Alternatives to Icons and Start Menus? 177
Cibressus Lybir asks: "We've had icons, folders and menu's for a long time. I currently use two monitors, both filled to the brim with icons and several drawers on each desktop. My Start Menu, on my Windows machine is never used, because it's flimsy and too hard to navigate around. In movies you always see cool 3D desktops with stuff flying around and some kind of cool gesture or spoken word used to start up applications. The future will only bring more applications, more icons, and more time spent navigating around launching your programs. What are your ideas for the future of desktops? How can we rid our selves of the icon jungles that we call our GUI's?"
i call it the command line (Score:5, Funny)
Re:i call it the command line (Score:5, Funny)
C:\STARTMENU
Re:i call it the command line (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with text interfaces is, besides being clumsy for simple or inherently graphically oriented tasks, that they're tedious to learn. Not everybody is willing to learn a programming or command language. People want to use their intu
I call it cleaning up your damn desktop (Score:5, Funny)
I'm wondering if there some kind of 3D replacement, perhaps a series of dining room tables stacked on top of each other. I'm thinking there must be an eaiser way to find bills and mail and dishes when I need them..."
Sheesh. Clean it up, get organized. Those icons don't put themselves on the desktop...well, ok, some of them do...but not those other ones...you put them there, just clean them up.
Or make a folder called "Rug", and sweep them all under it.
Re:I call it cleaning up your damn desktop (Score:5, Funny)
Re:i call it the command line (Score:2, Insightful)
Try PaneKiller (Score:4, Informative)
PaneKiller [maddogsw.com]
True Launch Bar (Score:5, Informative)
I think I have the solution (Score:5, Funny)
*rushes to patent office*
Re:I think I have the solution (Score:4, Interesting)
I have always hoped for something that melded the commandline and the GUI such that I could select a bunch of files and then type a command against them at a command line.
Re:I think I have the solution (Score:3, Informative)
You can also write a batch file to take the args in and pass them as needed.
IIRC, the CL-parameter deal is limited to 10 parameters/filenames. You could probably hack together a script that would take more files, dump the names to a textfile, and then run the textfile with your chosen app one line at a time...
GTRacer
80% GUI, 20% CLI, 100% ME
Re:I think I have the solution (Score:2)
It understood things like * or *.so as well as a few commands. Was fairly impressive.
Re:I think I have the solution (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I think I have the solution (Score:2)
Re:I think I have the solution (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I think I have the solution (Score:2)
Re:I think I have the solution (Score:2)
*Warning: Do not try this if you suspect your wife/husband/whatever tries to beat you unconscious with a baguette every time you attempt it.
Re:I think I have the solution (Score:2)
Re:I think I have the solution (Score:2, Informative)
Recycle Bin (Score:5, Funny)
Easy - drag everything to the Recycle Bin. Right-click on it and select 'Empty Recycle Bin'
Problem solved.
Re:Recycle Bin (Score:4, Funny)
Same for the start menu. All those things look so important, but you won't miss them. And if you do you can always pull them back out.
Lifestreams (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lifestreams (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lifestreams (Score:2)
Clean it up (Score:5, Insightful)
Make folders, taking advantage of the hierarchical filesystem. Put things you use very often on the quicklaunch . I have "Show Desktop", IE, K++ Kazaa, Firebird, and Winamp.
On my actual desktop I have the standard windows icons, links to games I'm currently playing, and development tools I'm currently using. I hardly ever even use the Start Menu.
Believe it or not, aside from all the eye candy, there isnt anything inherently better about a 3D desktop environment. A lot of people have difficulty reasoning in 3D you know.
There's a reason why we've been "stuck" with 2D since forever, it works, and if its not broken, dont fix it. Backwards compatibility is essential for usability, so more often than not "innovation" in the field of user interfaces is actually a no-no.
Re:Clean it up (Score:4, Interesting)
I think what the original poster was looking for was some innovative new organizational strategy, possibly based on a paradigm other than what computers currently offer. I doubt such a thing has been invented, or it would have been all over the news.
