From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <8c029c990502160945781f293d@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:45:14 -0600 From: "g01495@gmail.com" To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [9fans] Evolving rio / GUI development Topicbox-Message-UUID: 0a4e1816-ead0-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 9fans, I have some questions and some points -- I am interested in the general consensus regarding interfaces to computers in general and how Plan 9 fits into this. There currently exists a large contrast in the way interfaces are presented on different operating systems. "modern" operating systems such as GNU/Linux, Windows, MacOS provide an interface largely disconnected from the underlying operating system. They also put a great deal of effort into cosmetic changes, and are beginning to use hardware acceleration of the GUI using OpenGL framebuffer cards. Ideas like three dimensional interfaces are counterproductive as the paradigm can't be applied to the current technology. rio on the other hand provides a minimal interface to the applications on the system. I believe this is the right thing to do, but I believe some things are missing. The idea of an interface itself is very complicated and difficult to develop. The general idea hasn't really changed in decades. I find rio very usable, but I also find I spend alot of my time "using rio". When I say this I mean moving windows, organizing the screen, hiding windows, resizing things. Where will rio (or it's successors) end up going? What does everybody else think about this?