Thinking About Desktop Eyecandy 338
An anonymous reader writes "This article ponders over whether excess eye candy and special effects being incorporated on the desktop is a good trend after all? The author explains why he thinks the users are taken for a ride by the OS companies in compelling them to upgrade their hardware in order to enable these processor intensive and memory hungry special effects."
I'm all for it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm all for it... (Score:2, Insightful)
I have run the "wobbly windows" XGL thing on my machine, and dragging windows in it IS a lot less CPU intensive (from 50% to about 15% CPU, but I have a HT enabled).
Disable vs Remove (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's take a hypethetical situation. Lets say I write a UI that uses a 3d api to render the desktop. (we will call this supposed UI, 'SparrowGrass' so we have a name to work with.)
Using 'SparrowGrass' I can enable all sorts of 'spiffy-wa'(as my console gamer friend calls them) hardware accelerated effects, such as dynamic shadows, translucency, and such. But because they are expecting that there is a 3d card with a good T&L chip in the machine, it will run like a dog without it.
So either because I find such 'spiffy-wa' effects morally offensive when I am trying to remotely reconfigure a DC, or because I lack the latest 3d card, I choose to disable the fancy 3d features of 'SparrowGrass'. However, I am still using a 3d API to render the desktop.
If you looks at one very famous company's 3d API, printing text to the screen involves rendering a couple of polygons, and basically texture mapping the text onto them. While you have turned off the 'spiffy-wa' features, you are still going to be taking a hit for using the 3d API in the first place.
it seems unlikely that there will be two sets of
Re:Disable vs Remove (Score:2)
Re:Disable vs Remove (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a personally interesting topic for me. I remember trying out my first beta of Windows 95 in late 1994 or early 1995. At the time, I was the only desktop support guy at the headquarters of The Buckle. (I think it's just Buckle now, the clothing store at a lot of malls. Anyway, I digress) One of my reponsibilities was to help a lot of nontechnical office personnel use Windows 3.11. I had everyone (Even the older people who had never used a computer before this job) traine
Re:Disable vs Remove (Score:2)
A feature like zooming can be implemented in either 2d or 3d space. It'd be more efficient to run a zoom on a 3d accelerated
Re:I'm all for it... (Score:2)
*scnr*
Well duh. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well duh. (Score:2)
Consumers are their own worst enemy. The reason everyone is marketing eye candy is because that is what people want (or think they want). Companies are smart - they try to sell what the consumer is going to pay for. The problem is that consumers don't make smart buying decisions. SUVs sell like crazy in the middle of the city for crying out loud. They buy what looks cool.
Don't blame the companies - blame
Debian's non-commercial "releases" and (Score:2)
That model of having an OS and then upgrading to a "different" OS won't last, I suspect.
More
Re:Well duh. (Score:2)
No one buys a Mac (or upgraded to OS X 10.3) for the Dock and Expose, they buy it for iLife, which in turn depends on CoreImage, CoreVideo, etc.
why have this at work (Score:2, Insightful)
It bugs the hell out of me that a select licenced windows server cd comes with eye candy switched on(ok its not much but it's a server!)
why???
Re:why have this at work (Score:2, Interesting)
Fat Eye (Score:2, Funny)
No thanks. (Score:2, Interesting)
I played WoW for one year now on a Windows 2000 Professional box. As we all know, Windows 2000 is as about as bland a desktop that has ever existed.I was getting 90 to 100 FPS in WoW and I was happy with it.
Recently, I was forced to upgrade to Windows XP because an application bombed out when trying to install on W2K. Now, I get 30 - 40fps. After turning off all the XP eye candy, I get 40fps steady.
Re:No thanks. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No thanks. (Score:2)
Add to that WoW is a bit of a memory hog as well.. and you've got yourself a recipe for a huge slowdown.
Eyecandy not really necessary (Score:2)
Effect for the sake of effects (Score:2)
But there are certain effects that compliment the OS and do serve a purpose. In OS X, when a window is minimized and you get the "genie" effect, notice how it minimizes to the point for which the minimized application will reside? It leads you back, so that you can remember.
-- Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net]
Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:2, Insightful)
The hidden benefit is that much of the eye candy in OS X is very soothing. It makes it easier to get work done when you have a soothing background and your actions o
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:3, Insightful)
An example of this is Expose, how the windows nicely slide and resize, making it obvious what is going on. The animation here is not really necessary (think windows alt-tab) but it certainly helps. Another example is the fast user switching feature. Rather than simply flipping to the other desktop leaving the user wondering where they are and how they got there, it does a nice rotatio
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:2)
The fast user switching thing is nice though.
(personally I just wish they'd spend that amount of care with finder - when you close an OSX app it doesn't close.. you have to right click on the taskbar and select 'close'. The visual feedback for t
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah.. tell that to clippy.
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm no apple fan boy by any stretch of the imagination, but computers are for work - to
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:3, Insightful)
That is a feature of targeting your OS to a particular hardware platform.
Keep in mind that the eyecandy in OS X has gotten more optimized over the years with Altivec on G4 and G5 machines and now with SSE2 and/or SSE3 with the introduction of the Intel CPUs.
Windows and Linux have to have drivers, hooks and code for every lowest common denominator CPU and video chipset in the world, so there simply is not much time to code efficient
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:3)
I really hate it when some background application suddenly decides it should announce something right in front of the Slashdot posting I'm typing. Particularly when I'm right in the middle of hitting enter and so I see the dialog flash and I'm not sure what I agreed to. Never happens on the Mac.
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:2, Insightful)
Visual feedback is not only nice, in many cases it is critical - thinking here of the hourglass that tells you a program is working on something. Eye candy, on the other hand, does nothing more than make the desktop look pretty - thinking here of the WindowsXP menu transition effects feature, or the Vista "glossy chrome" effect that will be on all window borders.
Some features that could be called eye candy can also be called functions, such
Re:value of shiny... shiny (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of it, like the animation that swooshes the dock, just irritiates me.
I personally find the PB keyboard annoying compared to my Logitech, and the mouse button on the trackpad - man was that designed by a deaf person? CLICK! CLICK!
I would love to be able to turn off even more of this flashola than I have already. I don't need my windows to swoosh down to an icon, or for every
Re:value of shiny... shiny (Score:2)
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:2)
Because when a program crashes, a beach ball is the first thing I usually think about.
Still, I suppose it's better than the ever-cryptic pre-OS X "An error of type duuuuude has occurred."
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:5, Funny)
Of course that means a program crashed, its like word association. Beach ball - ball park - giant hotdogs - thirst - cold beer - expensive ballpark beer - beer empty - gag at refill price - hotdogs stuck in throat - call ambulance - hospital room visit - wheeled into ER on crash cart
see its completely intuative
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:4, Interesting)
I fucking HATE that. Sometimes Safari loses sanity and I get the dreaded beachball. Guess what -- the system menu is modal to the application, which means I can't select Force Quit. Instead I have to open a terminal and type 'killall Safari'. What the HOLY FUCK?
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:3, Informative)
come on, everyone's doing it... it's like the ctrl+alt+delete your parents used to do
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:2)
Re:Don't underestimate the value of feedback (Score:2, Informative)
All Candy is Fine - In Moderation (Score:5, Insightful)
1) It's not excessive. I don't need 10-second animations to show a window has popped up.
2) It's not too hardware intensive for the time it's released. Around 3 generations ago for video cards.
3) You can scale it back if needed.
For #1, it shouldn't slow things down or cause a distraction. Something cool, but subtle. OSX's dock bar is a nice example.
For #2, I mean you shouldn't need a current-gen system to render everything. If Vista came out today, I don't want to be required to have an nVidia 6800GT to view the desktop with the defaults on. If you required a Geforce 2 or 3, then fine; they've been out long enough that most should have something as good or better (plus you should be able to turn it down if you don't).
For #3, you should be able to run an OS in a lighter configuration. This is for people that either don't have recent hardware or just want a light experience for performance (or personal preference).
Re:All Candy is Fine - In Moderation (Score:4, Insightful)
So, if you've got cutting edge hardware, vista will take advantage of it. If you don't, it won't. Where's the problem?
