Metisse - New Looking Glass Alternative 299
Interested in a 3D desktop? zoso submitted news about about a project called Metisse, writing "There is working and freely available alternative to the (soon to be released under GPL) Sun Looking Glass 3D desktop ( Slashdot story here)
If you have spare CPU/GPU cycles just go download and compile the first publicly available version of this X Desktop. Everything looks nice (screenshots here), has OpenGL support, transparency and all other whistles...."
Metisse (Score:5, Informative)
It's also the name of a cool Irish-French musical duo [metissemusic.com]
Re:Metisse (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Metisse (Score:5, Funny)
silly me (Score:2)
Metisse (or métisse) means 'mixture' in French.
Good thing you posted that- I thought from the article that it meant "MacOS"!
Re:French!!! Well screw it then. (Score:3, Funny)
What I don't get (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What I don't get (Score:5, Informative)
Take it easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not supposed to make you more productive. The meaning of life, for some of us at least, is not to become more and more productive until we die. There is something about mankind, something inside of us, that wants to be entertained and amused, and this includes being in an asthetically pleasing environment (like a well decorated home, or in this case, a futuristic desktop that no one else on their block has).
Re:Take it easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
aesthetic is good, but it has to leave room to some productivity as well. I wouldn't live in an extremely beautiful and pleasant home if it didn't have any shelf to store my books for example.
Extremes are bad. It's all about balance. And the point of balance is different for everyone of us.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What I don't get (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What I don't get (Score:5, Interesting)
To date, the only Window managers I could get all of these things to happen in are Sawfish and TVWM.
Knowing that one man's feature is another man's bloat, Window managers should put everything into modules and make it easy to add/remove features.
The best way to go is to make the core contain an event manager, a titlebar manager, and an API.
Everything else should be components that add in later, since anything could be bloat, though it should be capable of adding anything else.
The only Window manager that I know that is that tiny but also extensible is TVWM, though extension is a real pain.
If the window managers are extremely difficult to extend, then bloat goes in and stays in. Much better to live without it and "stifle innovation" by making it a separate program or part of an extensible manager.
Re:What I don't get (Score:3, Insightful)
Where are my mod points when I need them? I agree with that
Maybe you shouldn't have mod points, eh? Do you mod down posts you don't agree with?
Re:What I don't get (Score:5, Informative)
from the site:
"Auto scale mode. The window with the focus has its normal size, the others "normal" windows are scaled (here 70%). This is done automatically. This reduce windows overlapping as the content of the scaled windows are still viewable.
Shot-3 Surface mode. Windows are automatically rotated to simulate a non flat screen (here a 1/4 of sphere). Optionally, the window with the focus is not rotated. Note the zoomed mplayer.
Shot-4 Peeling (or folding) window operation. "Clicking on a corner of a window of a window peels it back, revealing the window underneath it. The window springs back to its original position when the mouse button is released." (From M. Beaudoin-Lafon paper "Novel interaction techniques for overlapping windows")."
basically, you can fit more into the same desktop space and find the windows easier(like on macs now..)
Re:What I don't get (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What I don't get (Score:4, Insightful)
I like it because it's new and shiny.
Now get back to work.
Most Productive Post EVER (Score:3, Insightful)
This WM actually doesn't look too bad. Whenever I hear 3D desktop I assume garish arrangment of spinning browsers on cubes. This looks more akin to a *box with some neat ways of organising files on screen (the shrinking inactive files). Personally, I prefer my fluxbox tabbing, but I like the sensable 3D approach (not just some glitzy graph
Re:What I don't get (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, a way to be able to see changes on a window without the window taking up as much space as it normally does.
Re:What I don't get (Score:2)
Exactly, minimization + icon view would give you exactly the same thing without wasting valuable screen real estate faking the illusion of 3D. Oh, and the text would be easier to read too if it was simply smaller instead of smaller and distorted to fake 3D. For those of us that can read 2D icon view is far more practical. The pretty picture crowd is probably very impressed with this, however.
