unity-design team mailing list archive

[Chad Linton <cmlinton@xxxxxxxxx>]

>
>
> look at Unix interfaces from the past they have been not pretty but
> functional back in the good old days we had XWM and applications written
> different toolkits but they did not get in the users way and did not bog
> the system.
>
>
When given the idea of 'small is beautiful' - I'd also say small is easy to
use.

I keep going back to Enlightenment, and to WindowMaker - because they are
small and simple, and easy to use.  Which is ironic, because windowmaker is
outdated in terms of looking shiny, and Enlightenment at one time, was
known for being a pig and clunky, though it was beautiful visually.  Now
enlightenment is amazing - it is simple and fast, and beautiful.

When confronted with Unity for the first time, I thought 'This sure looks
neat' but then became baffled at the inconsistency of it'.  Compared to
older window managers, I find it extremely convoluted to get simple tasks
done.  It has so much going for it but is grossly inconsistent.


>
> and things went well this way until recently (I still think it's the
> result of Generation Y) but someone decided that Unix like operating
> systems needed compositing and 3D effects and we got Compiz than Beryl
> and than Compiz again  This Hackish at best window manager was tossed on
> top of rapidly bloating desktop environments. and all of the sudden we
> started to see Things Bogging the system heavily and getting in the
> users way.
>
>
Though it may be hackish, I think compositing plays a heavy role in user
adoption - it ads sex appeal to the interface. From what I understand, it
has some useful benefits as well, like preventing one hung window from
jamming the whole interface.

-Chad