Re:All Candy is Fine - In Moderation (Score:2)
NVidia's current generation of card is the 7900; before that was the 7800, then the 6800s and 6600s, and before that the GeForce FX if memory serves. You then have the GeForce 4s and 4 MXs before finally getting to the 3s and 3 Tis then 2s. At point 2, you say "around 3 g
Not a developer then.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is incredibly clueless. Effects only take up "power" (argh) and memory when they're in use. The likes of OSX automatically scales down the fancy stuff if your system doesn't have the grunt to run them well, I imagine Vista will do the same. Switch of the swishy bits and your system will use no more RAM or CPU time than if they weren't there in the first place. Besides which
And further to that
Re:Not a developer then.. (Score:2)
You have used Microsoft products before, right?
Okay, I'm being harsh, but last time I checked, Vista had fairly crazy minimum requirements, and even if it's not taking up CPU/graphics while not running the effects, I'd be bloody amazed if it's not still trying to take up a whole bunch of memory (which, sure, might be swapped out, but doesn't mean I like it)
Re:Not a developer then.. (Score:2, Interesting)
You're using your baseline computing conditions. Letting the GUI eat up cycles opening up firefox is fine. There are other times when you're doing computationally intensive tasks such as: compiling, ripping, packing files, watching video.
I don't want the GUI to compound the problem and fight for system resources when I'm just opening a window or browsing my filesystem. I want to rip a CD and use the computer without the GUI screwing things up. The GUI needs to k
Re:Not a developer then.. (Score:2)
In which case offloading effects to the GPU should be no problem.
"... watching video. I don't want the GUI to compound the problem and fight for system resources when I'm just opening a window..."
And in which case, you're no longer focusing your attention solely on the video, are you?
Bottom line is that, in most cases, such effects are visual cues as to what's going on, are off-loa
it can be useful (Score:3, Insightful)
I Thought Eyecandy Wasn't The Main Goal.... (Score:2)
Removing it is always the first thing (Score:3, Informative)
Control Panels --> System --> Optimize for Best Performance
It turns off ALL the fuzzy, fading, stupid stuff, and surprises them how much better it responds.
Linux/BSD?
IceWM [icewm.org] on top, but with KDE libs underneath, so you can run any KDE or Gnome apps, but don't need all that mem-hogging desktop candy just to run KMail or whatever.
Re:Removing it is always the first thing (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Removing it is always the first thing (Score:2)
It's nice to know the pause key has a use again. It was great for stopping scrolling under DOS... kinda been wasted ever since.
Ratpoison (Score:3, Informative)
Use a shell and buy a lava lamp instead - cheaper. (Score:2)
You still cant beat a shell prompt, nomater the OS for so many tasks.
rm -f a*.wibble or del a*.wib if you like - painful on a desktop given the ease of a command line.
So the 60's hippies with the teletype consoles and lavalamps productivity wise and eye candy wise were way ahead of us
Re:Use a shell and buy a lava lamp instead - cheap (Score:2)
Re:Use a shell and buy a lava lamp instead - cheap (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a Linux user myself at home, and trying to get it worked into the corporate strategy, but I can guarantee you that they weren't "more productive" when each application required reconfiguring for specific hardware, you had slower communications, and no graphical capabilities. No GUI is great for filling out forms with text, but for other office-style tasks, it's much harder for the average user.
Re:Use a shell and buy a lava lamp instead - cheap (Score:2)
Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
But building more special effects in the OS level will rob the extra power and memory from the applications and games which rightfully require them.
I generally play games that require a lot of processing power in fullscreen mode, so the OS using fancy features for display will have very little impact (all of the OS's textures will be swapped off the GPU unless I alt-tab or otherwise task switch away from the fullscreen game). And the vast majority of applications I use just aren't going to have any significant negative impact from a bit of eyecandy. Computers are ridiculously fast these days... Word processors and web browsers have more than enough power to spare some for eye candy. There aren't too many applications for which this kind of eyecandy actually hurts performance on modern systems. Even things like, say, movie encoding or other heavy number-crunching apps aren't impacted significantly because almost all of the work in displaying the eye candy is done on the video GPU which would otherwise be unused anyway.
There are other valid reasons too which prompt me to take the viewpoint that less eye candy is better for the OS. Experience tells me that it is futile to do productive work within a desktop with all the special effects enabled. The last time, I tried it, I was severely distracted and fell short of completing my work. Is it just me or are there others who have been through the same experience ? To do productive work, it always helps to have a fully functional but spartan desktop.
