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Mercury OS

mercuryos.com

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Re: Mercury OS

#101

Post by pmontra »

frodowtf wrote: post #83
keyle wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because this OS is a speculative puff piece by a UI designer looking to drum up some business.

I don't know why you people are so touched about somebody's attempt at redesigning an OS. Here's the thing: You are not the target audience of this OS and you are by no means required to use it. In my opinion, this is a solid attempt at creating an operating system for non-techies. Way fewer concepts to learn, way easier interaction.

I didn't understand how to interact with anything using Mercury OS. One of the first things I'll do today will be opening a terminal, git pull, then edit some files in my editor, start a Vagrant VM with Django, check the result. Nothing of what I saw on this site gives me an idea of how to do it.

Re: Mercury OS

#102

Post by comex »

BearOso wrote: post #36
catchmeifyoucan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, consider you have 3 apps: gmail, slack and google docs In gmail, you have a shipping confirmation, a calendar invite, and a team newsletter. In slack you have a question from a customer, a review request from the team, and a poll for the next offsite. And in Docs, you have a new project summary, a budget proposal, and a post-mortem doc. You see, how you actually have 9 different things to do (intentions), but t…

So just add all the apps' functions to emacs and we're golden. Got it.

In all seriousness, emacs is a good example of an environment where "apps" are less siloed and rigid than they are in a typical graphical OS environment. Another is the Unix shell. The idea of creating an environment that achieves the same level of flexibility and empowerment while being modern and graphical and, somehow, accessible to non-programmers… it's not a new idea, but it's a noble one. "Mercury OS" deserves points for at least trying to imagine how it could work, even if there's not much meat on the bone.

Re: Mercury OS

#103

Post by BozeWolf »

BozeWolf wrote: post #100
m463 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go in a different direction too. Personally, I would like some sort of "personal workspaces". Sort of virtual desktops that were project-oriented. I would like switch to a project, find all my notes, emails, lists, files and more (terminal windows? web browsing/tabs? apps?) in that environment. and when I run out of time, shut it down. Next time I switch to it, all my context is right there, ready to jump in.…

MacOS can do this, it is called stage manager. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213315 I tried it, but it is just not there yet. My use case is switching between 3d cad design and printing apps (browser, slicer, notes) and between coding (jetbrains ide’s, terminal, browser, draw.io app)

But in the spirit of the parent article, it would be nicer if the os knew i wanted to do 3d cad printing and then organize my window with all cad/3d printing related modules. To let it create my perfect workflow because it gets my intents.

And when i switch from design to getting into the production stage, it should make the slicer module more prominent. Cad design usually are tweaks after this.

Re: Mercury OS

#104

Post by hnlmorg »

frodowtf wrote: post #83
keyle wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because this OS is a speculative puff piece by a UI designer looking to drum up some business.

I don't know why you people are so touched about somebody's attempt at redesigning an OS. Here's the thing: You are not the target audience of this OS and you are by no means required to use it. In my opinion, this is a solid attempt at creating an operating system for non-techies. Way fewer concepts to learn, way easier interaction.

They’re not redesigning an OS. They are describing a theoretical UI.

This is about as close to designing an operating system as drawing a front cover is to writing a book.

Re: Mercury OS

#105

Post by happymellon »

andai wrote: post #95
SkyMarshal wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, the fact that stealing focus still exists in 2023 is maddening. Please just let me open windows and apps in the background while I continue to work uninterrupted in the main focus window in the foreground. Even web browsers let you open tabs in the background, why haven’t OS’s caught up to the yet. That said, I like the concept of this OS design. It reminds me a little of the theoretical concept behind Star Trek…

I have the opposite problem. If I open too many Windows, the Windows window manager starts glitching out. When I open an app, it doesn't always come to the front and I have to go alt-tab through dozens of windows to find it. (Sometimes it ends up at the bottom, so alt-shift-tab switches to it... but sometimes it ends up in the middle ...) Also if I open too many windows, opening Windows explorer takes 1-2 or more sec…

How many are we talking about here, I'm curious about how many windows is too many for Windows?

I don't often have more than 30 open, and at that point I start thinking it's excessive and that I should probably tidy up to make sure I actually complete a task rather than get distracted.

Re: Mercury OS

#106

Post by ungamedplayer »

_zzaw wrote: post #53
rpeden wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy this kind of creative exploration. I get a lot of value from HN, but technocratic communities often fail to understand the value of reimagining everyday things. They sometimes get so caught up in the technical bits and pieces they don't like about something you end up with responses like those you in this discussion, or HN's reaction to Dropbox, or Shallots Slashdot's reaction to the iPod.

Yeah, this whole thread is why Hacker News has the "orangesite" reputation it does. I wouldn't have shared anything like this on here, and that is a criticism of HN, not projects like Mercury OS. I thought this was an interesting project. The site is well-designed. The UI is attractive. As a designer, I really enjoy reading about these things. The fact that this isn't something you'd build your personally customized…

Why wouldnt you build this on Linux?

Re: Mercury OS

#107

Post by ungamedplayer »

BearOso wrote: post #36
catchmeifyoucan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, consider you have 3 apps: gmail, slack and google docs In gmail, you have a shipping confirmation, a calendar invite, and a team newsletter. In slack you have a question from a customer, a review request from the team, and a poll for the next offsite. And in Docs, you have a new project summary, a budget proposal, and a post-mortem doc. You see, how you actually have 9 different things to do (intentions), but t…

So just add all the apps' functions to emacs and we're golden. Got it.

This is my approach.

Re: Mercury OS

#108

Post by anhner »

wesapien wrote: post #94
m463 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go in a different direction too. Personally, I would like some sort of "personal workspaces". Sort of virtual desktops that were project-oriented. I would like switch to a project, find all my notes, emails, lists, files and more (terminal windows? web browsing/tabs? apps?) in that environment. and when I run out of time, shut it down. Next time I switch to it, all my context is right there, ready to jump in.…

Sounds like this is pretty doable in Linux with some tinkering

Not even tinkering, KDE has this builtin.

Re: Mercury OS

#109

Post by p0w3n3d »

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

-- Frank Herbert, Dune

This has just recently hit me hard. I mean people who give every thinking to the machine are really getting their head free, but also free of thought. And thought is what makes my mind exercised. I really have problems with focus recently and fighting back my "be here and now" from my phone. This "look-i'm-humane" OS sounds like a next gen stealer

Re: Mercury OS

#110

Post by anhner »

rank0 wrote: post #16

What a bunch of non statements. They’re just designing another tablet UI and renaming everything. Instead of applications, virtual desktops, and launchers we have “flows, modules, and spaces” It’d be cool to see more natural language support in OS interfaces though!

I don't know if they could be more pretentious even if they tried:

"Mercury rejects the Desktop Metaphor and App Ecosystems as fundamentally inhumane. "

2 pages later...

"Every Module can be defined and redefined using its Locus (the action bar). Locus combines the power of a Command-Line Interface with the convenience Natural Language Processing and the discoverability of GUI."

So they reject the inhumaneness of the Desktop metaphor, but replace it with another (Locus - what even does that mean?). At least I know what an action bar is.

Then, it touts itself as a complete replacement of the old paradigms, focused on touch interactivity, but:

"You can tap the Command key to toggle the display of available actions if you are unsure of where to start."

The command key? Is this built for Apple devices only? And if it's touch centric, why do I have a key?

ETA: a way more useful redesign IMO: https://uxdesign.cc/redesigning-siri-and-adding-multitasking...

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