The major players (Microsoft, Apple, etc) seem to be tuning old features such as document searching and retooling interface issues with our current set of widgets (Mac OS 10.3 has yet another way to navigate a hierarchy).
If anyone has seen any truly innovative ideas, feel free to share... or we could just make fun of the messy guy.
Re:Clean it up (Score:2)
There is no "technological" way to clean it up. It requires basic organizational skills to keep it clean just like everything else in life. He needs to structure his work and keep things orderly. Instead he is throwing everything on the desktop, as
Re:Clean it up (Score:2)
Or you could load blackbox for windows, and use bbkeys to launch programs. Nice thing about bbkeys, is you can use windowmaker style maximize vert and horizontal apps, very nice. And bbstyles are standard, just download off freshmeat and install.
Re:Clean it up (Score:3, Insightful)
Well I don't know about the original poster, but let me think...
IE (many web applications via this)
Outlook
Word
Excel
Powerpoint
Peregrine Service Centre
Textpad
Winamp
Windows media player
RealPlayer
SQL Navigator
IrfanView
Calculator
Acrobat
Various games
ICQ
Web server applications
Hmm - that's in a typical day, and I'm sure I'm missing a few (terminal programs for a start!). There are also other programs that I use less o
Re:Clean it up (Score:2)
What are icons? (Score:2)
Eew... (Score:3, Interesting)
How on earth do you get any work done with all that clutter?
Call me a minimalist, but I like my desktop clean when it's not filled with programs that I'm currently using. I would totally hate having things zoom around in 3D. Too distracting.
But then again, I know what's on my computer, and what programs I want to run, and when. YMMV.
Re:Eew... (Score:2)
I know where everything is on my system, it is almost habbit to click certian areas. That helps a lot, but it is personal (you couldn't use my custom environment)
Some tasks just work better with lots of clutter. Programing is a lot easier when you have 3 source files, 4 header files, the debugger, and the application all open at once. It requires two monitors to manage this, but once you get it set up it is a lot easier to program this way. It looks cluttered, but there is a logical arrangement to
Re:Eew... (Score:2)
Yeah, sure, but that is when you're _working_. I got the impression that the poster's desktop was cluttered with icons even when _not_ working.
I often have three to five xterms open on the same desktop for just the reasons you state, but when no programs are used, there's nothing on the desktop. (But then again, I use fluxbox -- and Gentoo as a previous poster deducted).
Also, I
start, run.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The installs of programs tend to splatter the desktop with icons. The start menu is even worse, with most programs giving themselves a mess of icons, so when you try to run it, there is too much chance of clicking the Uninstall icon by mistake. Bypassing the GUI sometimes is a lot more efficient.
This especially becomes apparent if you are doing similar/identical tasks on different machines. This is where the GUI fails as a way just to run apps. The desktops and start menus between two machines are typically very different from each other.
There is always Windows Explorer, but it is slow to load and unintuitive: I can have a Windows app fired from within DOS by the time I am halfway through the tedious navigation process "squint and click and wait and find stuff that has moved since the last time I looked" in Windows Explorer.
Re:start, run.... (Score:2)
Direct Brain Interface (Score:2, Insightful)
Or, failing that, the system used in Minority Report would be good. I liked the hands- and gestures-based
Re:Direct Brain Interface (Score:3, Funny)
This would never catch on. Imagine this scenario:
Bored while in conference room at work, start thinking about porn.
Machine hooked up to the projector picks up the info from your wireless brain input device.
I think you can figure where it would go from here.
calling up the needed information/documents/applications through hand gestures
This might work better, and for similar reasons.
Gesture by making a fist and moving it up and down quickly, the computer o
"How can we rid our selves [sic] of ... GUIs?" (Score:2)
Winkey (Score:4, Informative)
OK so I have a small cheat sheet taped to the monitors to remind me of the infrequently used combinations but I remember most of them.