Oh wait, 2D icon views have been done before and are about as innovative as getting sand in your shorts at the b
Re:What I don't get (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about you, but I see some serious usability innovations in 3d space for audio work. I have a bash script that starts up Hydrogen, Qsynth, and RoseGarden and that's *just* to do midi work. I need a terminal for ecasound if I'm using my guitar or doing vocals, and then I need Audacity for postproduction. I've run out of space on my screen.
There's a reason many audio guys have 2-3 monitors when they're working, but I can see a good 3d desktop making the monitor I have stretch so that I won't *have* to install two more monitors.
Come to think of it, I can see it helping me all over the place. I'm trying to build the thing right now, I hope it works well. ;) I love KDE, but I'll drop KDE in a heartbeat for a good 3d WM.
Re:What I don't get (Score:2, Insightful)
one step closer to SPHERE (Score:3, Informative)
I would put on a background star map (like in skyglobe) and I would be able to look at whole celestial sky, and with zooming! (currently with xplanet I have on my desktop only current view of the sky).
Oh, and I downloaded their videos. [pg.gda.pl]
3D is to window manager as fish is to bicycle (Score:2)
Imagine getting 3D popups on your 3D desktop!
Imagine being able to view your spam email in transparent windows that are tilted at 45` towards the horizon!
Imagine all of the additional mouse work you'll be doing so that you can rotate your windows in 3d!
Imagine the new computer that you're going to need to buy so you can use your 3d desktop!
Bah!
Re:What I don't get (Score:3, Informative)
can someone (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:can someone (Score:5, Funny)
Re:can someone (Score:5, Interesting)
Concepts that seems useless from Looking Glass are making their way to real products with very innovative approaches.
Re:can someone (Score:5, Insightful)
This should be +5 Insightful. The 3D desktop isn't a massive shift in thinking, it's about maximizing the WIMP metaphor. Tabbed browsing isn't a exactly a new paradigm in information retrieval, but it sure as hell is a nice evolutionary improvement to web browsing. When bits of 3D desktop experiments prove useful, they find their ways into "real" products like OS X.
Re:can someone (Score:5, Informative)
If you only have 1 window open at a time, it would be useless. If you have multiple windows, shrinking or moving at an angle keeps them in view. Being able to zoom out and still keep it visible gives more desktop space.
Wonder what multiple videos would look like, if any movement the window could be enlarged. You could do all kinds of interesting new things with this type of desktop, if its not staticly rendered.
Top Ten Reasons Why This Is Cool (Score:5, Funny)
2) Writing code in a microgravity environment, you would need your windows to match your attitude relative the monitor.
3) Twisted? At least it's not doing the hokey-pokey.
4) Or *is* it?
5) If your document were Medusa, you would not want to look directly at it.
6) If you combine two sideways documents and a Clippy, you can make an airplane and fly it around your desktop.
7) 2D is teh L4M3.
8) You get more points per kill because it's harder to shoot them.
9) Extreme coding challengers are bored and want new horizons.
10) Anybody can type in a straight line.
Re:can someone (Score:5, Insightful)
Several people pointed out with the Looking Glass screenshots the other day that keeping a bunch of foreshortened (i.e. nearly perpendicular to the screen) windows open lets you actually see whats in them and visually manage multiple tasks better than you can with current overlapping 2D windows. Yes, you can do the same with a bunch of miniaturized 2D windows on the side of the screen, but it's still a good concept. The "peeling" feature demoed here with Metisse is also nice - I like the idea of bending a window aside to see what's behind it. The sphere-embedded windows uses a trick similar to the Looking Glass window foreshortening to create more available desktop space for multiple tasks by keeping a bunch of non-primary windows angled around the primary task window which faces the user directly, like a normal window, for optimal visibility.