I disagree here too. "Eyecandy" if used well (see MacOS X for some examples) can give subtle cues that actually make me more productive. This part is clearly subjective so YMMV.
But the Windows users do not have this luxury. For example, a person using Windows 2000 will be forced to buy a copy of Vista if he needs the added security and extra features like better search. And to install Vista on his computer, he will most certainly have to embark on a spending spree to upgrade his PC to accomodate the extra special effects that are integrated into the OS
The guy who wrote this should have done some research. You can run Vista without the Aero Glass UI being active, just as Windows XP can be dumbed down to look, feel, act and perform like Windows 2000 (except with much faster booting times).
If you don't want the eyecandy, shut it off. You CAN do this in Windows XP and Vista, despite what the misinformed article states.
Re:Disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Disagree (Score:2)
I generally turn off every effect and service that I can. Even if I do have a lot more powerful of a computer than I really need, it doesn't matter with time-based effects because a 3 second effect is a three second delay no matter how fast t
Re:Disagree (Score:2)
Its not eye candy if it helps you work better. (Score:4, Insightful)
I really disagree with the article. Computer interfaces should look good and be efficient. GUI's will always push the envelop of whatever technologies come around. If OS and software vendors aren't pushing the envelope, then they aren't working hard enough at improvement. Who cares about your lame 486's, anyway?
The author then makes the claim that nice interfaces rob the computer of processing power. I disagree. Most of the time the computer (especially desktop) is doing nothing. In anycase, if what I understand is true, upcoming MS windows and some future X implememntations will use hardware acceleration for rendering window graphics-- so, the CPU won't be under any "strain" at all.
Anyways, I paid my dues with the vt100 era. It is now a pleasure to use a nice interface. I would not have it any other way.
Psychological and moral boosting (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Psychological and moral boosting (Score:2)
So basically it'll make you feel like Wesley?
(Apologies to Wil in advance)
It doesn't hurt (Score:2)
If I'm going to stare at a screen for hours each day, I'd like to have what I'm looking at be easy on the eyes. I'm not a GUI nut either--text mode can be visually pleasing too, depending who is writing the software (ever logged into VMS? For the love of God!).
Eye candy is not always necessary, but as long as it's helpful and not distracting, I'm all for it. Good examples are window managers such as fluxbox, windowmaker, and enlightenment. They're pr
Author doesn't know what he is talking about (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently, the author failed to notice that Vista has the option of the running classic interface, the XP interface, or the new Aero (ie: processor intencive) interface. So while a 2k user may want to buy a copy of Vista for security concerns, they should not have to upgrade their hardware in order to do so.
-Rick
Re:Author doesn't know what he is talking about (Score:2)
It is optional.
Re:Author doesn't know what he is talking about (Score:3, Insightful)
If it's not the eye candy it'll be all the 'essential' system services. 2000->XP required an upgrade, XP->Vista will need an upgrade. It's just the way things work.
Eye candy has some nice fringe benefits... (Score:2, Informative)
And then there's the opposite of Eye Candy. (Score:2, Insightful)
Like Easter... (Score:2, Informative)
That last idea would be the difficult to figure out. However, how much is decided by the user when they see screenshots, what is the coolness factor when icons appear to be crystal/brushed aluminum/iridecent blue/etc? How great is it when windows will shuffle like pages in
Go for the eye candy... (Score:2)
Form follows function. (Score:5, Insightful)
First, let's all just admit that out GPUs are sitting mostly idle 96% of the time. This is not simply a question of CPU cycles anymore, like it used to be.
Second, lets admit that when you refer to 'eye candy', you are framing the quesiton as a perjorative. It strongly implies that what you are talking about has already been judged as useless decoration.
Good design follows function, as the saying goes. Examples of "good" eye candy - the Dock in OS X's genie effect. Its fast, it tells you where your minimized document is living, and it can be turned off (to straight scaling). Nothing wrong with this at all. Where developers go wrong is usually in two areas. One, developers are not designers. Developers write code, and should not attempt serious design, any more than the Photoshop and Illustrator jockeys should attempt C++. Second, picking an appropriate bit of eye candy should always follow an already identified need. This is the form-follows-function. Animation always draws the eye, it should not be misused to redirect your attention where it is not needed. Here's a great example: pull-down menus in Mac OS X vs the same in Windows XP. On the Mac, pulldowns appear instantly, and fade away once something is selected; this is correct behaviour, as you asked for a menu - there should be no delay. Fading away is fine because the selection has been made, and you have moved on. In XP, the menus fade up, and vanish instantly - totally backwards. That is bad eye candy.
