BumpTop, Pushing the Desktop Metaphor 213
Alranor writes "BumpTop is a new way of manipulating your GUI desktop with a graphics pen. Documents can be moved and piled (among other actions) as if they were real pieces of paper on a physical desktop. Simulated real physical interactions, such as documents pushing others out of the way as you move them around, are intended to increase the intuitiveness of the layout tool. Given the messiness of my desks at work and home, I'm not so sure this will work for me, but it's an interesting idea."
There's a neat video demo linked from the site (and a "hip-hop overview") if you want to see BumpTop in action; unfortunately for Linux users, BumpTop seems to be Windows-only. As reader idangazit describes it, this is "not just another "me-too" alternative UI; a lot of effort and polish has been put into the (pen-based) interaction, resulting in a very natural way of interacting with collections of information. Less sci-fi than Minority Report, but far more likely to hit a desktop near you in the next few years." Update: 06/22 16:55 GMT by T : As zdzichu reader points out in the comments below, a visually similar project called lowfat, with an equally impressive video demo, is being developed — with enough sponsorship, lowfat will go open source.
Impressive, but usability?.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Features such as the LassoMenu look awesome, but in all honesty, I can't see how I could apply it enough to be proactive.
Of course, developement of such technologies is always a good thing, and its good eye-candy if only that
Why emulate old technology? (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole point of having a computer is to free yourself from paper. So why would you take a step back and try to digitally emulate a system that is antiquated? A computer offers endless opportunities for organizing and storing data, I see this as a step back.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]The trouble is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Dual Screen (Score:5, Interesting)
The mouse needs to be replaced by a touch screen with a stylus.
Re:Star Trek 42 (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine it! Documents and photos and games and toys stretching out for virtual miles! You'll have to code a flight sim just to see all your data!
Then might as well add topography to represent groups of data. A gleaming ivory tower for academic research. A giant drive-in for movies and tv files. A dystopian city structure for work related folders. A dark ocean for the internet, full of dangers and terrors and fun. A huge cave would lead into the purgatory of your "recycle bin" files, where they wait to be reborn or fed to the maw of no return.
Re:Why emulate old technology? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why emulate old technology? (Score:5, Interesting)
They print out an excel document with 3 cells so they can "read" it. No joke one time the 1st VP printed out an email I sent him that had a 6 digit order count, and no other text... he read it out loud, then threw it in the recycling. They keep giant boxes of paper docs that are printed off from our document management system, and are easily retrievable. We have a 100% paperless system, and at any given time the users have 10-20 sheets of paper on their desks, all of them digitally accessable.
I don't have any paper on my desk, haven't since the early 1990s, but this advancement is not intended for me. It is for "Joe Paper-Lover"
Finally, an OS for managers (Score:4, Interesting)
Same goes for when managers start using a computer, I mean, the O.N./O.F.F. switch escapes them sometimes, and higher level concepts such as organizing files in folders is just too far beyond their capabilities.
So, an OS desktop that lets you see all your files and folders looking like pieces of paper and folders (I bet they even have email looking like envelopes too!) on a desktop that allows you to pile them up and look like stacks of paper and folders and envelops, what a concept!!!!
I guess ICONS that look like paper and folders that you can place anywhere on your desktop isn't good enough. It requires too much thought to associate an icon with a file or a folder. A picture of a piece of paper on a square is too hard to rationalize as being a document.
This is a revolutionary GUI concept and I can't wait for OS X or Windows to implement this idea as using computers today, with those pesky abstract icons, is just too darn hard, at least for managers.
What we really need is a x-platform desktop API (Score:3, Interesting)
The interface is just another app. Once we get that, we'll be rockin'.
Balance (Score:4, Interesting)
So here's the deal: an ideal inferface will basically have a structure (i.e.: a logical framework of relationships) closely resembling the real world, but will operate at a speed unhindered by real-world mechanics like intertia, momentum, and spatial constraints. The existing folder+desktop system has been a natural, maybe even unconcscious, evolution towards precisely such a model.
Personally, I think as long as we're missing a dimension - if we're in 2D instead of 3D - then we're not going to have a completely intuitive interface. The problem, though, is that true 3D still isn't really available. We just have 2D emulation of 3D on computer monitors.
So these kinds of fancy 3D interfaces that have physics engines, collision detection, and all that stuff are sort of wasted in my mind until we have a really immersive 3D display system. I feel exactly the same way about FPS games. I'm a gamer, but I'm crushed that VR never took off. There's just no true feeling of immersion if you're stuck staring at your zillion-polygon virtual world through a tiny 19" porthole.
Could be a great interface for games (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Impressive, but usability?.. (Score:5, Interesting)
On a more 'futuristic' note: Wouldn't it be cool to have a desk like in The Island [imdb.com] where the doctor brought up their files ON his desk. Now image a big desk with a touch panel as its face. This technology would be pretty cool. Pile up your documents, open them and a virtual keyboard/mouse appears.
Why replicate a desktop? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a TRANSITIONAL tool (Score:3, Interesting)
Part of what we all are failing to consider here is that we need desktop managers because the desktops on our copmputers are comparatively small to the desktops we actually work at in the real world, due to screen resolution restrictions vs. our ability to see things that are small. Face it. We are taking a 48" x 30-36" desk and trying to compress it onto a 17", 19", 21", 30" monitor IN MOST CASES. I know that most of us as geeks probably have two or three monitors on our desks, but if you compare that screen space relative to your real desk, it's like trying to run your office life off an end-table in your living room.
The problem isn't that computers can't replace paper, the problem is that we don't have the number of pixels for the average user to make that proposition appetizing to the average user. Everything we can do to improve that situation makes the dream of going paperless more reachable.
Re:Problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Look at the bigger picture. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why I think 'the pile' has never taken off. To really work it requires a robust data driven file system. For instance, we now use a folder metaphor to represent related catagories to materials. We have nested folder for deeper level of heirachacal organization. This system does not work with the pile, as scanning a directory with 1000 files is not reasonable.
The piles on desks work with people who have good sense on 3d visualazation. I know where things are by thier reletive 3d location. For such people, this metaphor will work well, and I think it is why we see implemetations of it. Many designers have good 3d visulations, so doesn't everyone? It seems to me that what past implementations have missing is the data driven aceess, which is implicit in the file model, but not moved to the pile model.
I suppose the good news is tha we are slowly moving to data driven file systems. Mac OS has sherlock, and MS Windows Vista will have something similiar, though it will not have the full database system that would be perfect for the pile. Here is how it would work. You have piles on your desk, piles on the floor, piles in drawers. On could succesively search different piles, and the candidate objects would fly out, or zoom, or whatever. I question if we have the horsepower for this yet, but it is coming. This is the type of GUI that could be considered a Humane Interface.
To much play and to little usablity (Score:3, Interesting)
To those interesting in new interface ideas I recomment to read The Humane Interface by Jef Raskins, who really does propose a new style of interface that is both a lot more intuitive then what we have today as well as a lot more efficient, instead of just adding bell and whistles like most other 'new' interfaces do.
Re:Impressive, but usability?.. (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I can tell, it's a more sensible way of ordering documents. What I'd like to see is an approach where the documents are represented by thumbnails rather than just icons.
Although it looks overly-complex, bear in mind that this is research. They're trying out all the possibilities to see which ones "fit". I reckon a refined version of this interface could be very good indeed.
MS Bob, is that you? (Score:4, Interesting)
tm
Re:Impressive, but usability?.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Hasnt this gone on long enough? (Score:3, Interesting)
Its time to start inventing new metaphors.
-LM