The State Of The Art

["Dr Geek" <dr_geek hotmail com>]

The intention of this message is to spark a little debate on alternative 
directions for Linux (and other *nix) GUI environments.  My contention is 
that while I believe Gnome and KDE are both excellent implementations of the 
state-of-the-art, the opportunity exists to go one better; to leapfrog the 
art and improve on the desktop metaphor that has dominated GUIs since 1984 
while remaining within the realms of the possible.

(My background in doing this is that I'm an engineer who specialises in 
(amongst other things), interface design and human-computer interaction 
(HCI).  The proposal below is a starting point and builds on ideas coming 
from research in many places, including MIT and Xerox (without, as far as I 
can see, any patent infringments).  I'm also a hacker (C, C++, Java, Perl) 
of *many* years, so I entirely appreciate how annoying it can be when 
someone looks at a work in progress and says "why doesn't it do X; it would 
be easy?".)

Gnome and KDE are rebuilding the GUI environment for Linux.  Why then are we 
following Windows/Mac/whatver in using the same old flat desktop metaphor?  
Yes, we have multiple desktops (so does Windows, so does the Mac), but how 
about this:
Consider that your monitor is just a rectangular window ("viewing area") 
onto a wrap-around surface on which your windows are placed.  Conceptually, 
your viewing area moves around on that larger surface.  You can consider 
that the usual X "virtual desktop" or "multiple desktop" idea is an example 
of this.  Now, consider that the surface could be spherical, so that you can 
spin around in any direction, or maybe cylindrical (like an oil drum several 
"screens" high and wrapping around behind you).  Alt-tabbing from window to 
window slides the viewing area around the screen so that the window selected 
is always nicely centered.  Replace the "sticky" attribute with one that 
glues a window to the viewing area (often called "sticking the window to the 
glass") so that it follows the viewing area around.
Now you can use "areas" of the surface for related windows, but have a 
better notion of where these windows are *spatially*.
In order to aid navigation, a minaturized version of the *whole* surface 
would be displayed in a corner of the monitor (technically this is known as 
a "world in minature") which gives a reduced view of where windows are 
placed on the surface.  Clicking in this minature view will slide the 
viewing area over to the place clicked on.

Let's leapfrog where MS and Apple are at and put Linux *ahead* of the art, 
not playing catch-up.
Dr_geek


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