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Cairo Desktop Environment

cairoshell.com

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Re: Cairo Desktop Environment

#41

Post by nmg »

rvz wrote: post #17

This looks very cool for an alternative shell for Windows, which is what I am seeing here but in all honesty, as soon I saw the title, it was easy to get this confused with the Cairo drawing library and associating that as a potentially new Linux "Desktop Environment" as the title outlines. The project is technically very interesting for Windows 10 customisation, but the name is very similar with another established…

This part of the description really hit home:

"Never again waste time hunting for applications in poorly organized menus."

The Windows Start menu is terrible, and it's the most iconic part of MS Windows, or it has been to me since the "Start me up" campaign for W95 (one of the best tech ad campaigns not made by Apple in my opinion). And now it is a place where I struggle to activate (?!) the scrollbar. It's an alphabetized list, but I can't tap a keyboard letter to jump down the list, which kills me a little every time I do it and nothing happens. I use the Start menu primarily for locating items to drag to my Taskbar, so I never have to unwillingly scroll past Candy Crush Slot Machine Simular Redux or You Didn't Install This! Saga.

Re: Cairo Desktop Environment

#42

Post by tyingq »

abhijitparida wrote: post #18
rsrx wrote: post #16

While this looks cool, I learned over time that basic Windows shell works just fine for productivity purposes: https://i.imgur.com/HC4evaK.jpg , and this would just add another layer on top which potentially requires maintenance, troubleshooting or debugging. The only additional customization I have is a little utility I wrote in C++ that runs in background and provides hotkeys to launch Chrome, Sublime Text, Total C…

> The only additional customization I have is a little utility I wrote in C++ that runs in background and provides hotkeys to launch Chrome, Sublime Text, Total Commander and Cmder via Win+1, Win+2, etc hotkeys. Why not just pin those programs to the taskbar?

Autohotkey is pretty cool. Aside from "hotkey" functionality, it also has a scripting language, and a way to make small GUI apps. https://www.autohotkey.com/

Re: Cairo Desktop Environment

#43

Post by jankotek »

Back in 2003 I used Litestep. It was scriptable modular windows shell. It had integration with IMs (Miranda), mail, weather, voice control... Sometimes I feel like technology is evolving backwards.

Re: Cairo Desktop Environment

#44

Post by bjornjaja »

nmg wrote: post #41
rvz wrote: post #17

This looks very cool for an alternative shell for Windows, which is what I am seeing here but in all honesty, as soon I saw the title, it was easy to get this confused with the Cairo drawing library and associating that as a potentially new Linux "Desktop Environment" as the title outlines. The project is technically very interesting for Windows 10 customisation, but the name is very similar with another established…

This part of the description really hit home: "Never again waste time hunting for applications in poorly organized menus." The Windows Start menu is terrible, and it's the most iconic part of MS Windows, or it has been to me since the "Start me up" campaign for W95 (one of the best tech ad campaigns not made by Apple in my opinion). And now it is a place where I struggle to activate (?!) the scrollbar. It's an alphab…

Hmm. In my experience I like the Windows 10 experience. I set up my commonly used applications in the customizable tiles otherwise just tap the windows key and start typing the app name, the indexer finds it in the first few letters.

Re: Cairo Desktop Environment

#45

Post by rsrx »

hb0ss wrote: post #32
rsrx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer to use keyboard instead mouse.

But if you pin them on the taskbar you can launch them with win + x in the order you have pinned them. I’m assuming that’s why the other person asked.

I didn't know this was possible, thanks!

Re: Cairo Desktop Environment

#46

Post by heartbreak »

kompakt wrote: post #33
rvz wrote: post #17

This looks very cool for an alternative shell for Windows, which is what I am seeing here but in all honesty, as soon I saw the title, it was easy to get this confused with the Cairo drawing library and associating that as a potentially new Linux "Desktop Environment" as the title outlines. The project is technically very interesting for Windows 10 customisation, but the name is very similar with another established…

Cairo shell has been around for quite a while though. I remember trying out alpha version on Windows XP many years ago. I'm not sure if the current version is a fork or someone sold the brand but it has been around for a longer time. I also recall it wasn't open source at first, but was later open sourced. It just never gained enough momentum and publicity.

It looks like they took the old blog post updates offline, but they’re available on Wayback machine [0]. The comments on posts back in 07/08 were consistently critical of the project’s slow development speed and use of photoshopped mockups to drum up hype.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20090101024408/http://www.cairos...

Re: Cairo Desktop Environment

#48

Post by stinos »

nmg wrote: post #41
rvz wrote: post #17

This looks very cool for an alternative shell for Windows, which is what I am seeing here but in all honesty, as soon I saw the title, it was easy to get this confused with the Cairo drawing library and associating that as a potentially new Linux "Desktop Environment" as the title outlines. The project is technically very interesting for Windows 10 customisation, but the name is very similar with another established…

This part of the description really hit home: "Never again waste time hunting for applications in poorly organized menus." The Windows Start menu is terrible, and it's the most iconic part of MS Windows, or it has been to me since the "Start me up" campaign for W95 (one of the best tech ad campaigns not made by Apple in my opinion). And now it is a place where I struggle to activate (?!) the scrollbar. It's an alphab…

but I can't tap a keyboard letter to jump down the list

Works for me: Win key, down arrow to get into list (otherwise it will search everything), typing a letter jumps to that letter. Bonus tip, sometimes useful: Ctrl+arrows resizes start menu.

Candy Crush Slot Machine Simular Redux

That sucks, yes, but right-click + uninstall seems to get rid of it once and for all.

Re: Cairo Desktop Environment

#50

Post by melenaos »

stinos wrote: post #48
nmg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This part of the description really hit home: "Never again waste time hunting for applications in poorly organized menus." The Windows Start menu is terrible, and it's the most iconic part of MS Windows, or it has been to me since the "Start me up" campaign for W95 (one of the best tech ad campaigns not made by Apple in my opinion). And now it is a place where I struggle to activate (?!) the scrollbar. It's an alphab…

but I can't tap a keyboard letter to jump down the list Works for me: Win key, down arrow to get into list (otherwise it will search everything), typing a letter jumps to that letter. Bonus tip, sometimes useful: Ctrl+arrows resizes start menu. Candy Crush Slot Machine Simular Redux That sucks, yes, but right-click + uninstall seems to get rid of it once and for all.

Great advice, I didn't know that way to search the list
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