[haiku] Re: I haven't used Haiku, but from what i have seen, this is my atempt to make Haiku R2 compitable to other OSs when released

  • From: Dane Scott <dane@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 08:05:21 -0600

There are lots of possibilities, some would be great, some would be a step in the wrong direction, but by all means let's stay open to something new and nice for Haiku's deskbar. As loyal as I am to BeOS and its legacy, to me, the old BeOS-style deskbar looks just as old, flat, and 90s as it is.
Personally, I'd like to see us thinking innovatively about the future of the deskbar. Certainly, at minimum, I'd like to see the option for it to auto-hide until needed, and appear when you pass your mouse over the side or top or bottom (or corner) of the screen where you wish it to appear. Again, it's a personal thing, but I actually do like translucency and some dimensional appearance. And I am a fan of the dock approach if it's done well. I think the latest Mac doc is really nice to use. But let's also "think outside the docks!" Maybe there's no deskbar at all until you gesture with the mouse, and then it appears right at your mouse location so there's no "traveling" to the location of the deskbar. Imagine doing a clockwise swirl of your mouse, and a swirl-shaped dock appears right at that location, with your mouse pointer in the middle and icons all round it! A little magic is not only fun in an operating system, but it can be a draw. And actually, that approach might be pretty practical as well. 

Just some off-the-cuff ideas.

Dane

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