[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: "Andrew McCall" <andrew.mccall@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:21:10 +0000

2008/12/19 Dane Scott <dane@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> 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

As do I.

> 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

Thats what I was initially thinking, but the problem with gesture is
for new users you can't see where you want to go, as until the gesture
has been completed the target doesn't exist :)

One (albeit futuristic!) way of doing it could be to have a Deskbar as
a "blind" and to use a webcam. The deskbar un-rolled consists of a
semi-stransparent semi-circle pull-tab at the top of the screen. The
tab contains the time and a few very small bits of other information.
When you want to pull the deskbar down you make a pullinning motion
with your non-mouse hand, the webcam detects the movement and displays
the deskbar accordingly.  When you let go of the pull-tab the Deskbar
springs back up.  You can pull it all the way down and display lots of
information - for instance showing nearly a whole screen of assorted
applications, or just a bit to display a bit of information like
system info.  If you wanted to check something while using the
Deskbar, you could roll it up a bit, check and then roll it back down
to carry on accessing the file/application/info you wanted.

I am *really* bad at Photoshop and mockups, so I hope my description
is enough to imagine it.

Users without web-cams could do the same thing with the mouse or
keyboard combo, although it would require exta clicks with the mouse.

> 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.

Yeah me too.  I kind of feel like all the deskbar/menubar/dock ideas
have all been done,  this might be because they are using the best way
for the current tech.... I think without integrating new tech a better
way may not be found.

-- 
Thanks,

Andrew McCall
andrew.mccall@xxxxxxxxx

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