My idea of perfect ui is reducing the need of ui whatsoever. Instead of having millions of different programs opened at all times, have only one, or maybe 3-4. This one program is your webbrowser, text editor, file manager, image viewer/editor, music player, all in one.
My plan was making all that starting from text editor. I stole the vim idea of using one key hotkeys (without pressing ctrl or anything), but simplified it even more. Let me describe hotkeys.
There are multiple modes: navigation mode, edit mode, selection mode. In edit mode, your keys will be typed in as text. In navigation mode, each key has different function:
ijkl -- up left down right
s -- enter selection mode
shift-s -- select the whole line
ctrl-s -- select the current function (and copy it)
g -- go to the beginning of the document
shift-g -- go to the end of the document
xcv -- cut copy paste
z -- undo
shift-z -- redo
e -- go to the beginning of word
r -- go to the end of word
shift-e -- go to the beginning of line
shift-r -- go to the end of line
d -- delete character under cursor, or all selected text
w -- save document
q -- close document
shift-q -- close document without saving
; -- open file under cursor
shift-; -- copy path of currently opened file
u -- open the folder this file is in
/ -- search
. -- next search result
, -- previous search result
p -- previous cursor position
n -- next cursor position
shift-p -- previous document
shift-n -- next document
I need to make a hotkey to show the list of all opened documents. Or to just make tabs.
So, I did a glitchy as hell text editor, and too lazy to move further. Need to rewrite it to make it less terrible. I originally just used vim, then I used vim mode in emacs and heavily edited, then I just said screw it and made my own thing.
Oh, also using rightclick to cancel or go back is a neat idea, I stole it from japanese visual novels. I used it in my mangareader.
And I mapped CapsLock to escape in autohotkey. This is where escape used to be on older keyboards. It sometimes passes through, and still triggers capslock, happens very rarely and when my computer is under heavy load.
And check out Kingsway game, its core gameplay is trying to fit million windows open on your screen. Tiling window manager would probably be good there, but it's overkill, tabs are usually good enough.
Oh, I also liked the way ui is made in world of warcraft addons. You tell to what you want to attach your next element, to some side of the screen, or to some already existing element. Traditional ui, on windows or on html pages is made much more clumsily, it feels more like making a document on paper, line after line after line.
Blender3d is famous for its hard to learn, but comfortable to use gui. Never learned it well enough.