In the end it is always a question of design. Eye candy by itself is nothing, no value judgement can be rendered.. it is the application. So the way this article is framed is mostly useless for purposes of deciding when and where to employ such effects.
This old chestnut (Score:2)
No, no no and, no.
Yo
kids get it (Score:3, Interesting)
To me, UIs aren't "interesting" so I like to keep them as minimally distracting as possible. The less time it takes for my brain to say "this is a pushbutton" the better off I am.
I've found that younger people are a bit less conservative about this stuff, and seem to embrace funky looking buttons faster.
So I'm just turning into an old fogey...
Some of the effects though...like making dropdown menus scroll down or fade in just take time. I understand how a total n00b might be impressed or even appreciate the connection (being less "jarring" than something just popping up) but it seems like a large cumulative time waiting for menus to open.
It's not just the proprietary OS's (Score:2)
While I share some of the exasperation of the article's authors about the "need for speed" that Vista is requiring, at the same time, I recognize that this is nothing new or limited to Microsoft.
This has been a function of all operating systems that use a GUI. It's been that way since they started. OSS is no less guilty - look at the specs for running Gnome or KDE, and compare the recent releases with the earlier versions. Compare hardware specs between Mac OS versions. Windows versions. In each one
In defense of Macs. (Score:2)
If OSX is ramping up system specs, it's doing it at such a slow rate that very few users should realistically be affected. I expect my mom's hard drives to fail before she's forced to upgrade the system to meet OS requirements.
Useful if Configurable (Score:2)
On my Pocket PC (iPAQ H2210, Windows Mobile 2003) the defaults both for window-open animation and cleartype are off. Turning on cleartype dramatically increased boot time, but on a 320x200 screen, it's pretty well mandatory. The window-open animation adds maybe a second of startup time to each application, maybe two - but it also lets me know when an application has launched, which is hugely useful since it's windows (even if it is CE) and it does things on its own schedule. And I haven't disabled the desk
Mature products (Score:2)
Re:Mature products (Score:2)
Is this from the "Duh" archives? (Score:2)
A great deal of us have been saying that working, being stable, secure and performing are much more important than a pretty interface for a very, very long time.
The first thing I do when I install any OS is to turn off all the unnecessary crap.
Article author doesn't get it. (Score:2)
For example, most people care how their cars look first, how they perform second. If you can mix both of these selling points then you have a market winner.
Same thing applies to computers and other tools - Take a stroll through a home improvement store and look at how much industrial design goes into power tools these days, looks sell and this author doesn't seem to get it.
Eyecandy is not paramount (Score:2)
I tend to like my OS to be as unobtrusive as possible. Many times, eye candy effects take the focus away from what I should be doing. Some examples:
Any flash sites where the site has a million animations and sounds for the menu but lacking a lot of content, or useful content. Next time, don't spend 4 hours tweaking the window-close animations and add a damn site map.
I really hope i
Forced to agree with George.. (Score:2, Insightful)
"Tis better to remain silent and appear stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
I know, I've read on several sites now that the fanciest of the UI effects will only be available if the machine meets the requirements, and that the effects and general UI look and feel has many many steps down it can take in the event that the hardware of the current
Vista offers choice too (Score:2, Insightful)
Linux offers choice in GUIs, but so will Vista (as did XP). What would be really slick is a single, consi
Better search in Windows? (Score:2)
You've got to be kidding, right? The "Search" tool in Windows has been broken since Windows NT 4, being unable to find anything in Unicode text files just ANSI text files. If you want to search Unicode files you've got to open a command prompt and use "find" or "findstr" - I doubt they'll fix this in Vista.
Try this:
But what is eyecandy and what is functional? (Score:3, Insightful)
Adding an image. Perhaps even an image that tells me something about the contents of the window could be considered eyecandy OR and extra clue. Was it gnome that colored the entire desktop red if you ran as root? Eyecandy or vital visual feedback?
