mirror of https://github.com/0intro/wmii
84 lines
3.6 KiB
TeX
84 lines
3.6 KiB
TeX
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% (C)opyright 2005 by Anselm R. Garbe
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\documentclass{article} \usepackage{times} \begin{document}
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\title{Improved GUI concepts for experienced users}
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\author{Anselm R. Garbe\\ \small garbeam at gmail dot com}
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\maketitle \thispagestyle{empty}
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\begin{abstract}
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This article presents the motivation and concepts of the dynamic
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window manager wmii and the graphical toolkit liblitz for the
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\it{X Window System}.
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\end{abstract}
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%-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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\section{Motivation}
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Most common graphical user interfaces are designed after the WIMP\cite{wimp}
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paradigm, which has dominated the desktop environment
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landscape since late 1980s. While research has been done on alternative
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user interfaces, often the focus targeted more in ease of use and low
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learning curves for new computer users rather than in efficiency and
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power of abstraction.
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The main reason has been the economical success of computers
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in the normal consumer market, which consists of unexperienced users mainly.
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Our motivation is to change this situation and to provide a graphical
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user interface for experienced users, though we know that this market is
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a niche.
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There has been done rarly research in the non-wimp GUI landscape for years.
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Back in 80s and early 90s there has been some research in
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this area for the Plan 9\cite{plan9} operating system at Bell Labs.
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Most recent research has been done by individuals only, like Tuomo Valkonen with
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his Ion\cite{ion} project and Lars Bernhardsson with his
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LarsWM\cite{larswm} project.
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The approaches found in the Plan 9 operating system are interesting, because
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on the one hand they cancelled the Unix tradition to work in Teletype emulators
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and on the other hand, they didn't followed the WIMP paradigm propagated by Apple,
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IBM or Microsoft. This makes Plan 9 the most unique approach compared to the
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classical WIMP world.
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The main aspects of an improved GUI consists of two things, a powerful
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window management approach and a sane and simple widget set which fits well
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into this window management approach.
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In the area of improved window management concepts there has been done more
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research, thus there appeared several different approaches. But the area
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of improved widget sets which form powerful applications with a simple widget
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set has been ignored for long time. Instead, the WIMP world introduced many
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widgets which seem to focus on eye-candy, like progress bars, but don't
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fix the essential problems with WIMP toolkits.
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\section{Future}
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\section*{Acknowlegdements} Following people provided useful feedback or several
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grammar fixes to this article:
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\begin{itemize}
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\item Frank Boehme (1st version of this article)
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\item Tuncer M zayamut Ayaz (1st version of this article
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\end{itemize}
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\begin{thebibliography}{99}
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\bibitem{wimp} Ashley George Taylor, WIMP Interfaces, CS6751 Topic Report: Winter '97
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\bibitem{x} X Window System - http://www.freedesktop.org
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\bibitem{plan9} plan9 operating system - http://cm.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/
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\bibitem{acme} Rob Pike, Acme: A User Interface for Programmers -
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http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/acme/acme.html
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\bibitem{rat} Ratpoison window manager - http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/
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\bibitem{evil} evilwm window manager - http://evilwm.sf.net
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\bibitem{ion} Ion window manager - http://modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~tuomov/ion/
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\bibitem{larswm} LarsWM window manager - http://www.fnurt.net/larswm/
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\bibitem{vi} Vi Improved (VIM) - http://www.vim.org
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\bibitem{9p} 9P protocol - http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/sys/man/5/INDEX.html
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\end{thebibliography}
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\end{document}
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