Obviously, you generally want the primary focus of your attention to be as easily visible as possible. This is all about making multitasking more intuitive and easier to manage. I don't think anybody is going to run out and install any of this stuff on their mother's desktop at this point, but it's great that some of this stuff will at least be ready for experimentation soon. I know that the window soup that is usually my desktop would be nice to improve on, and I've never really found any of the existing funky alternative window management technologies (like the entirely keyboard driven X WMs with no overlapping - forget what this is called) to be very satisfactory for me.
Oh, and eye candy, combined with even very modest usability enhancements, sells stuff. Though those Matisse screenshots are about as ugly as sin thanks to the terrible window borders, color schemes and applications they chose to mix. The Looking Glass screenshots, on the other hand, were quite hot and sexy looking.
I have to admit (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I have to admit (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I have to admit (Score:2, Insightful)
While 3D desktops "look cool" I still don't see how that makes them practical. I've found the ability to use multiple desktops much more useful. I make key shortcuts for all my desktops (CTRL+ALT+"desktop number" where "desktop number" is between 1 and 6) and I setup the useless windows key to press CTRL+ALT simultaneously so that I can switch between desktops with "windows key"+"desktop number". I find that to be much easier and more practical than organizing wind
Realtime? (Score:2)
Does this mean its not-updated in realtime, just static pictures?
The whole thing about 3d desktops, the windows need to be still functioning, so you the monitor windows are still functioning. Most seem to only use pictures, just snapshots, a very cheap and completly useless.
Re:Realtime? (Score:4, Informative)
Before starting any software project... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Before starting any software project... (Score:4, Insightful)
Give the guy a break, at least people are trying to do something new. He took his own time to write the software, and give it away and all people here can do is bitch about it. If you don't like it, don't use it.
Re:Before starting any software project... (Score:5, Informative)
Especially the time-travel kernel module in FreeBSD. That was really cool, allowing the operating system to travel back in time to before it was even created so that it could do all those things before Linus started Linux
FreeBSD didn't exist when Linus started Linux. In fact its precursor, 386BSD (not to be confused with BSD/386) started as a separate project at around the same time as (and I believe a couple of months later than) Linux.
Re:Before starting any software project... (Score:3, Funny)
This module is the reason why I have yet to install FreeBSD on any of my machines, since I can install FreeBSD anytime before I die and go back in time to make sure I never wasted any time installing Linux.
Re:Before starting any software project... (Score:5, Informative)
M: What is your opinion of 386BSD?
L: Actually, I have never even checked 386BSD out; when I started on Linux it wasn't available (although Bill Jolitz' series on it in Dr. Dobbs' Journal had started and were interesting), and when 386BSD finally came out, Linux was already in a state where it was so usable that I never really thought about switching. If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened.
Re:Before starting any software project... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Before starting any software project... (Score:4, Insightful)
The major problem with 3D desktops is that they're like trying to cram Beethoven's Fifth into a music box. I tried out the Sun 3D desktop once and got such a headache within five minutes that I was begging to go back to a command line.
Is anyone reminded of the whole way VRML on the web turned out to be such a massive dud? Why replicate the whole experience of browsing the aisles for a particular book when you can just type the name and find it a hundred times faster?
Re:Before starting any software project... (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'm bored"
Re:Before starting any software project... (Score:5, Funny)
>What problem does this solve?
Your desktop is insufficiently cool.Re:Before starting any software project... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about asking yourself the same question when it comes to the plethora of ways to prepare food?
The only problem that eating solves is nourishment, but yet people eat a variety of foods. Some foods taste better than others. Some people taste foods differently than other people, yet we only really need it for nourishment.
Any project started by a programmer or group of programmers is to fill some need, which may only be personal. Like food, we like variety and sometimes want something different or better or the combo of the two. If the creator (chef or programmer) like what they have done, they might want to share with the rest of the world.
The problem any software project sovles is self interest. It doesn't need to be anything more than that.
To belittle people for sharing is absurd.
Re:Before starting any software project... (Score:3, Funny)
Invader Zim: Why would you convert your entire planet into a spaceship?
