Forget security, reliability, open source, all that rubbish. Sun have announced an SDK for their Looking Glass software, which basically means it's going to appear sometime soon.

Check out the screenshots

Looks rather slinky! Bet it's a memory-hog though! My poor laptop would probably exploed trying to do those sort of things!

*Strokes his beloved Geoff*

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If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.

Looks like it's easy to mess that up so badly, you can't find some of the screens. :/

looks pretty funky, might be a bit of a system hog, but guess a lot of it would be handled by the grahics card, give it a year and most pc's should be able to run that sorta stuff easy, probably what they are planning on.

interesting....have to look into maybe putting linux on my own pc...

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I heard someone say once that the world is a fine place and that it was worth fighting for....I agree with the last part.

People of our generation should not be subjected to mornings.

Rbots website

While that project certainly holds an enormous "gee-wiz!" factor, no serious LInux user would implement it. Its far too much of a system hog to be used practically.


..Besides, your average Linux user swears by ultra-lightweight window managers like TWM...

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I used to believe that we must fight the future, lest change come without our consent. I was wrong. The truth is that we must embrace the future, for only with change can we remain the same.
:wq

Whats the point in having a fancy animation to make a window spin round to show another window, when its quicker, easier and much more helpful if it just pops up like normal.

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Drugs & Stupidity, Tons of it.

Am I supposed to be impressed or something? If I wanted pretty 3d graphics, then I'd play a video game.

The only way you'd be able to use that software efficiently would be with some sort of glove type thing like in Minority Report. It'd be far too awkward to be spinning windows around with the mouse.

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«»The Scratchware Manifesto
-¬thoughts from beyond observance

I'm going to remain optimistic until I've actually used the product, and then I'll post what I think. I'm sure that there were DOS users that thought the same things about Window-type operating systems before they used them. [/Devils Advocate]

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www.MentatMM.com (status = down :/)
Napalm Death Squad (status = alpha)

I think you may be missing the point here. An ultra-lightweight window manager offers exactly the same interface paradigm to a bloated window manager. I don't think Sun are touting this as just another window manager, more like the next step after 2D GUIs.

If you think about it, *any* GUI is less efficient than a console. However, they hold the advantage of a more intuitive interaction model - you have abstract objects and perform operations on them, rather than a list of commands and arguments you can supply to them (That probably wasn't explained very well - I don't remember my HCI lectures that well)

Sun are trying to extend the object/operation model into a 3D world, that will seem more natural. How successful/useful this abstraction will be we don't know yet - but is that a reason to not implement it? And to start off with, yes it will just be 2D windows sitting in a 3D desktop, which doesn't sound that ground-breaking, but they talk of applications taking advantage of the 3D environment, "3D applications". Will they be any easier to interact with than their 2D counterparts? We'll find out. I'm sure there will be many unwieldy apps that are 3D for the sake of being so, but something may come along that gets the 3D just right. It may be something that could exist as 2D, but is just incredibly simpler to use in 3D, or it may be something that would just be unimaginable using a 2D interface.

I think some of the example applications they show are gimmicky, yes. However, I don't think the flipping over the window to something on the reverse is all gimmick. It opens the possibility of a window being equatable with a piece of paper in terms of interaction, although I don't think that having a dialog box on the back is necessarily the best use of it. That seems like a "3D for the sake of it" use of the technology.

My arguments? I guess they could be summarised as:
1) Don't poo-poo it because it will be more CPU intensive than a standard GUI. Remember that a 2D GUI is more graphically intensive than a console window, but offers a "better" interaction experience.
2) Don't take Sun's examples as the best interaction this technology will be able to offer. Watch out for apps that "get" the new interaction mindset. I would be very surprised if a mainstream developer tapped the interaction aspects to the full first. It'll be the small indie developers that will innovate and throw away the rule book, experiment and find something amazing.
3) Be wary of apps that go 3D for the sake of it. Examples: pretty much anything on that Sun page. They're just showing what it can do, not the best interaction techniques.

Problem with Java is that it sucks. Every java program I've ever run on windows or linux has been dog slow, even the smallest, most simple apps feel like they are huge bloated programs. Even opening a "file" menu feels like someones swimming in tar. Yes, I have a fast computer. Yes, it happens on every computer I've ever used, everything from a p75 up to this currently 3.2ghz p4. I can't believe anyone can put up with java applications, much less an entire window manager written in java. *shudder*

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EvilMagic.net: Brian's Web Log

Java isn't ub3r portable as many would like to say. In addition to the JVM you still have to install libraries that the Java program will need.

And yeah, Java is ridiculously slow. I'll pass on this.

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

Java is indeed slow and is not multi-platform compatible right out of the box. While it will work on any platform, you have to install libraries first, like it has already been said.


Java used to be big on the web for doing animations/special effects, but flash replaced it b/c flash can do the same things but without the bloat.

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Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited May 25, 2004).]

My thoughts exactly.

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...
Make Sorrowind Worthwhile... join it! http://sorrowind.net

The GUI looks neat, and may offer the next step to something beyond 2D. But it's not really needed, and since the average person seems to like Windows, is it really like that this will actually serve as the next step? Probably not.

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"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."

-Albert Einstein

[This message has been edited by SG1_129 (edited May 25, 2004).]