Stricly speaking everything not in X is eyecandy. Run solaris on a xerox printer machine and you will get the bare basics of a window manager and yes it does everything it needs to but gee gods it is hard on the eyes.
So where do you draw the line?
Personally I liked Enlightenment but now run XFCE4 wich suggests that while I like a pretty picture I don't want it to get in the way of business. KDE 3.* is nice and all but gee gods it loves the animations. Gnome is too inflexible for me.
Give me candy but don't slow me down. No animations. INSTANT popups/slides/whatever.
Then again I do usually have gkrellm open. Lots of flashy blinky shiny thingys. But they don't slow me down and while they are eyecandy also tell me someting about my computer. Since I am on old hardware wich I tend to try to do things it isn't designed for I "use" the gkrellm eyecandy to tell me if I can expect a freeze to happen or when gentoos emerge is about to fill its HD space again.
So usefull eyecandy?
As for pure eyecandy effects like the holy grail of true transparancy. Well. My terminals are semi transparant and I would have it anyother way as I think (just my opinion) that it is easier on the eyes then a monochrome background. True transparancy would perhaps look even nicer and if it was as smooth as a FPS then all the better.
Yes off course it doesn't really matter and I would hardly use a bad terminal emulator over a good one just for the sake of transparancy BUT if two terms are equal is the one that lets you choose your type of background better?
Is the windows manager that then allows your term emulator to offer you transparancy then better for it? Etc all the way down to the kernel.
I personally don't like eyecandy that steals window space OR takes time but I do like eyecandy that makes the desktop less endless grey slabs of unused space.
Should the OS/window manager developers care about eyecandy? Well that is the beauty of OSS isn't it? Use pure X if you hate all eyecandy or use any of the window managers if you want more.
A bit of sugar makes the medicine go down. Yes the medicine still needs to be good but sugar helps.
Will windows new 3d desktop rendering be a good or a bad thing? Well, there was a recent discussion about offloading physics in games onto the gpu. That would help run the game a lot faster. Ages ago, long before GPU's, some video cards started offering windows acceleration wich supposedly helped offload some of the desktop rendering from the CPU onto the vidcard.
It makes sense in a way. If you can save the CPU a boring task then it can spend its cycles on more meaningfull things. I do know for a fact that a true dual CPU machine has a lot less waiting for redraws then a single cpu machine. Would a single CPU machine with GPU desktop rendering be just as responsive? Surely that can't be bad.
In a way I don't see the problem that the author has with it. Sure sure, windows users who want vista "security" (see a few articles below about IE7 for vista and how secure it is) need to upgrade and pay for the eyecandy but that is MS business model. They got more money some some countries so it works. Anyway I am fairly sure MS allows people to turn off all the candy they don't want.
Ultimately the candy has little to do with the underlying OS. How a widget is drawn has
What is Vista if NOT Eye Candy??? (Score:2)
I mean, it sounds like they're removing most of the features from it. Except for suddenly requiring a new video card/high-end system
The only real features I remember hearing about are the new eye candy and the fact that IE will be separable from the OS. I can't for the life of me imagine why I'd be motivated to upgrade.
I'm asking for real, not trolling
Microsoft: Adversarial to customers again. (Score:3, Interesting)
This has NOTHING to do with doing the right thing for customers, in my opinion.
Disruptive effects result in lowered throughput (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad Eye candy:
Example 1, fading menus: The default configuration of Windows XP features menus that fade in and out. Right click on the desktop of a fresh install of XP and you'll see what I mean. This is bad. Why? Because the rendering that is being done takes TIME. It slows down the user who has to wait for it to render. Admittedly it is only a few tenths of a second, but when you're a grand master hacker (!cracker) a few tenths of a second do make a difference. I always turn this 'feature' off.
Example 2, window animation: Gnome has a very annoying "feature" where it animates the resizing of windows. Minimize a window and gnome draws a series of progressively smaller outline boxes on the screen tracing the minimization of the window. I'm not sure what use this is supposed to be. I do know that it slows me down. When I do something it should be as instantaneous as possible. KDE has the same "feature" but unlike Gnome it can be disabled. There are problems that I have with Gnome and the inability to turn off the bothersome BS (of which this is but one example) is a big one.