Projected head: Because it was COOL!
3D! (Score:2, Interesting)
Would mouse pointer movement include depth perception with this setup?
Re:3D! (Score:2)
PS: You cant use interpolation to generate 3D from the 2D as there is no movement to base it off of.
Re:3D! (Score:2)
It would be interesting instead to have windows that were almost flat, but have some relief (like a bas-relief), and were shaded correctly. (which would require a lighting system of some sort)
Hmm, maybe time to bust out POV-Ray...
still a 2D Desktop for me.. (Score:3, Funny)
Its not a evolution..
I'll stick with the command line..
Re:still a 2D Desktop for me.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:still a 2D Desktop for me.. (Score:2)
Re:still a 2D Desktop for me.. (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, but have you seen the *gasp* 3d command line? ;-)
Re:still a 2D Desktop for me.. (Score:2)
Well, here are some starting points in that direction:
3D alphabet [designboom.com]
XMLTerm [sourceforge.net] is both a command line "terminal", like an Xterm, and also a web page. XMLterm adds powerful hypertext and graphical capabilities to the Xterm-like terminal interface through its use of XML.
Textmode Quake [mr.net] (ttyquake) uses plain text characters for its 3D rendering.
Screenshots mirror (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Screenshots mirror (Score:2)
You know... (Score:3, Funny)
Right now these folks would prefer a spare webserver and some bandwidth. :-)
Because it's technically cool? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think there are other assumptions that need to be challenged prior to this sort of thing being built. Namely, that "applications" are the best way to segment functionality within an OS. This sort of system really seems to address the problem of moving between windows to access and work with different information from different applications. I think the problem of having to move between applications ought to be addressed first.
Finally, is anybody aware of any studies of this type of interface that prove me dead wrong? That prove that people are fantastically more efficient using a mechanism like this?
Because it's new. (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you checked out the video demo of using Looking Glass [sun.com]? It looks pretty slick, and while it's hard to say whether in its present form it would make a better desktop, it certainly shows that a 3D desktop could potentially be in many ways better than the modern 2D desktops.
The current projects like L
Just the whistles? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm all for whistles, don't get me wrong [severinghaus.org], but without the bells, I'm just not convinced.
Input Device (Score:5, Insightful)
We need a 3d input device, perhaps like the ones used in Minority report? That's how I see 3d displays becoming useful.
Re:Input Device (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Input Device (Score:2)
Kidding.
Re:Input Device (Score:2)
Ideally you would have gloves (or just some sort of hand tracking) and goggles with reality overlay, so you can put on your computer (or its interface, anyway) and walk around manipulating objects. You can keep traditional 2D windows at your desk and have
Re:Input Device (Score:3, Funny)
Will this [retrogoodness.com] do?
Re:Input Device (Score:2)
Re:Input Device (Score:2)
this is slown enough (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean I think what they're doing is cool in terms of "hey let's try this" but I don't see this as where window managers are headed. People still want fast and colorful icons and a nice file browser that's well integrated with apps. If you're unsure what I meant, compare the "save as" dialogs in mozilla and kedit.
Sorry for the rant, I was just a little annoyed I had to reboot after having an uptime of only 8 days.
Re:this is slown enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Excellent idea. When can you start?
Re:this is slown enough (Score:5, Insightful)
I love it how ignorant people think that the same group of people are working on everything gui related, from browsers to video drivers.
Geezus man, this guy probably has NOTHING to do with KDE or the XFree86 project. If he wants to sit and watch pr0n all day or write a 3D window manager, it's his damn business.
It always amazes me how people can have such a gimmee mentality.
Re:this is slown enough (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know if you're on a 2.6 kernel but if you are I suggest messing around with 1) prelink 2)
KDE on my box is a real dream, really faster than Windows XP.
My thesis work (Score:3, Interesting)
Famous Last Words (Score:5, Funny)
"Screenshots here."
