Thomas shares makes

2008-03-26

Point and Click, intuitive software

This page explains my stand on Computer GUI's. Love it or hate it, after you've read it.

Note

Images comming soon, in the meantime you can take a look at My Linux screenshots

Linux!

I run Linux on my Apple laptops.

(why? They're so expensive for god's sake!)

I really love the GNU operating system. Is very powerful, convenient and there is much free software. To me that means complete control over my computer.

This of course includes the freedom to run free virtual machines like Sun's VirtualBox, which enable one to run a virtualized instance of a well known operating system should the need arise on a dark day.

I don't use Mac OS. There are a few strong points I admire Mac OS for:

  • it has some BSD software on board (out of the box), it comes installed with Vim, python and lots of other great UNIX software.
  • the applications look slick and are designed with usability in mind.
  • power savings are extreme, battery autonomy is great.
  • it is plain cool, dudes gasp, chicks drop at your feet (and instantaneously want to have your babies) when you pop the Mac.

I've fallen in love with GNOME however and GTK+ app's do not blend in with the OS X GUI. It's a personal preference...

Gnome desktop environment

I use GTK+ applications exclusively. This is in fact a far- stretching decision, picking a single GUI toolkit and sticking to it ensures a consistent look and feel of all applications.

However, it comes at the cost of turning down powerful applications that use other widget toolkits. I'm referring to the KDE desktop environment of course.

Why GNOME instead of KDE you might ask. Red Hat 8 shipped with GNOME way back, it might have played a mysterious role in shaping my love for GNU/Linux software.

I admire and present this virtual flower to the KDE developers, they have done a great job and created powerful software. KDE is an important element to make the Free desktop more attractive to the mainstream public. I just ... liked the other camp better. I don't really keep an eye on the latest KDE developments and ideas, but I hear they're really swell.

Cloning the OSX GUI!

ZOMG, you're making your Linux desktop to impersonate it!

Yes, I use a dock already!

The Windows-like task bar is so obsolete, it is much more intuitive to have a big fat dock at the side of your screen with an appropriate icon for each program on it, just like Mac OS X.

Having simple launchers however is pointless, if my email task (for instance) is already running, a second click on the icon shouldn't launch another email client, bringing email into focus is more appropriate!

A windows-style task bar has the application's mini icon, and a very small part of the (often long) window title. Switching tasks with this GUI concept feels slower to me, I need to focus my eyes to read before I can focus my mouse.

Avant Window Navigator provides a beautiful Mac-like dock to the free desktop. It obviously has application starters and you can fit it with lots of applets. There's a trashcan applet, and it a handy volume applet that shows the device icon of all removable storage devices attached to the computer via USB/Firewire.

When the mouse hovers above such a dock icon, the window title is shown, so it is possible to make a pick between several tasks with the same icon. However:

  • PDF documents appear on the dock as a thumbnail of the first page.
  • Pidgin chatboxes appear as your chat partner's avatar.

Mac Menu Bar

I used a GTK+ patch for a while to save screen estate, this patch moved the menu bar's of all the programs to the panel, just like the Mac has.

Looking back I don't really need it[#]_, and it was a lot of hassle to set up since there were few stable releases and intervention was necessary with each GNOME update.

[1]My terminals and Firefox have the menubar turned off.

Gnome Do launcher

Gnome Do is a tool like Quicksilver (Mac) and Katapult (KDE). I use it all the time to quickly reach desktop preference windows, launch programs and even navigate my home folder quickly. Install it and love it!!!

My homedir

(this might be off-topic, but I put this here for the time being)

I organise my files in a clean hierarchical way.

~/
`-- audio/              ; audio files
|   `-- albums/         ; music albums
|   `-- podcasts/       ; podcasts
|   `-- playlists/      ; playlists
`-- video/
|   `-- camera/         ; home movies
|   `-- animations/     ; flash
|   `-- movies/         ; tv
|   `-- musicvideos/    ; tv
|   `-- tv/             ; tv
`-- pets/               ; various pet projects
`-- new/                ; firefox, torrent, IM in-folder
`-- documents/          ; documents
`-- ebooks/             ; pdf manuals and books
`-- pictures/           ; photographs
`-- datasheets/         ; datasheets
`-- mail/               ; email (maildirs)
`-- public/             ; stuff I publish on the net
`-- school/             ; school stuff
`-- src/                ; sourcecode sorted by language
`-- tmp/                ; desktop
`-- work                ; symlink to active project

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