Re: Can we make Linux Desktop Enviroment beyond the Desktop Metaphor?

On Jan 10, 8:55 am, Benjamin <bicespr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Can we make Linux Desktop Enviroment beyond the Desktop Metaphor?
Should Linux Desktop Enviroment (e.g.KDE,Gnome,CDE)look like Microsoft
Windows or Mac OSX ?

I imagine Linux Desktop Enviroment to have some features different
from current OS desktop, I think Linux can do better in Desktop OS
field.

mockup :http://groups.google.com/group/ixdea/web/Image%20Desktop.png

Main Features:

1, Everything on the desktop is applet, also is document and device,
but is not application;
[snip]
4, Never need to open or close a window, the applets run on desktop
starts, documents always opened on the desktop;
[snip]
7, Use "object" metaphor replace "file/icon"metaphor;
8, While you're writting in a text-editor(applet), the data saved
automatically; user wouldn't asked to save it with a filename, but
they can tag it with any words;
[snip]
10, The applets or documents show its thumbnail while it minimized.


Do you have any suggestion?

Before my suggestion, let me make an at-first-glance off-topic
observation: While a clay brick is most commonly used to build
decorative walls with, it can also be used as a doorstop, a
paperweight, a weapon, and an anchor. The brick does not change (it is
a single unique entity) but the activities that can be performed on or
with it are various and unnumberable.

An "object" (in your world) is similar to that brick; the object
cannnot be limited to a single inherent action; it must be free to be
used in many ways. Unfortunately, your scheme implies that an object
containing text may only be edited (and never compiled, printed,
debugged, or used as data for a randomizer), an object representing a
USB memory stick can only be traversed as a filesystem (never used as
raw data, reformatted or otherwise manipulated), and so one.

Frankly, the desktop metaphor (where manipulations to objects are
limited to only one view of the object, like editing a textual
document) is a poor one, and is ill-suited to proper manipulation of
data.


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