A few reasons this is actually kinda neat (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Skewed windows - Yeap, I can't read em' either. What is the point? It _may_ be easier to browse multiple windows and forefront the one you want using skewed/rotated effects (instead of an alt-tab ring or taskbar).
3. Window peeling - this is kinda nifty. Instead of minimizing, resizing or moving your current window to see what is underneath you 'peel back' part of the parent.
Earthshattering breakthrough in UI? Nope. A reliable and consistant cut-n-paste would be of more immediate value. But as an experiment into improving the GUI it is fun stuff.
Re:A few reasons this is actually kinda neat (Score:2)
That's what I always liked window managers that supported the "shade" feature.
3d desktops and performance. (Score:4, Interesting)
Why does rendering into pixmaps possibly increase performance?
If you're rendering into a pixmap, having something occlude it onscreen (i.e. in the framebuffer) will -not- be a destructive operation, and you won't have to repaint..
In otherwords, sliding windows across the screen, animating some huge mouse cursor (larger than HW mouse accel would allow, for some strange and uncouth reason), or otherwise putting stuff up in front of windows would not cause them to redraw because their pixels would not be damaged by the operation.
This is good.
There is a negative-- You use more memory on your graphics card/AGP memory, but even this can be alleviated by switching what windows/buffers you render into offscreen pixmaps.
One could, for instance, render all but one window into the framebuffer, save the colorbuffer and depth buffer, then render things in the 'active' window into an offscreen pixmap, and render that into the scene. This would require less memory than a full-off every-window-gets-its-own-pixmap approach, and would still likely perform better than our window managers today (only one repaint of windows is needed when you switch contexts, as opposed to one every frame with the current method)
Re:3d desktops and performance. (Score:3, Interesting)
For a good example of this effect in action, grab any sufficiently large browser window while running Windows XP, and drag it around on the screen very quickly in a circular motion. You need to have the "sho
FOSS really needs a sense of aesthetics! (Score:5, Insightful)
This window system is cool. It's cool in the same way that Aero Glass will be cool and how the Java3D desktop is cool. But what really turns me off about those screen shots is that horrible window manager. It's like whoever designed it has absolutely no sense of aesthetics.
Here's the thing... if you want a minimalist system, then fvwm2 is great. It's not a really attractive look, but it's small and fast. But if you're going to require a lot of horsepower so that you can rotate windows in 3-space and all the other cool stuff, then it's not asking much to want a window manager with some textures and lighting and curves and some other stuff that looks halfway attractive.
</rant>
seriously... (Score:2)
Anyone else look at those screenshots and say... (Score:5, Funny)
Warning: headache-inducing (Score:2)
Seriously, they should learn more about human nature or cognitive science when designing UI.
Partly nice, begging for the Compose extension (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, some parts of this are nice. I have reservations about the actual 3D parts, but window scaling would come in handy.
Having another X server to mediate this stuff isn't very clean though; I understand that they went that way for early development, since there isn't really anything finished that would be better, and they apparently wanted to get to the effects stuff. On the long run, however, it seems that this stuff should be done by a Compositing Manager. Of course, this also requires that the X Composite Extension [freedesktop.org] be implemented in mainstream X servers (read: X.org [x.org]).
You pirates will never stop (Score:3, Funny)
Worthless, just like color displays (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Worthless, just like color displays (Score:2)
Re:Worthless, just like color displays (Score:5, Insightful)
Going 3D in most cases for text actually reduces readability, as most 2D fonts are carefully crafted to look good on the discrete pixels that make up a raster image. Anti-aliasing helps, but is not a panacea. I find that I do my own zooming operation manually with my head (moving it closer and farther away) as I look around my monitor at work. The idea of automatically shrinking non-focus windows 70% is kind of interesting (if the fonts still looked good at 70%), but doesn't require 3D.
I have a large projection screen monitor at home (8 foot wide) and can drive it a Quad-XGA (2048x1536), I find it great for 3D games and Movies, but not so good for most other applications. I was puzzled by this, but I think it is because you can't change your perspective quickly by leaning in and out or moving your head.
