THE GUI SHOULD BE BETTER

[ConcreteKisses]

On 4/25/2023 at 11:31 PM, Isaiah said:

I think the crux of the issue for Ross personally is he has a very strong imagination but little technical skill/understanding. So he can imagine there must be a better GUI just waiting to be created, but has no idea how to make it happen himself. Which must be pure torture and can probably drive a person insane! So I think it's best to try and not get too obsessed with what theoretically could be, and just keep chipping away at making things better where you can.

Hello! Thanks for the response.

 

I'm admittedly still very inexperienced in regards to this field. Heck, I only just started to get serious about it when my frustrations about HTML boiled over a few months back.

 

I have some things to say about your posts, but I'd rather not get into long dead arguments, so I'll just say this.

 

The things that have been left behind, in talks clapped at but ever implemented, are still endlessly valuable stepping stones in research. It's why I encourage you to make the research you've created into something tangible, to test it, to make it weird, to see what works, and then to make it less weird. If it didn't yield results for you, it may yield results for another, and that's what counts.

 

The goal in making interfaces, at least for me, is to encourage customization and homebrew research, and hopefully a Cambrian explosion of folk design. The visions that exist for desktop customization, even in the most extravagant desktop modding circles, I've seen a depressing lack of invention in making interfaces truly theirs. I want to help make the tools to change that.

 

I think a desktop connected to the internet at all times being the sole medium for development is... horrifying. The keyboard and mouse, the screen, and hell, the desk and chair, should be parts of a future, not the whole future. I can't really elaborate on my solutions, as I'd much prefer to talk about it publicly once I have an actual demonstration released, and have that demo be replicable with moderate ease.

 

A part of Ross's vision was a library of test builds that feature novel, experimental UIs. A trove of quirks and invention that may not always work, but can be valuable even through elimination. That's the kind of spirit that should flourish in inventing interfaces.

 

Novelty, even if it can be silly, grasps for what isn't seen, and sometimes those grasps can grip onto something truly, truly special.

 

Also, I'm an artist and a toymaker at my core, so even embarrassing failures can make for great jokebooks.

 

Edit:

My issues with the UI have grown to be quite different compared to Ross, so I'll just lay down my main goals in research.

• Building web-based media (or at least concepts for media) that encourages anyone to make a web-based art piece in an afternoon.
• Using that media to build environments where computing, programming, and peripheral design is accessible to anyone.
• Promoting and developing alternatives to the current internet, and not in the Tiktok/Facebook sense, but rather URLs and HTML.

All of these are things that have irked me to no end ever since I embraced making art, and they'll irk me for quite some time.

Edited April 28, 2023 by ConcreteKisses
fixed a blunder of a typo (see edit history)

[Isaiah]

On 4/28/2023 at 6:46 PM, ConcreteKisses said:

I have some things to say about your posts, but I'd rather not get into long dead arguments, so I'll just say this.

I admire your restraint. I'm always up for debate and even being proven wrong, believe it or not. But in my experience the objective of most arguments is to just "win" by any means necessary, rather than learn from each other to help improve things for everyone. So I try to avoid them now, as they're mostly infuriating wastes of time.
 

On 4/28/2023 at 6:46 PM, ConcreteKisses said:

It's why I encourage you to make the research you've created into something tangible, to test it, to make it weird, to see what works, and then to make it less weird. If it didn't yield results for you, it may yield results for another, and that's what counts.

I have made tangible progress already. For starters I created my own improved version of Circle Dock, but I quickly learned that wasn't good enough. So I started a complete redesign from the ground up, which is already partly implemented, but it's a very ambitious project. So I put it on hold while I work on smaller, less intimidating projects in the meantime.
 

On 4/28/2023 at 6:46 PM, ConcreteKisses said:

The goal in making interfaces, at least for me, is to encourage customization and homebrew research, and hopefully a Cambrian explosion of folk design. The visions that exist for desktop customization, even in the most extravagant desktop modding circles, I've seen a depressing lack of invention in making interfaces truly theirs. I want to help make the tools to change that.

That's a great goal and I wish you the best of luck, but I think there are many good reasons why this hasn't happened yet. So it wont be easy. Godspeed my friend!

 

On 4/28/2023 at 6:46 PM, ConcreteKisses said:

I can't really elaborate on my solutions, as I'd much prefer to talk about it publicly once I have an actual demonstration released, and have that demo be replicable with moderate ease.

Smart move and pretty much the same thing I'm doing. In my experience concepts always sound better on paper and never work exactly like you think they will in practice. So first building actual working prototypes to dis/prove theories is absolutely critical.

 

I also think AI is going to become a major boon in driving innovation in all sorts of computer fields... if we don't enslave and/or kill ourselves with it first.
 

[testman]

There might be something useful in here:
https://desktop.kerahq.com/

https://gitlab.com/kerahq/Kera-Desktop

 

[cursedfarmer]

Maybe I'm just blind, but has nobody mentioned AutoHotPie yet?

https://github.com/dumbeau/AutoHotPie

[Isaiah]

This topic consist of mostly just suggestions for possible GUI solutions (mostly for Linux) to the issues Ross' brought up in his video. So I'd really like to find out if anyone here has actually discovered and started using any real software/hardware solutions for Windows since the video came out? In other words, has anyone found some real, practical rather than theoretical solutions yet?

 

I've tried many existing GUI apps, but none of them have truly improved my efficiency or user experience on Windows. StrokesPlus.net was too much work to configure and learn, and Circle Dock proved cumbersome and lacking in features. So I was forced to look into developing my own custom solutions. However, other things came up, and I had to put such work on hold a few years back.

 

But I've recently come back to start work on a few new custom GUI tools again, specifically related to app and file management. As I've found the standard workflow for this kind of stuff utterly insufficient and slow. So I really need to make something better, but no idea how long this will take to develop.

[testman]

successor to Fly-Pie

https://github.com/kando-menu/kando

https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=ZTdfnUDMO9k

[testman]

all right, this looks like something relevant:
https://github.com/eythaann/Seelen-UI

[Erasmus Roterodamnsus]

I use a versatile voice recognition program (think autohotkey but for voice activated) called Voiceattack. I'm not sure I like mouse gestures, since that requires some mouse movement. Instead of waving a magic wand, I just say incantations for what I need done instantly. You program your "spell" and "incantation" so that what you want done is done instantly if you prepared it beforehand. Plus, it's maximally ergonomically because it doesn't take away your hands. This is primarily for things like shortcuts because positioning has to be preprogrammed, but having a digital servant that does the heavy lifting at your call is quite nice.