I hope this is some incorporated into Mac OS 10.5

[Sweetfeld28]

A friend of mine found this on You Tube:

BumpTop 3d Desktop


I think it would be a great feature in 10.5. What does everyone else think?
Would you use something like this?

 

[jholzner]

A friend of mine found this on You Tube:

BumpTop 3d Desktop


I think it would be a great feature in 10.5. What does everyone else think?
Would you use something like this?

I'm not sure how usefull/practical it would be but it's damn cool looking that's for sure! I know Apple has experimented with "piles" and the like in the past so it's possible it could be some sort of option in the new OS or a combo between the current desktop metaphore and this 3D one. I'm up for a change.

 

[jamesW135]

No, Looks so pointless but cool at the same time..

 

[Sweetfeld28]

No, Looks so pointless but cool at the same time..

That's exactly what i thought, but i still want it for some reason!? I think it would just be another cool toy to make people drool over OS X.

But, yeah it is still pointless to a point.

 

[mkrishnan]

I think some aspects of it have potential in terms of improving ergonomics... natural-feelign ways in which users can exploit personally-meaningful relationships between files are really important. I'd like to see something that crosses smart folders with the project manager in Entourage to help users make virtual associations between files that are used together. And if it had some of the ease of use ideas in this, I'd like it.

But I do find it a little sketchy that this user interface is being modeled after messy offices. Just seeing that office and that desktop makes me want to develop OCD....

 

[irishgrizzly]

Looks impressive, but one of the advantages of a digital desktop is not having to tidy up files. Also imagine trying to use a laptop track pad to do this.

 

[sunfast]

Looks impressive, but I don't see how it would be any use.

But, I ALWAYS say that about new ideas that turn out to be the best things ever

 

[jsw]

Very interesting, but, as alluded to above, much more useful with a pen/touch interface than with a mouse/trackpad.

Of course, if the trackpad had a mode enabling the finger to act as a pen (i.e., press with two fingers - probably one from each hand - and then move one as a pen), it would be pretty useful.

*** notes larger trackpad on all new Mac laptops ***

 

[mkrishnan]

Of course, if the trackpad had a mode enabling the finger to act as a pen (i.e., press with two fingers - probably one from each hand - and then move one as a pen), it would be pretty useful.

Or perhaps a specifically designed stylus addition that makes the trackpad function like a tablet? This is technically feasible, I think, to create a stylus with the correct dielectric properties?

 

[plinden]

It definitely looks cool. It would offer a more natural organizer than files in folder, but I think it would suffer from lack of tactile feedback even with a pen/tablet computer. You might get used to it, but initially I would miss being able to pick up the piles.

I'll wait for the brain/computer interface where I can organize my virtual desktop by closing my eyes and moving things around by thinking about it - tactile feedback would come built in.

By the way, kind of related but still off topic, my wife told me she found herself trying to use her mouse to look through her calendar at work ... a real one, on her wall ... and came to her senses while wondering where the cursor was.

 

[MisterMe]

No, Looks so pointless but cool at the same time..

Did you notice that they never launched an application. I don't know about the rest of you, but I spend most of my time in my applications doing my work. Most of my file organization is in folders. Document files, I keep within the ~/Documents/ folder for the most part. Applications, I keep within /Applications/. The Desktop is more of a temporary storage area until I store my files in their permanent location. I see this as an alternative to the Windows desktop, but has little to offer Mac users.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

That would be awesome, especially for this laptop's messy desktop! I just hope that whatever Apple does to Finder is cool.

 

[kretzy]

I think it looks fantastic but it really doesn't seem very practical to me. I think the current folder system is relatively simple and logical and that it should be kept that way.

 

[jsw]

I think it looks fantastic but it really doesn't seem very practical to me. I think the current folder system is relatively simple and logical and that it should be kept that way.

Wow. Your first moment of becoming a stodgy old adult who fears change, recorded for all posterity.

I agree that Finder works, but I've never loved it.

 

[kretzy]

Wow. Your first moment of becoming a stodgy old adult who fears change, recorded for all posterity.

It must be all the oldies I hang out with here with at MR.

 

[Dunepilot]

I like the looks of it, and think it's a natural extension of the desktop metaphor, if that's what we're going to stick with...

 

[michaelrjohnson]

I like the looks of it, and think it's a natural extension of the desktop metaphor, if that's what we're going to stick with...

I'm not convinced it's an extension rather than a step back. I mean... like mkrishnan said, this desktop metaphor is being modeled after a messy office. Shouldn't we be going the other way?

I love the visuals, but honestly, to me that's a lot more cumbersome of an interface than the current desktop model.

 

[vniow]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/210933/

 

[JonHimself]

I would like this, if only as a program that I can run to play with. Imagine being frustrated and just taking a document, increasing its size and weight and just whipping it across the "desk" to mess up the other papers? I think it would be so much.
As I said, I would think this would be best used as a program to operate within an OS and not just solely as the operating system.

 

[hyperpasta]

Lasso.

One thing I'd like to see throughout Leopard is a lasso to select icons instead of conventional box-dragging. This lets you select irregularly-shaped groups of icons without having to use Command or SHIFT clicks.

 

[Zwhaler]

Wow, that is really amazing. I think it is somewhat complicated and somewhat impractical, and I also don't think it would be featured in 10.5, but maybe 10.6? It seems like if that became the standard desktop interface, it would be a big jump from what is now featured on Tiger, which is why i say 10.6 or maybe even a later OS.

 

[blasto333]

I think this user interface would be very useful for a large multi-touch display. Documents and applications could be moved around easily and would be very visible to the user. Also the 3d space would create a kind of interactive space for documents.

Different hand gestures could preform actions. For example putting your fingers over multiple documents and then closing them in would create a pile and spreading them out would create a grid. Double tapping a document would open the file/program.

This interface is very complicated with a standard mouse or trackpad because of all the odd gestures. Many of the mouse gestures do not afford actions they preform very well and a menu must be used for a lot of them. The use of a hand affords the actions much better than a mouse does.

I would really love to see this interface implemented on a multi-touch display.

If you want to see a really cool demo of a multi-touch display visit this link:
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/multitouchreel.mpg

I truly believe in 5-10 years (maybe less) the mouse will become obsolete.

 

[Zwhaler]

This might be ideal for a Tablet computer.

 

[Dunepilot]

I'm not convinced it's an extension rather than a step back. I mean... like mkrishnan said, this desktop metaphor is being modeled after a messy office. Shouldn't we be going the other way?

I love the visuals, but honestly, to me that's a lot more cumbersome of an interface than the current desktop model.

Oh yeah - maybe it's just metaphorical of how my desks always are. Shortly before I left my last job, a colleague gave me a newspaper article showing that to be messy but know where everything is is quite a good way of using your desk to control priority.

Anyway, I must say that there's nothing more difficult that finding that document that you don't know the name of when you have hundreds of identical icons in a folder (on our Win machines at work). I waste hours every day trying to find files without a search tool. It'd be easier to look at if they weren't all lined-up in rows, I find.

 

[Caitlyn]

Well, it definitely looks cool and fun, but I'm not sure how practical it is or how useful it would be to the average user?