I have NO icons on my windows desktop as I think it looks horrible, they're always covered by various app windows anyway - and it seems that people with dozens of icons spend ages looking for the one they want. Most of the time I'm not using the mouse so it makes me quicker getting work done.
Re:Winkey (Score:2)
Flimsy? (Score:2)
Pick up your mouse (Score:3, Funny)
(In Scottish accent) "Hello Computer"
KDE's 'start' button (Score:3, Insightful)
KDE and some other window managers organize applications by their function. This probably won't save you time when you know exactly what program you're looking for, but it can be helpful if you are looking for say, a midi player, but you don't know what its called. It also saves the confusion of having your whole screen fill up with application names at once.
As far as new age 3D menus go, I don't think that they'll end up saving you time. It may look cool in movies, but thats because its not exciting to watch a movie hacker sit in front of some xterms for an hour hacking, while it is exiting to watch them blast through firewalls using cyber missles. I think that the best advance will be better voice recognition. Even now, it probably wouldn't be too hard to patch together a system that could respond to "Computer, Open Office" (You decide whether thats Open office, or OpenOffice.)
Re:KDE's 'start' button (Score:2)
So, create program groups based upon function and drag the existing program graup icons into the funcional ones. Problem solved. You could even probably write a quick VisC++ program that would recognize the names of the 200 or so most common apps and arrange the start menu that way for you.
By the way, "Computer, open Office" probably does work in OS X.
Re:KDE's 'start' button (Score:2)
Re:KDE's 'start' button (Score:2)
Re:KDE's 'start' button (Score:2)
Well, given that Windows won't do it for you, there's nothing keeping you from reorganizing your Start Menu as a series of cascading menus by creati
Re:KDE's 'start' button (Score:2)
Unfortunately Winaodws (and it's applications) do have several "helpful functions that get in the way here.
Firstly, it doesn't track any moves of program groups. So if you reorganise your menus then subsequently de/re-install the application it makes a mess of your menus
An objection to "the future" (Score:2, Interesting)
(Playing along that the statement isn't a wild exaggeration): What a horrible future that would be! As it stands, I think that many people only manually run a small subset of programs installed on their computer, and possess extraordinarily poor organizational skills.
(1) small subset of programs
I doubt that the vast majority of the public uses Adobe's Acrobat Reader with such freq
Re:An objection to "the future" (Score:2)
I do the same thing. Understanding doesn't enter into it. I'm just damn lazy.
Keyboard Commands (Score:4, Informative)
I completely agree with you: start menus are a pain in the ass. Every program takes a dump in there during installation, and it's pretty hard to come up with a good organizational system.
I use a simple program called kbstart [kbstart.com] on my Win2000 box. It's awesome. Although most aspects of UNIX aren't designed for usability, tool abbreviations are. It's much easier to type ALT-ENTER to bring up my kbstart prompt and type "PS". The alternative would be to do Start: Programs: Adobe Photoshop 6.
So I guess I'm saying, as far as launching goes, the future of GUI's is... no GUI :)
--Re:Keyboard Commands (Score:2)
Let's get fancy... (Score:3, Interesting)
You can drag whatever shortcuts you want in there... make batch scripts in there too. Then you can call them from anywhere with the Windows Key + R combo, or you can open it inside quicklaunch and run stuff that way (even use drag+drop)
Some ideas... (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is the computer monitor. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The problem is the computer monitor. (Score:2)
Re:The problem is the computer monitor. (Score:2)
Re:The problem is the computer monitor. (Score:2)
Well, yes, but I can shift my vision.
As I type this sentence I'm looking only at a particular part of my monitor (this line...).
As I type this sentence I've shifted my head and I'm now typing while looking only at my keyboard.
As I type this sentence I've moved my head again, and I'm now looking out the window (its dark outside)
All the head shifting above took less than a second. I not only can, but I often do shift my focus. Sure I can touch type the common letters, but when I need the ~ symbol I
Alt-F2 (or Flag-R) (Score:2)
Multiple desktops and tabbed browsing are nifty too. They let you seperate your apps and web pages into tasks so you don't get cluttered. One browser window for Slashdot, on
3D Top (Score:2, Informative)
Check out Litestep (Score:2, Informative)
Drawers? (Score:4, Funny)
Take the time to stay organised (Score:2)
You seem to be making 2 seprate points.