Good Eye Candy:
Example 1, Bouncing icons: Recent versions of KDE include what I call icon bouncing. When you double click on an icon to open a file or start a program, a miniaturized bouncing version of that icon appears next to the mouse pointer. The reason that this is not bad is because if I've double clicked on something I expect for there to be a lag while the program or file opens. The bouncing cursor does not slow me down. The reason it is good is because it lets me know that the program or file is actually trying to open. There are times when you double click on something and it doesn't quite register that you've done so. Without the bouncing cursor you might sit there for several seconds waiting for something to happen before realizing that it isn't going to. With the bouncing cursor you know immediately whether or not the system has registered your request or not.
Example 2, Icon highlighting: Both Gnome and KDE feature icon highlighting. Whenever the mouse pointer is over an icon, it changes color. This is not bad because it does not slow you down. It is good because it gives that extra little bit of feeback to the user and creates a more interactive environment.
In short user interfaces should be as efficient as they possibly can be. Eye candy that increases efficiency or improves aesthetics without reducing efficiency are good. Eye candy that reduces efficiency is bad, even if it arguably makes the interface more aesthetically pleasing.
Now I realize that some people demand special effects and other such things. There is no reason why they cannot be accommodated. But at the same time the user MUST be able to turn any and all effects OFF. Furthremore I would argue that there should be a simple configuration tool that will provide both fine grained control of the effects as well as a set of general effects level settings (max, medium, low, off) to allow users to quickly set the level of eye candy they have to endure.
I understand that Microsoft is adding in all sorts of eye candy to vista and that this is the primary reason why they recommend you have a Nvidia 12800^e24 super ninja turbo card with vertex dimpling and pixel shader 15 to run it. I have not seen vista yet, but I suspect that this is a grave mistake and that most experienced users will turn most or all of these new fangled 'features' OFF. I know I will.
Lee
Hard to say...matter of taste (Score:3, Funny)
YMMV.
Re:No shit (Score:2, Interesting)
$>
can't beat that now can you.
Re:No shit (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:No shit (Score:2, Funny)
#>
Re:Necessary? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Necessary? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention- I find eye candy to be universally ugly. Simple is beautiful. The fewer bells and whistles the nicer everything looks.
Re:Necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, the water ripple effect when dropping a widget in dashboard in os X is pretty much useless. The ONLY possible way you could call this usefull is because it's an indication that you did in fact let go of the mouse button, but that's a serious stretch.
I personally find the smooth movement and eyecandy in os x to be great - sure you could make something like expose work without the eye candy, but the smooth scaling of windows makes it very easy to use and intuitive. I stare at a computer screen for a large portion of my day - I do, in fact, enjoy the fact that it's nice to look at.
Re:Necessary? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Necessary? (Score:2)
Re:Necessary? (Score:4, Insightful)
I like uncluttered and simple, but I also like a polished look. I don't use the window switching bar thingy on the top (it wasn't even turned on by default in the version I have now), and the only icons I have on my desktop is a single row of virtual desktops along the bottom edge. Simple, elegant, and lots of uncluttered screen real estate.
Re:Necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on the person. Some people like beauty, some people like function, some people (such as myself) like both.
Re:Necessary? (Score:4, Interesting)
A good example is the window shadows in OS X. These are created through compositing, which is part of the "eye candy" layer. The drop shadows help define the edge of the window without having to have a thick and useless window border. OS X windows are borderless, which improves screen usage, and the shadows allow you to clearly define the edge.
Another example is Expose. This is handled by the compositing system as well, to resize, scale, and reposition the windows
Translucency is another benefit in certain areas, such as with overlays.
While all these things can be done without a fancy eye candy layer or 3D acceleration, they suck up CPU power. We'll eventually see the 'gee whiz' stuff go away, but the real productivity boosts will stick around.
Also, there's the argument that "Hey, i have all this power, why should I just let it go to waste doing nothing" has some merit as well.
Re:The Big X. (Score:2)
Re:The Big X. (Score:2)
Re:Right on! (Score:2)
I haven't run OS 6 on a Performa 475, but on an SE/30 there's not a huge difference between OS 6 and OS 7 unless you turn off Multifinder on OS 6... but I don't think anyone woudl put up with that.
Mac OS X does lose performance from the massivel