I suspect that 3D will one day be the norm, but only once we have monitors blasting out more pixels than we can easily differentiate across a field of view of more than 90 degrees. I'm not going to do the math, but I suspect that would be something like 6000x30000 or 18 mega pixels. Once we cross that boundary, then 3D starts to make a lot of sense, as the scaling and rotation do not unduly degrade text information even on small fonts, and starts to add information and ease organization. This assumes that moving the apps and text around is intuitive and easier, similar in ease to the way I move my head around when staring at my monitor at work today.
Because as the good OSS user knows... (Score:4, Funny)
Thus rather than continually improving upon potential "killer apps" (not that I'm saying Looking Glass is such an app), we can all slowly develop slightly different versions of the same thing, all the while ensuring that cross-compatability doesn't exist.
Oh! And don't forget the reunion party in 2 years when we all get drunk and lament the fact that products from the likes of Microsoft stole the fire that should have been ours. Even though our solution was technically superior to Microsofts.
Ok... Maybe I do sound a bit jaded, but it sure does seem that as soon as a killer new technology or application comes on the market, we suddenly have a ton of applications being produced trying to replicate the performance of that technology, rather than either building upon the strengths of it, or developing a totally different, non-copycat alternative. Wassup with that?
whoo, 3D is neat and all but... (Score:3, Insightful)
first let me get a program that operates in complete 3D (like a 3D website that needs a browser that can display in 3D) then once windows appear as 3D boxes instead of planes, i'll use a 3D window manager.
compatibility with other wms? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like to have some of these features, however I can't say I'm ready to just start using another wm cuz of some novelty.
Why not take some of the existing technology from this wm and incorporate it into other wms?
Just a thaught....
too much perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
X, Aqua, Windows: they're all sufficiently 3D, with stacked windows. If anything, they could use less dimensionality, and simplify the inherent complexity: window groups, accessible process data/logic/presentation tiering with pluggable dataflow, pattern copy/paste, OS-level replication and triggers, omnimedia messaging by reference, flowchart programming.
Making a 3D "desktop" is worse than just bogging down in a 20th Century soulkilling paradigm. It's distracting us from using the 3D parallel processors to separate presentation from logic and data, to obtain all those other features which reflect the way modern people intercommunicate at work, play and everything in between. Hopefully the open source of these new arrivals will allow the best functions to be salvaged and dragged into a new paradigm created by a visionary person or group. Then these machines might start becoming less of their own problems to solve, and begin to disappear in the magic of a real solution.
Has everybody really forgotten about VR? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think we all agree that VR interaction as presented in the early 90s was a complete crock. It is not more efficient to have to "walk" into a "room" to find stuff on your computer. And the necessary hardware at that stage was rudimentary, slow and bulky.
Forget all that other crap. Put on your VR goggles and run a system like Metisse. Run all your existing applications in windows as normal, only now you can put them anywhere in 3D space around your workstation. Have dozens of windows open at once, all easily accessible, without desktop switching.
Long webpages could be opened to full height, sticking up through the ceiling and down through the floor. Instead of scrolling, move the whole window so the area of interest is closest. Pick out interesting sections (images or whatever) in the distance before you've "scrolled" there.
I can think of endless ways a 3D window manager could be used in conjunction with VR technology, even without any specialised applications. If I could seriously set one up now, I would. I'd probably still use my CRT as a second display device (after all, I might need to show something to other people).
Realistically speaking, this isn't practical without true see-through displays. (I want to be able to see the rest of my environment behind the windows -- such as the keyboard -- and the current displays of this type, to my knowledge, use camera passthroughs which are probably a bit laggy and nauseating to use.) But I want one, as soon as the tech catches up -- assuming it hasn't already...
