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What happens if you put work into the second dimension?

norbertkozsir.com

51–60 of 62 posts

Re: What happens if you put work into the second dimension?

#53
post #18

It's basically already been said but, this seems absurd. I'm not quite sure what TRUE benefit you'd get from this but it seems more frustrating than it's worth. I can't figure out a reason to do this unless I'm just in the mood to piss myself off.

Personally this is perfect! I like it for organization...

Having 20 work-trees with 20 terminals (for running the server) with 20 browser tabs open became a pain to organize; with campus I can visually lay them out and know which one is linked to which one (this was near impossible before so im sold)

Re: What happens if you put work into the second dimension?

#54
post #41
post #19

Cofounder of a now-defunct multiplayer, real-time infinite canvas project here (Here.fm) We could not for the life of us figure out how to make this a meaningful productivity tool. Yes, we had meetings here, and yes, drawing all over someone else's screenshare was actually useful - And building islands of data was an interesting mental model. It descended into messy chaos no matter what you did, and anything you woul…

Any workspace, real or virtual, descends into messy chaos without someone actively organizing or cleaning things up. It's bad enough by yourself, but the minute it's shared with others, it will devolve quickly. Think about any shared file system, data library, workshop, kitchen, etc... This is why librarians, janitors, lab managers, document controllers etc. are essential to make spaces functional and organized.

2nd law of thermodynamics -> entropy go up

Re: What happens if you put work into the second dimension?

#55
post #12

What happens if you put all your browser tabs in two dimensions? Answer: you get a mess. That's why browsers weren't built like that, and also why I think this will not work. But happy to be proven wrong of course.

> What happens if you put all your browser tabs in two dimensions? > Answer: you get a mess. > That's why browsers weren't built like that But people frequently go out of their way to put their tabs into two dimensions. There are tab trees: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/tabtree/afejdkkhibi... There are tab groups: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tab-groups There are tab containers: https://addons.mozi…

Someone please inform the Safari team.

Re: What happens if you put work into the second dimension?

#57
Absolutely ABSOLUTELY love the idea and the first thought I had was Virtual Desktops! If that's a correct way to think about it then I can absolutely see myself using each tile (Desktop/Monitor to me) to contain a single thread of work.

I don't use agents at all and I think that building agent/Ai-first is gonna push away people like me (who don't want to deal with agents or any related concept or even git tbh). I'd genuinely say generalise into a Virtual Desktop typer thing.

In your blog, you mentioned that each tile is sorta like a computer (sandbox?) in itself actually containing AND running the work. That's brilliant! Now, if you could make it possible that one single tile could fill the entire screen, like a typical desktop view, on demand. Incase I just want absolute focus on one thing (I'm not always looking across all three monitors) and not be in 'Canvas mode' seeing all my Virtual Desktops.

I could also see myself working across three (or more) tiles where I've got docs in chrome, vs-code open in another and something else (more docs? Terminal? Doesn't matter). Fact is that the infinite canvas literally replaces me having to buy two - three monitors to get the same feel. I could now buy a single large curved one and have infinite monitors.

I had an inkling of this feeling when I saw Omarchy (A tile-based Linux distro from Basecamp / 37signals). What I thought was missing was infinite-ness and a little spatial something? I actually literally thought, what if those tiles didn't squish together like that and the BG were a 2D infinite canvas?

If you pull this off just right and actually focus on getting the desktop version right first (I believe that's where your users are), I believe you may have stumbled onto a different kind of operating system paradigm for a workflow issue we try to solve with even more physical monitors.

I never shut off my PC so I can imagine long lived virtual monitors wayyy off in the canvas ether with all that work still open and waiting until I'm ready for that frame of mind.

I don't have anything to say about the disappearing message except that it's cool as a way to ping or get someone's attention but a dedicated chat box? window? Just a little foldable flourish in the bottom left or right corner so yu can directly 'chat' with someone persistently who's in your space (or you're in theirs) is way more healthy for a serendipity than a disappearing message where it's kinda like an implicit race condition and loses the asynchronous nature of letting me consider a text before I reply especially in work settings. I'd also not want to give access to my entire canvas ether as opposed to selectively allowing access to specific virtual desktop lol

As for 3D? Meh I don't know. Don't need that but other people may like it. I'm just approaching this from a workflow angle. Love the whimsy regardless.

I absolutely want this, I would absolutely pay for this, I think this is a great product in the Figma range and I absolutely wish you all the best of luck because this is awesome. Just focus on the operating system /workflow angle for a desktop use-case first. I couldn't try it (don't have a Mac) but I got the idea from the video.

Good luck, guys! And ykw? I wonder if I could fork around with Omarchy and give it infinite canvas since it's already 95% there. Never mind the social feature or 3D graphics yet.

Re: What happens if you put work into the second dimension?

#59

Absolutely ABSOLUTELY love the idea and the first thought I had was Virtual Desktops! If that's a correct way to think about it then I can absolutely see myself using each tile (Desktop/Monitor to me) to contain a single thread of work. I don't use agents at all and I think that building agent/Ai-first is gonna push away people like me (who don't want to deal with agents or any related concept or even git tbh). I'd g…

Hey, author here. Thanks for the feedback! The goal definitely is to focus on the core. I mentioned this in the video, I like to think of this as a (multiplayer) work sandbox. I'm really curious about all the different workflows people have/ could build.

Windows, Linux and even web versions are planned!

Re: What happens if you put work into the second dimension?

#60
post #33

In the mid 90s and early 2000, all Linuxes had virtual Desktops.

They still do. My first thought was that virtual desktops and moving when you hit a screen edge gives you may of the advantages of this.

Yes but who does use they today on the big screens today. I think my (parents) monitor had something like 800x600 or so resolution.
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