Nicklas Elmqvist On 3Dwm Project's Progress

Steve Houston writes: "LinuxPower has put up an interview with Nicklas Elmqvist, the project coordinator of 3Dwm, an open source project aiming to provide a 3D working environment. This coincides with a major release of 3Dwm: 0.3.0, that introduces vnc interaction, so X apps are usable in the 3D realm, as well as improved support for wearable computers."

3DWM

[sllort]

Ahh, I remember seeing the early prototype for 3dwm in the first Jurassic Park movie [sgi.com]. Dickie Attenborough's granddaughter sits down, proclaims "It's a Unix System! I know this!", and then navigates through 3dwm in order to restart all the correct processes and, sadly, save everyone from being eaten by raptors, which would have been far more entertaining. I remember watching the movie, hoping she would fail and be eaten in a bloody, gore-filled mess, when I realized I had been thwarted by a heretofore unseen graphical window manager which could be intuitively controlled with a mouse.

As long as it doesn't keep saving the lives of actors who really deserve to be chewed into little balls of dripping flesh [goldblum.com], I think 3dwm will be "O.K."

Re:3DWM

[NickElm]

Being the main developer of 3Dwm, I can safely say that fsn, as the 3D file manager is called (which you no doubt know since you looked it up), was not really an early prototype for 3Dwm. Well, sure we were influenced by it, but then there are many influences to draw from in the 3D and Virtual Reality scene.

That said, I am pretty sure you mean "prototype" in a very loose sense, but it sounds a bit too "official" for my liking... Almost as if we're getting credit for something we didn't do! :)

And the point?

[O]

What is the point of a 3d window manager? Could someone please explain this to me? Just seems like a waste of processor cycles to me.

Re:And the point?

[EmilEifrem]

I'd assume that the point is to explore other options to the (two-dimensional) desktop metaphor that is the standard across all workstation UIs today, from MacOS to MS Windows to X. There has been some research and projects in this field earlier, but it's only with recent year's leaps in processing power that these things might start to matter to Mr Joe Avg. I suppose that, and the fact that it's a cool hack, is the "point."

WHY??

[Anomolous Cow Herd]

What is the fucking point? Why would anyone need a 3D window manager for their desktop? Of all the 3D managers that I've seen, none of them look at all easy to use, and most of them just come off as overly complex. And where the hell are you going to get the spare processor cycles to power this thing when you are doing something like, oh, say GIMP or PovRay in the background?

Plus, a mouse is a lousy way to navigate a 3D world. Someone would have to invent something a lot more intuitive before I decide to give this one a try.

Re:WHY??

[number one duck]

I'd just like a Quake 3 environment in which I could map an X terminal to any arbitrary flat surface... if only for the cool factor. Something like this would be a strange combination of Snow Crash and .NET... but it might be fun.