I just tried it (Score:3, Informative)
This actually looks nifty (Score:3, Interesting)
Metisse seems to take a slightly different approach. The features outlined in the screenshots actually look like they make an effort to help users manage windows. I do agree somewhat with Steve Jobs' position that users shouldn't have to be janitors; a system that makes some useful decisions for the user seems worthwhile.
It looks like Metisee preserves window locations when using the 'shaped' screen and scales contents down, allowing users to utilize spatial relationships and visual cues to find data.
I also like the idea of folding over window corners to see the lower windows. Seems more useful then Alt-Tabbing. This feature is implemented from a research paper. I've seen several posts here that lament open source's propensity to copy rather than innovate. Here is a concrete counter-example of an open source project trying something new and leveraging academic research. Even if the project is a complete failure, it should be applauded for taking a risk and implementing something different.
As an aside, I remember some comments on the original Looking Glass article that critized flipping widgets over to change settings and view properties. The new Tiger Dashboard in Mac OS X is now doing the same thing. The reviews seem positive on that score. I can't really decide what I make of that. Property sheets sometimes obscure their apps, so I guess flipping is a wash, but I think I would prefer to see the application and its properties.
Better than Expose and the Task Bar (Score:3, Interesting)
The second screen shot [insitu.lri.fr] about the "Auto Scale mode" looks like a feature that works better than Expose on OS X. The thing I don't like about Expose is having to work with function keys or desktop hot corners in order to activate it. The Auto Scale mode looks like a version of Expose that runs while you are working, without having to resort to function keys or hot spots.
It looks like a feature in which the shrunken windows are visible around the normal size active window, without any overlapping. I presume switching between windows requires you to simply click on a shrunken window, which would resize it to normal and shrink the previously acitve one, kind of similar to Expose.
This also eliminates the need for a Task Bar, and would also have the advantage of actively showing the windows contents, rather than just representing a window with a Task Bar button. OS X can display a minimised window's contents in the dock, but this Auto Scale mode can display minimised window contents in a larger fashion, depending upon the space available on the screen.
I also presumed that Expose was OS X's answer to the Task Bar, because their dock didn't allow you to switch windows as efficiently as the Task Bar. This Auto Scale feature looks like something that is a combination of Expose and the Task Bar, but works better than both. I think this is a really innovative concept for window managers.
Object lesson (Score:4, Interesting)
The screenshots for Metisse suck and you can only use FVWM - what gives? It is a great demonstration of how productive Java is though.
Looking Glass: Looks awesomeMetisse: Looks like crap
Looking Glass: one guy in his spare time
Metisse: "a lot, see the source" (really one dude hacking other sources though)
Looking Glass: from scratch because of Java APIs
Metisse: hacked X server, hacked FVWM, hacked vnc.
Looking Glass: very secure
Metisse: insecure (it's in C and it's hacked up code)
Looking Glass: easy to write plug-ins, dynamically load
Metisse: hack fvwm in C, recompile
There was an article a while back saying that the language doesn't matter for security because it is bad programming that is responsible. Even without looking at the source I can guarentee there's no buffer overflows, double-free's, format string exploits, etc in Looking Glass. And I would bet my life savings there's at least several in Metisse.
There was an article recently about Java performance where most posters insisted it's still slow and jerky, but the movie of Looking Glass [sun.com] sure looks good to me. It's sad that people still use C/C++ to create lame hacks like this Metisse when there are such better alternatives. Can you imagine if the whole OS was written in a modern language? [slashdot.org]
Not a troll:Linux GUI problems still not addressed (Score:4, Interesting)
OpenGL or not, the Linux GUI still looks like a hack...and the screenshots showing Emacs don't help.
The vastly different look and feel, from one app to the other, is one of the main problems, but it is never gonna go away...
Re:This is OSS' greatest strenth (Score:2)
Kleedrac
I'll take that Distro (Score:2)
Sorry, just kidding. SuSE for people jsut starting out (who don't mind paying money). Gentoo if you want to feel hardcore but really aren't (yay, me).