1. when is the desktop of the future going to turn up?
2. Why is the 2d interface so bad that my desktop is cluttered?
I'm in the process of tidying up my bookmarks. Some are crap I've can't remember why I bookmarked. Some are things which got my attention at the time but I saved until I had time to read it properly, others are sit
Keep It Flat (Score:2)
The problem with menu systems is that they are static trees organized by catagorical metadata. For instance "Utilities", "Applications", "Games". This guarantees that because the trees are organized by nonstandard catagorical metadata you must hunt under catagories, which are different from system to system and user to user, for a program. Even worse is that entries don't always reflect what is and is not on the disk. As the number of applications increase in time the overhead required for searching grow
Samurize? (Score:4, Informative)
I've had some fun reconfiguring my Windows desktop using using Samurize [samurize.com]. It won't give you a 3D interface or a voice commands or any of that, but it does allow you to provide links to your important applications in a different way. For the true geek, it also allows the embedding of various graphs and system monitors.
Numerous screenshots are available on the site, but they may not all be work-appropriate, so browse wisely (the main page is perfectly safe).
Some useful utilities for managing icons (Score:2)
If you have a lot of icons then you could take the approach of classifying them in some hierarchy, and it would be nice if the path string provides more information about what is down 3 or 4 levels.
The icons are essentially of 3 kinds - files, folders, and shortcuts(url's or local paths).
So, here is the basic concept.
Talisman (Score:3, Interesting)
www.lighttek.com/talisman.htm
I've been watching its progress for years now and am pretty impressed, although it does take some time to get set up for your own personal tastes. Not for those who want to install and instantly use....
GNU WindowMaker may keep your desktop tidy. (Score:2)
Use real world spacial ques (Score:5, Interesting)
We're used to the word icon meaning that little bitmap on a desktop or menu. But in the larger sense, something iconic is a visual symbol, a graphic representation of a larger idea. In my field, architecture, when something is iconic we mean that it someone has used a shortcut to communicate some greater idea. A city hall may choose to represent being a seat of power by suggesting the form of a chair. Or a window may tell us it is floating within a wall by it's odd or angular placement within a building elevation.
The desktop environment icon serves as the visual handle for some object like a document, an application or an action. To say that we can find some new paradigm other than an icon doesn't solve the basic problem that humans need handles on things to understand and use them. Granted, there may be another clever re-interpretation of the desktop metaphor, but we'll still need the same handles. And because visual perception is the first means humans have to approach something, I doubt anything non-visual will serve the purpose as well. Let's just say that if we want to replace icons on the GUI, the replacement concept would need to be provable on road signs, transportation graphics, automobile controls... you get the idea.
(Let me just add at this point, that the inevitable humorous comments in the thread regarding the command line actually outline one way people do communication in the real world: voice. Typing at the command line is equivalent to verbal communication. But we can see the failing of this in a real world situation: road signs use shapes and color to communicate more than written text. Sure we need road names and specific situational info to be spelled out, but if every stop sign and light was only verbal, there would be a lot more accidents.)
Personally, I think real improvements could be made on the desktop metaphor. We walk around in 3D environments every day and get feedback by moving through spacial environments. While I'll be the first to condemn first-person game-like 3D navigation, I think there's quite a large area of exploration that is untouched.
For example, we navigate through a book by proceeding from page to page. These pages are numbered, too. And we have a table of contents. But did you know that a large percentage of people actually read magazines backwards? They defy the entire designed navigation structure for a spacial comfort. (It's arguably easier for a right-hander to flip a magazine from back to front.) You also have a sense of where you are in a book by the visual ques offered by the number of pages on either side of your present position. And you get a sense of the book's content and quality by it's heft, it's font, line spacing, margin widths and general graphic tone.
