Re: [Usability]Hello

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Wed, Apr 17, 2002 at 01:42:20PM -0400, Erik Pukinskis wrote:
> > When this idea comes up (as it does from time to time), I can never help
> > thinking "well, if there's only just one application that you can embed
> > everything into, wouldn't that just be the desktop itself?" 
> 
> Of course!  When we have a document-centric setup, there will be no
> distinction between the desktop environment and the file manager.  All
> the ways you interact with your computer will be conceived of as
> managing files (or bits of data) in some way.

I had this in 1993. It was called OS/2.

> Windows XP is already creeping in this direction. . . .

Yes, I said 1993.

> I think it's great that Nautilus was designed for this all along.

Really? Have a look at the design of the system that did this and you
may change your mind.

> I wouldn't be surprised at all if one day nautilus became the desktop
> shell with the panel disappearing and and all of the applications
> becoming nautilus viewer/editors.

I would be very surprised. I think you'd have to change the name if it
became such a thing because of how different it would be.

Have a look here for all sorts of documentation about the system that did
it almost 9 years ago on a i486/33 with 8MB RAM:

  http://www.warpspeed.com.au/book/books.htm

In particular, these:
  http://www.warpspeed.com.au/cgi-bin/inf2html.cmd?../html/book/Toolkt40/WPSGUIDE.INF
  http://www.warpspeed.com.au/cgi-bin/inf2html.cmd?../html/book/Toolkt40/WPS1.INF
  http://www.warpspeed.com.au/cgi-bin/inf2html.cmd?../html/book/Toolkt40/WPS2.INF
  http://www.warpspeed.com.au/cgi-bin/inf2html.cmd?../html/book/Toolkt40/WPS3.INF

The SOM stuff is also important. SOM is a competitor to COM more closely
related to CORBA and the basis of OpenDoc. (My lousy summary - oh well.)

More information about the UI can be found here:

  http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/F29AL000/CCONTENTS?SHELF=CEESL002&DN=SC34-4399-00&DT=19921204095534

(That's rather old, but that's the common point from which Win95 et seq., CDE,
and OS/2 spring.)

Perhaps the nearest descendants of this are:

  IBM's WorkSpace On-Demand  http://www-4.ibm.com/software/network/workspace/
  eComStation                http://www.ecomstation.com
    (Community site?)        http://www.ecomstation.org


You can check various mailing lists archives and ask around on IRC to find
out what kind of treatment these ideas and their advocates have received.

Have a nice day.
Greg Merchan


P.S. - In case somebody dares to tell me about offending volunteers again,
       remember that I'm one of them and always have been.

P.P.S. - Erik, no offense intended; I couldn't pass up such excellent hooks
         into some of what I've been saying for a long time.