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Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

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Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#91

Post by b0rsuk »

I think avoiding mouse interfaces is a valid goal. Mouse is necessary only for a few things:

- graphical programs (but Blender makes a heavy use of hotkeys) - some games - new interfaces. Mouse is easier to use initially. Websites fall into this category, I'd say they're even a pathological case: it's pretty common for a website to radically change its interface. It can be partially dealt with, for example Konqueror used to display link hotkeys when you press CTRL. I need to look it up.

Most of the time you don't require extra precision a mouse offers. A button press is binary, so why require precise movements, mess with icon sizes, etc ?

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#92

Post by fao_ »

0x445442 wrote: post #69
fao_ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Command input component similar to browser omni bars or Emacs M-X interface which parses command input and delegates to service. You might find what you're looking for in dmenu: https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/

Yeah, so dmenu might potentially cover the command input bit but AFAIK it's really just like Enso, QuickSilver, Launchy etc. What I'm thinking of doesn't really index executables per say but allows for the registration of commands. What I'm thinking of is limited in scope to "commands" that are registered with the component. Maybe dmenu can be bent to this use case; thanks for the link.

dmenu at it's core takes a list of input (dmenu_path), fuzzy matches it, and then just fork()s off or something like that, it's tiny so it'd be trivial to alter it so it does something else with that match. You could hook it up to xdotool or something and have it send a command to alter the current X app or whatever.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#93

Post by b0rsuk »

KajMagnus wrote: post #84
b0rsuk wrote: post #65

I like various discussion forums and talking to people online (often on IRC - when I'm programming). I like exchange of ideas, even arguing - as long as it remains respectful. I consider message boards / forums bloated and clunky. I miss usenet and threaded discussion. Disqus technically does that, but it takes what, 20 seconds to load ? And after recent acquisition it's only going to get worse. I think threaded disc…

Maybe Talkyard is a bit different? It's new forum software, threaded, inspired by Hacker News: https://www.talkyard.io . (I'm developing it) With improvements over HN: https://www.talkyard.io/-32/how-hacker-news-can-be-improved-... Hmm I think threaded discussions, make the more sense, the more people join the discussion. If 999 people talk about something, they're going to split up into smaller groups, each group ta…

Indentation depth is an issue for me, too. I would solve this differently: color coded post backgrounds (or similar indicators).

Parent post = red indentation 1 = orange yellow, blue, green, brown, grey, black, white, etc. Then colors could cycle.

I think it would make it easy at a glance to recognize which posts respond to what, after some initial getting used to. No clicking required and I think it's more intuitive.

For colorblind users you could use SVG pattern backgrounds. In fact, it could be better for everyone, because you could have more patterns than visually distinct colors.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#94

Post by endisukaj »

staplers wrote: post #33
sk1pper wrote: post #32

To me, true minimalism on my desktop came from stopping messing around with different window managers, IDEs, whatever to try to maximize my experience. Specifically, command line interfaces to Slack and GPM just add more headache and frustration. My setup: a terminal with tmux; Firefox; Spotify. (Recently switched from GPM, would recommend). Stock everything except dark themes on some stuff and caps lock->ctrl. I don…

Try Spotify in Firefox. Even simpler.

And enable DRM in my web browser? No thank you.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#95

Post by cellover »

avhon1 wrote: post #73
overcast wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the response, is that based on debian/ubuntu? I need to have that environment to mirror production environments.

Yes. http://planetwatt.com/new/index.php/about/ "wattOS is a lightweight Linux operating system remastered from the core Ubuntu Linux build."

I did not know the existence of this distribution, thanks i'll look into it.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#96

Post by klez »

munificent wrote: post #39

Does anyone else remember the WinAmp era of music software? There was a time when basically every app for playing music on your computer lived inside a little floating window that you carried with you to all of the other apps you were using at the time. That really did help me think of my music player as a tool and not a place. Though the little scrolling text could be distracting sometimes, I do occasionally find my…

On supported systems you might like [xmms](http://www.xmms.org/).

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#97

Post by munificent »

romwell wrote: post #87
munificent wrote: post #39

Does anyone else remember the WinAmp era of music software? There was a time when basically every app for playing music on your computer lived inside a little floating window that you carried with you to all of the other apps you were using at the time. That really did help me think of my music player as a tool and not a place. Though the little scrolling text could be distracting sometimes, I do occasionally find my…

Well, I've never had a single reason for abandoning WinAmp for playing music that lives on my hard drive - so yes, I do remember. WinAmp is a tool, and it still works. If you aren't using it, perhaps you actually want a place instead of a tool?

I do still want a tool, but I no longer maintain a local corpus of music files. I prefer streaming services these days.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#98

Post by elevation »

freehunter wrote: post #51
sk1pper wrote: post #32

To me, true minimalism on my desktop came from stopping messing around with different window managers, IDEs, whatever to try to maximize my experience. Specifically, command line interfaces to Slack and GPM just add more headache and frustration. My setup: a terminal with tmux; Firefox; Spotify. (Recently switched from GPM, would recommend). Stock everything except dark themes on some stuff and caps lock->ctrl. I don…

Learning to stop spending so much time customizing everything and work with the defaults was one of the hardest but most productive lessons I’ve learned over the years. I used to have a custom bashrc and custom vim and everything on my phone was custom and I put a lot of effort into it. I even found the perfect keyboard layout for me and switched my keyboards to that. To the point where I couldn’t effectively use som…

I got fed up hand-tweaking my environment, but instead of forgoing creature comforts, I started managing my laptop exclusively through configuration management and version control.

When I got a second laptop last year, within an hour it had my python development tools, desktop wallpaper, browser plugins, wifi passwords, and the master branches of my most recent git repos cloned into $HOME. No more taking weeks to hunt down all the tweaks and utilities I need.

Automation takes effort, but having a consistent reproducible environment has been well worth the effort!

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#99

Post by romwell »

munificent wrote: post #97
romwell wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I've never had a single reason for abandoning WinAmp for playing music that lives on my hard drive - so yes, I do remember. WinAmp is a tool, and it still works. If you aren't using it, perhaps you actually want a place instead of a tool?

I do still want a tool, but I no longer maintain a local corpus of music files. I prefer streaming services these days.

Yup, but a streaming music service is a place. A tool is something that you have.

For that matter, Winamp is still a tool you can use to access streaming services: rtsp streams / internet radio / ShoutCast / etc.

The problem is not with the tool, it's with the places you want to bring your tools to. They specifically don't allow you to do that. They close down the API's and take down alternative clients.

Spotify feels like a place because it is a place, and it's not your home.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#100

Post by [deleted] »

b0rsuk wrote: post #93
KajMagnus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Talkyard is a bit different? It's new forum software, threaded, inspired by Hacker News: https://www.talkyard.io . (I'm developing it) With improvements over HN: https://www.talkyard.io/-32/how-hacker-news-can-be-improved-... Hmm I think threaded discussions, make the more sense, the more people join the discussion. If 999 people talk about something, they're going to split up into smaller groups, each group ta…

Indentation depth is an issue for me, too. I would solve this differently: color coded post backgrounds (or similar indicators). Parent post = red indentation 1 = orange yellow, blue, green, brown, grey, black, white, etc. Then colors could cycle. I think it would make it easy at a glance to recognize which posts respond to what, after some initial getting used to. No clicking required and I think it's more intuitive…

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