So why can't a computing environment use more and more types of visual ques?
I think the huge barrier to a new approach is the amount of coordination and effort required. Face it, most projects in my desktop environment are doing well just to have a picture, let alone one that also follows rules of purpose, frequency of use, tone, or anything else social that helps us to navigate the real world. We are appalled when menus re-organize themselves by use, but perhaps an environment that adjusts itself to my "position" more capably could rely on some of the same types of spatial input I get from the real world.
Excellent Points (Score:2)
Re:Excellent Points (Score:2)
That's interesting, you've learned a spatial (perhaps more efficient) organization from a logical one. Architects fight about this all the time: Do we build the logic into our environment and learn from it or do we learn to see new logic in an existing environment and re-shape to fit?
Are your bookmarks alphabetized? I work with people who let Windows (beyond 95) stash program icons as they're installed. It drives me crazy because they're not alphabetized and every user's system is different. But to each u
Re:Excellent Points (Score:2)
I also cluster my
Right-hander page-flip backwards? (Score:2)
Sorry to pick up on a minor, parenthesised part of your posting, but I agreed with the rest.
What do you mean it's easier for right-handers to flip a magazine from back to front? I'm mostly left-handed, and will pick up and hold a magazine by the flippy (right-hand edge, as it appears sat on the newsstand) edge in my left hand. I'm presuming right handed people will hold a magazine by the flippy edge in their right. (Seems lo
Re:Right-hander page-flip backwards? (Score:2)
I'm right handed, but I flip pages the same way you do. ;) I have no idea why, but I've noticed that many, many people do this. In fact, magazine ad sales (and costs) are very high for the inside of the back cover. I don't know if it's some societal conditioning that we've learned (since there's no good content in the first twenty pages anyway) or if it's something more basic.
But I guess this is still part of the first post. There are a lot of funny human behaviors we can't (easily) explain but which are
Re:Right-hander page-flip backwards? (Score:2)
That's a cultural thing, not a handedness thing. Europeans don't change hands.
YzDock (Score:2)
I can also use the Windows key to bring up my start menu, if I need to. My entire desktop is just the dock at the bottom of th
ObjectBar (Score:3, Informative)
What I did for myself was take an existing theme (Developer [wincustomize.com] link and orignal shot [wincustomize.com]), and rework it to what I liked. Its quite nice IMO Combined with sysmetrix (system data program), it gives me pretty much everything I need. I've got a thin bar at the bottom with Sysmetrix stacked ontop (and skinned to match seamlessly). On that bar, I've got 4 menus: System (Run, Find, Regedit, Console, Logoff, Reboot, Shutdown, etc), Settings (Win Update, Add/Remove progs, Display and System properties, Control panel shortcut, etc), Drives (HDs, CDs, floppies, MyDocs, etc, all with popup lists of their content), and LAN (network settings and access to other comps on the network). I've also got two shortcuts I use a lot (My Computer and Firebird), and the local time.
Of course, above this I have sysmetrix which i've tricked out to the nuts. It gives me CPU usage, CPU speed, RAM load, swap/virt mem loads, temperatures (CPU, CPU diode, case, outside), HD space, Network load (plus transfer rate and total data transfered), one click mail (checks for me every 10 min) and trash access, Win Uptime, and longformat date with three different timezones (GMT/EST/PST - i'm MST, which is on the bar below) and more!
Then i've got my popup sidebar, which shows pretty much everything else. Its got the systray and current applications (since its vertical, I can stack tons more programs into it. Plus, the width of the bar scales with program names, to a point). Then i've got a section with personalized shortcut menus, that I absolutely love. Its got primary menus (Games, Media, Utility, etc) that slide out into sub categories (Unreal Tournament, Media, Utilities, etc) that have drop down lists of commonly used programs. It gives me access to pretty much any program on my HD, but its sorted by program type rather than name, which is something I hate about the start menu. Speaking of which, the start menu popup sits above my own menus, just incase I ever need it (which isn't often). The best thing about the menu though, is that I can change anything I want. Sometimes, if i'm working on a project, i'll give it its own shortcut or side menu. I can drop in links to relevant programs, have popups to certain folders on my HD, etc. Very handy, and it only takes a few minutes to set up (templates are your friend!)
