[wplug] [OT] Read of the Week [OT]

[Michael Semcheski]

Matthew J. Hughes wrote:
>  While checking blogs I some how ended up to the Symphony OS website.
>  Symphony uses a desktop environment of their own, mezzo. Mezzo is the
>  result of this guy, Jason Spisak, rethinking the desktop. While I
>  don't agree with all of his conclusions, I thought it was an
>  interesting read. Comments? link:

I agree with some of his peeves, but I don't necessarily know if I like 
his solutions.

I keep my desktop very clean, despise pop-ups and balloons, and also 
don't care much for menus. 

I will put things on my desktop from time to time, and I use it like a 
clipboard, so I don't think I'd like not having that option.  Mezzo 
abolishes the 'Drag and Drop' desktop.)

I think menus should never open out to the side.  I miss the target 
frequently with those.  But I don't want to lose my context in whatever 
I'm working on.   (Mezzo has a full screen menu system.)  I think UI 
designers need to make the menus smaller.  I like the Mozilla 
preferences.  I don't want each of those options as a menu item.  I want 
tabs, and first class widgets, rather than check boxes, flyouts, and 
radio buttons.

In my opinion, the mouse is the bane of user interface.  Its slow, its 
not ergonomical, it can be difficult to use precisely.  I don't have an 
alternative in mind (though if anyone has one of these they want to get 
rid of, I'll take it: http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/ ).

Mike