Innovative UI idea?

Thursday, April 15, 2004 by Chris TH | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk

http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/

Just downloaded it but this machine is Win2K - have to wait few hours before I get to an XP 'puter to try it!





Powered by SkinBrowser!
20 Reply 1 Referrals
NightTrainthedark
Reply #1 Thursday, April 15, 2004 11:08 PM
Looks too buggy for me. Check the forums before trying.

SelfExiled
Reply #2 Friday, April 16, 2004 12:43 AM
It has a long way to go if it plans to beat windowblinds and DesktopX. If it is more of a 3D environment type program, then it has a long way to go to beat 3DNA. I'll stick with Object Desktop. It's much more developed, more themes, and much more stable. I hate crashing my system trying beta programs.

Jafo
Reply #3 Friday, April 16, 2004 1:48 AM
I hate crashing my system trying beta programs.

Chicken....
You ain't lived till you've been shell-less and lovin' it...


paxx
Reply #4 Friday, April 16, 2004 6:18 AM
Actually this looks nothin at all like 3DNA. It looks much more usable. It's notht he kind of "walk across three rooms to go open your email program" type o programs. It's actually quite clever, making your desktop the inside of a sphere instead of a flat surface. It's actually bit like the virtual desktops idea, except you pan around to access your opened programs. I may give it a shot. And it shouldn' be incompatible with Windowblinds. Dunno about programs like Destop X tough...

paxx
Reply #5 Friday, April 16, 2004 9:54 AM

Whoa! I'm trying it right now, and this thing is cooool!
Somewhat as I described above, but the windows are not active. You kinda minimize them on the Sphere's walls around you, and you grab them (double-click) to bring them back. Cool. Hardly any performance hit at all.  My task manager shows it as using 0% of my CPU right now, but it does use 50 Megs of RAM. Not really a big problem in my case, I got lots of RAM to spare.
Of course this cool program is still at its infancy, but the few little problems are that the desktop icons can't handle transparency (the transparency is black) you can't continue to rotate around the sphere when you reach the "border" of the sphere, you have to turn back in the other direction the taskbar is only visible when you have an application "active".  Also the application would be much cooler if the windows could be active: I could open two or more windows and just pan left, right, top, bottom to move from one to the other, instead of having to put them away first before bringing back another window. But maybe that would be too intensive on the processor.

As far as Object Desktop goes, Windowblinds works no problem, but not Desktop X (expected) nor Objectbar. On the other hand Object Dock works without a problem. Actually having Objectbar opened makes it better since it allows you to launch new applications without having to bring an active window into focus.


craeonics
Reply #6 Friday, April 16, 2004 6:01 PM
Yeah, but is it a gimmick or something you would use on a daily basis?

paxx
Reply #7 Friday, April 16, 2004 7:46 PM

Not right now because it still has some things needing fixing. For example I noticed that -downs (either in Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer) don't work work... Major bugs, that. Anyway, when it's all fixed and working dandy, yes, I could see using this on a daily basis. I like the idea and the principle of it. Just need a bit more poilishing and perhaps a couple of additional feaures, such as maybe a sort of 3D task bar to go with it.

It's still a work in progress, but already interesting IMO. Gonna write a Tek article about it?


CerebroJD
Reply #8 Friday, April 16, 2004 7:57 PM
|)rop-downs



craeonics
Reply #9 Friday, April 16, 2004 9:25 PM
It's a bit meagre on its own for an article. Maybe I'll group this with some of the other 3D interfaces and write about that (somewhere in the far and distant future).

Essencay
Reply #10 Friday, April 16, 2004 9:39 PM
paxx...without installing this on my computer and trying to get a better understanding of it. Would you consider this interface to be similar to the tiling of windows that WindowFX does, in function, not necessarily in wizbang wowness, but in a 3D environment?

BoXXi
Reply #11 Friday, April 16, 2004 9:41 PM
This looks like a copy of a program that I had ages ago, but I can't remember the name of it! you could make the windows fold back in a 3D kind of way..... good fun..... for about 15 minutes.

paxx
Reply #12 Friday, April 16, 2004 10:09 PM

Essencay, in a way, it's similar, except for two things: the tiles can be placed anywhere "around" you, not just in a limited space on your desktop. Note that your desktop icons (for the moment quite ugly without transparency) can be placed anywhere around you. The second difference is that those tiles are cannot be active, unlike The Windows FX ones.

I guess the idea here is to think of your desktop not as a flat limited space, but a very large sphere that you can use to open and shrink windows, and place shortcuts.

Oh, and there is no risk here. There is no installation. You download, unzip and run the application. It's only 100k.  As long as you have the requited libraries, otherwise you will need to install the Microsoft .NET framework and the CSGL libray. The second is also very small, but the Microsoft .NET is huge. But you may already have it. I did.


paxx
Reply #13 Friday, April 16, 2004 10:11 PM
BoXXi, I know what you are talking about. But no, it's quite different. The app you talk about was still limited to your desktop space. Not this. Also, you don't just fold sideways the windows, you push them back on the walls of your spherical desktop. As I said above, it's actually quite similar to Window FX's tiling option, except in a sperical environment.

Essencay
Reply #14 Friday, April 16, 2004 10:15 PM
So like you are sitting "in" the sphere and your PC screen is your way to see the inside of the sphere....meaning that while you are looking at a window in one direction, you may have another window open, but it could be 'behind' you until you rotated the sphere to use it?

CerebroJD
Reply #15 Friday, April 16, 2004 10:22 PM
Yes

But remember, the sphere doesnt move. You do.
[Message Edited]

BoXXi
Reply #16 Friday, April 16, 2004 10:25 PM

Like having your head in a fish bowl? No thanks....hehe


paxx
Reply #17 Friday, April 16, 2004 10:28 PM
I know, BoXXi, you're more the cubic than the spheric type.

Essencay
Reply #18 Friday, April 16, 2004 10:31 PM
Essencay hefts up his 19-inch CRT and aims it around the room. He proceeds to ripping the monitor cable from the back of his PC, Drops the CRT on his foot and falls out of his chair. Smacking his forehead on his desktop on the way down to the floor thinking maybe he should've tried this proggie with his wife's laptop instead
[Message Edited]

CerebroJD
Reply #19 Friday, April 16, 2004 10:36 PM

craeonics
Reply #20 Saturday, April 17, 2004 9:13 AM
.NET framework? Now I remember why I didn't bother to try this.

Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

  • Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
  • Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
  • Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
  • It's simple, and FREE!
Login

Home | About | Privacy | Upload Guidelines | Terms of Service | Help
Copyright © Stardock Corporation. All Rights Reserved.


web-wc01