The thing I find lacking about traditional "Start" menus or other pre-defined ways of accessing a system is that they're made by someone else. The best system will always be one made by you, because you know what information you need at your fingertips. So all you really need to do is find a customizable way of organizing things (for your OS), and then go crazy. Yeah, it can take a while to get everything working just right, but the end result is so worth it. Not having to deal with the hassles and frustrations of finding a program or piece of info is priceless IMO, so I look at any time customizing my desktop as an investment.
That said, alternative interfaces would be pretty damned cool. I know it was mentioned in a previous post, but the way Minority Report worked (hand gestures) was very, very cool. I think adding more physical interfaces to our computers will be the next big step. Hell, i'm already addicted to mouse gestures [texturizer.net] in Fir
Re:Forgot the Sysmetrix link (Score:2)
Litestep (Score:2)
Install litestep and download or code your own desktop the way you want it to be.
http://www.litestep.net [litestep.net]
One option (Score:2)
Another option would be having something to allow the user to assign hotkeys or mouse gestures to any file/shortcut on their computer.
And if IBM later tries to patent these ideas without permission, I'll sue them in a most public fashion.
Re:One option (Score:2)
Another option would be having something to allow the user to assign hotkeys or mouse gestures to any file/shortcut on their computer.
I think there may be a fair bit of prior art on that one (well, hotkeys anyway)! Most desktops let you do it - WindowMaker and KDE to name two.
if you're on a Mac, check out MaxMenus (Score:2)
1-line command line (Score:3, Informative)
It rolls up to a small button in the corner of your screen, and when you click it, you can type out whatever command you want- it has basic macro ability, etc. I'd love this sort of thing in Linux, it would be great to have it combined with full scripting support, bash-completion, etc. Still, in windows it is good enough. I enjoy typing a letter or two, getting what I want, and having MCL roll back up to a tiny dot I dont need to care about.
I dont tend to use it anymore, though. Mostly I just have everything I use frequently start automatically at boot
Clean up and use hotkeys (Score:3, Interesting)
My tips:
Clean up your desktop.
Several years ago, I found a tool called WinKey [copernic.com], allowing to create a huge ammount of keyboard shortcuts that do not interfer with application-specific hotkeys. Imagine a keyboard that has 80 or 100 extra buttons for applications. Weird? Useful! Just hold down the Windows key and type almost any other key to start one of your 50 most used applications.
My current shortcut mappings are:
Windows-A = ACDSee
Windows-C = cmd.exe (DOS-Box)
Windows-G = http://www.google.com/
Windows-I = Internet Explorer
Windows-N = better than Netscape: Mozilla (Windows-M is used to minimize all windows and can't be used)
Windows-Shift-N = the original Netscape 4.7 - less frequently used, so the shortcut is more complicated
Windows-O = Opera
Windows-P = Putty Menu (selfmade)
Windows-Q = Quirk for Ultraedit (Windows-U is used by usability tools and can't be used)
Windows-V = VNC viewer
Windows-W = WS_FTP
Windows-X = access the Exchange server: Mozilla Mail!
(You are not limited to letters: Numers, arrows and F-keys also work, and you can combine with Shift, Alt and Ctrl.)
And of course, I use some of the standard hardcoded shortcuts:
Windows-E = File Explorer ;-)
Windows-M = Minimize all Windows
Windows-Shift-M = undo Minimize
Windows-R = Run command
Windows-Break = Break Windows using the System Properties
Windows-F = Find files or folders
Less frequently used:
Windows-D = Show Desktop
Windows-Tab = Switch Tasks in the taskbar
Windows-F1 = Windows Help Windows-U = Utility Manager (Windows 2000) - starts Narrator and other usability tools (Winkey does not know this shortcut)
Executive summary: Click count reduction and mouse movement reduction by using short ways for frequently executed tasks. (This is very similar to what packers like winzip do. See also "poor Huffman coding" in Apocalypse 5 [perl.com].)
