[Nottingham] GUI Apps - was: Re: Wed 05/12/2007 Food'n'beers meet

[Richard Smedley]

On Thu, 2007-12-06 at 21:45 +0000, Martin wrote:
> Is OpenSource by it's very nature "Geekie" due to it being written by
> "Geeks" for "Geeks"?

I might not be the best person to answer, as I find GUI apps much
harder to use than their command-line equivalents, however...

> What GUIs are there out there that are truly good?

WindowMaker is a great window manager. No unnecessary clutter.
Right click gives you Debian menu - ordered access to every app. 
Middle click gives you a desktop pager.
Of course if this is too spartan for you, then there are
dozens of dock applets and other add-ons.

I've seen computer newbies take to wmaker very quickly.

> Anyone with real-world experiences in this area?
> 
> Have we really learnt nothing since the futuristic days of the 1970's at
> Xerox Palo Alto and the first versions of The Mouse and Windows?

The great thing that came out of Xerox PARC, with its
WIMP GUI, was the associated OO language: Smalltalk.
The disappearance of Smalltalk, as universities moved
to the unmanageable Java, was v depressing - but nowadays
Ruby keeps the flame alive for many of its ideas. :)

> Any thoughts?

You mention The GIMP as a difficult interface - it's actually 
not /that/ bad, given the complex range of options that
need to be presented at a right-click on the image.

That aside, I'd say that any GUI app that doesn't make all
functionality available via the keyboard is poor - regardless
of how easy it is for most users.

 - Richard

-- 
Richard Smedley,                                          rs at m6-it.org
Technical Director,                                      www.M6-IT.org
M6-IT CIC                                         +44 (0)779 456 07 14

Sustainable Third Sector IT solutions. PRINCE2 [TM] Project Management
Training * Certification * Support * Networking * Web * Database * CRM

M6-IT is a Community Interest Company, limited by guarantee.
Registered in England & Wales,                Registration No: 6040154
11 St Marks Road, Stourbridge, West Midlands, DY9 7DT


Northern Office:       4, Hollins Green, Bradwall, Cheshire, CW10 0LA.

Welsh office/ Swyddfa Gogledd Cymru: e-mail / e-bost - cymru at m6-it.org

Southern Office: Bristol                     contact matthew at m6-it.org