One way of applying that is you have a default project for misc things and where all unassigned, un archived projects are. So that means you can also archive single files and whole projects once they are not immediately needed.
So the “default” project is a system standard one. The other system standard one would be “Entertainment” which would be a MythTV like system to handle PVR, Media files, games, etc in a simple, even remote control accessible format, without the normal screen clutter
So the average user would just start using it without noticing, while an advanced user could start to assign files to different projects and have a project switcher. There are several ways as to how to handle that. You can have a drop down list, keyboard shortcut like generally in X, a pager, or a fullscreen screenshot pager.
Thanks for your comments, epage. A few replies…
Having the taskbar scale into fully-usable programs is exactly what the panes idea is. 
I agree with you about keeping the active program in the list for the reasons you mentioned. Good call.
The direction I was thinking of going for menus is kind of a sidebar system. The root menus are in a verticle bar, clicking on one opens up the bar, clicking closes it.
A la Outlook 97 with the bigger buttons with icons?
I do like your thoughts on projects. I think similar discussions have gone around GE recently. This would be a really handy way to work.
Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with the gmail interface, but the way you described it working would be great.
I would call “Entertainment” “Media” instead, which is more accurate IMO.
…
Oh, okay, after your description of project, I think you’ve got it more integrated with workspaces than I did in my head.
What I would do is have projects be one concept (each file having an attribute attaching it to at least one project) and saved workspace layouts be another. Then you can have different workspace layouts for a particular project, depending on the work that needs to be done at the time. For instance, say I’m designing a web site, and sometimes I might want to be doing graphics design, with my clipart folder, colour picker, browser, graphics editors, etc. open in a workspace; but then other times I’ll be doing site layout, so I’ll want the HTML editor and a few browser windows open; and then sometimes I’ll want both of these.
When I want both, I should be able to hit “Project X”, launch the two workspace files “Graphics Work” and “Layout Work”, and suddenly have Workspace 1 set up for graphics editing and Workspace 2 set up for HTML editing. My task pane, if I was on Workspace 1 at the time, would have thumbnail views for each of my graphics workspace programs, and either a) thumbnail views for each of my HTML programs (if there was enough room and not a lot of programs) or b) a “Layout Work” thumbnail. If it was b) and I clicked the “Layout Work” thumbnail, thumbnails would come up for that workspace, and the ones that were visible earlier would be consolidated into a single “Graphics Work” thumbnail, representing the topmost/last-visible program from the Graphics Work workspace.
Kev
So here’s an updated mockup with the scrollbar replaced with something more useful, but I don’t have time ATM to change much else. I apologize for the Windows fonts, I’m at work.
I think where I’d put the projects would be in the full-screen Haiku menu. That is, when you click the Haiku button in the corner, it turns into a “never mind”/cancel button, but the rest of the screen fills up like this with all of your programs and projects.
To make a new workspace, there would be some kind of new workspace button on the Haiku menu, so you’d hit that, give it a name, choose a desktop background just for it, and then start opening programs while in it. The layout would be automatically saved as you go. So when you’re done with a workspace, rather than close each program, there would be a “close workspace” option. So maybe the first three options in the Haiku menu would be “never mind”, “new workspace”, and “close workspace”, or maybe the new/close would go in the context menu of the thumbnail column. But maybe Haiku menu options are more obvious for newbies than context menus. Or maybe workspaces are only for those who are PC-savvy enough to try right-clicking on things.
Kev
Its been a while since Ive used Office97. If I remember right, its like that, except the main categories they have text horizontal with an icon above it. My idea included reducing horizontal waste. Let me do a hypothetical run through
Say the main launcher uses this menu approach and it is on the left side. You see a list of sections that looks a lot like a menubar but vertical, including text, and the bottom of the fonts is the edge of the screen. You go over and click one and that categories text flips, so that the bottom now faces the newly popped out sidebar which is on the right of the text.
One reason for a “menubar like column” for the names rather than the Office97 way is to keep them in a consistent place, so the user can rely on mouse movement habits, which habits increase speed and reduce frustration. One might want to have the side bar insert on the left of the “menubar like column” but that also has consistency problems.
So to make sure I understand what you were saying about workspaces and projects. You still have them integrated, but you can have multiple workspaces per project, so in effect a group of workspaces would be a child of specific project. I have thought a little bit about that issue, of a projectspace becoming cluttered.
So to sum up some of my thoughts
Projectspace
-They can become very cluttered
+Still better then what most end-users are used to
+Not as abstract a concept for an end-user to grasp
Ideas for a Solution:
-Workspaces as a child of projects (Your idea, I’d recommend 1:1 default for end-users)
-Subprojects
I am throwing this idea out there just to see if some merit can be gotten from it because sometimes making an idea become too encompassing can get in the way, and I think subprojects can do that. They basically are just child workspaces for thr purpose of completing a subcomponent of a project. I think this approach might get cumbersome but not sure.
Sorry I dont have much time at the moment to make this more coherent or to add more comments
epage
With the second link in my e-mail (and BeFull in general) I was trying to get away from cascading menus. The idea is, the habits can be formed at least as easily, the buttons are larger and easier to hit, and everything is still categorized relatively neatly. Having the rest of whatever you have open displayed on screen while you’re selecting a program seems pointless. That visual information isn’t needed and adds clutter while you’re trying to find a program to open.
As far as projects go, I just see them as a kind of virtual folder. Assign a file to as many projects as it’s relevant to, and it will show up in all of them.
The clutteredness can be reduced by having a non-shuffling top-ten (or however many files get used often enough) and a “more” button like you said.
Workspaces I see as just a file that contains app, doc, sub-doc (such as which page you’re on in a document), and layout information. There could be none in a project. All you have to do is choose your project when you’re making a new workspace (i.e., naming it, as in my last post), and that’s where it will be saved.
This isn’t really on-topic, but I want to get rid of “my project”, “untitled project”, etc. (and this goes for every other kind of named object in the computer). Force the user to enter a name. If they want to call it “test” or “blah” or something, at least it will be distinct, and they’ll have a chance at recognizing it later having typed something themselves. I’m tired of deleting “My eBooks”, and renaming “My Documents” to something I can use in a terminal, and wondering whether I can delete someone’s “Drawing 1.cdr” or “New Document.doc”. This kind of “information” in filenames is unhelpful to say the least. One should have to name something before using it, just like folders.
Having said that, the default name might then be “{Project Name} Workspace” when you choose a project for your workspace. This could apply to any kind of file, and be built into the file/folder selector of Tracker, which would natively support projects.
Kev