Tux2000
Re:Clean up and use hotkeys (Score:2)
My solution (Score:2)
Windows
Organize start menu by category: programs->media->{apps}, programs->network->{apps}, programs->office->{apps}. Remove icons you will never use. Add apps use use frequently to quicklaunch or on the main start menu (above programs). Use small icons.
Linux
Like windows, but hotkey ctrl-j to its own menu, then have hotkeys on that menu to frequently used apps. For example, ctrl-j k will go to rxvt. ctrl-j l will go to galeon. If the app isn't on a desktop, launch it. (FVWM2
Simple concept really... (Score:2)
The gloves need to be light and thin so that one can smoke and type while wearing them, this is important. Using the gloves one navigates through the desktop, pulling it forward to navigate forward, pushing away to navigate backward, grabbing as if grabbing a box and rotating it to rotate the desktop. Tap fingers to select an obje
The problem is you (Score:4, Informative)
I think you are the problem. You need to organize yourself better. If two monitors are full of icons, then I have to wonder why you consider all of them so worthwhile you can't remove some of them.
I've walked by coworkers's desks and seen Windows desktops with icons lined up all the way to the right of the screen. This isn't a rarity. I can't understand how people work this way.
Organization and priority is the key. You've got four basic spots to put stuff. Menu, panel, desktop and folders. Put your applications in the menu, with links to your five most frequently used programs on the panel. The menu should be organized by category and frequency of use. Don't accept the default locations, use the menu editor! The desktop should not contain any applications at all. It should contains icons for drives, devices and projects. The latter is the key. Organize your computing into projects, and put all your data into hierarchical folders. There's also the fifth possibility of "the command line". There's no reason for non-GUI programs to be in your menu system. For instance, I use "tidy" all the time, but have never once considered making an icon for it. If you use KDE, the Alt-F2 key is your friend.
Finally, dump anything you don't use. Do you really need icons for five different music players, six different text editors, and a handful of CD burners and rippers? Do you have a document you're finished creating? Take it off the desktop and file it away!
Lasting ideas are *usually* good ones (Score:2)
Really, how much of your time is taken up by double clicking?
GUI + CLI = easy for me to use (Score:2)
Instead of futzing around with the mouse to find the desktop shortcut or navigating the "K" menu, I just type the first few letters of the command, hit tab and there it is.
I don't expect everyone to feel comfortable with this, but at least the option should always be there.
The apps themselves are gui apps, but CLI is still the fastest way IMHO to launch them.
Something really new and on linux (Score:3, Interesting)
The gui sucks right now, but the concept is interresting and refreshing.
segusoland [sourceforge.net]
What icon jungle? (Score:2)
As for desktop window chaos, virtual desktops. The browsing desktop, the emacs desktop, the e-mail desktop. It's so simple.
Not to troll (Score:2)
Reorganize your start menu... (Score:2)
Linux, Solaris+gnome: F keys. (Score:2)
F2 starts terminal.
and so on.
Fialing that I invoke the program from the command line.
How difficult is that?
Unfortunately Windows makes it difficult and messy to do simple tasks under the false pretense that point and click is user firenldy.
Moo (Score:2)
Also, use keyboard shortcuts.
Quick Launch is the answer - for XP (Score:2)
Re:The future... (Score:2, Funny)
I would think that you'd give your computer the finger after it reboots.
Re:Ditch Windows; get WindowMaker (Score:3, Interesting)
Pros:
Menu system. Totally owns. In fact, I'd say the BlackBox/FluxBox/WMaker menu system is the best of all the desktop envs and window managers from all operating systems put together.
Minimalistic. I love minimalism and a clean interface.
Cons:
Lack of a good intuitive general configuration system. KDE's, GNOMES, and XFCE's are far more comprehensive