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Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

desktopneo.com

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Re: Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

#161

Post by Flammy »

TrevorJ wrote: post #140

The biggest thing I find lacking in desktop UI is the ability to save and switch between states. We need the idea of project 'sessions' where I can open up the software I need to use, pull up the files I need, set my favorite folders, etc and then hit 'save' and be able to restore back to that setup at the click of a button. Right now, switching between projects means setting all that up every single time.

Hey Trevor,

You should check out atlas.co and sign up for the beta for an invite. I'm currently working on this project, and it is exactly aimed at the problem you're describing.

More details:

techcrunch.com/2015/11/24/contextual-search-platform-atlas-is-ivy-softworks-first-spinoff/

www.geekwire.com/2015/innovation-studio-ivy-softworks-unveils-first-product-atlas-search-engine-digital-life/

Re: Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

#162

Post by nsxwolf »

snickmy wrote: post #135
GuiA wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a company where we hire people for exactly that kind of gig, with a heavy focus on building prototypes of your designs that are actually usable because that's the only viable way to design interfaces. Here's feedback as to why I'm not sending this website to my studio lead to schedule a phone screen with the designer: 1) reused assets from other companies (big no no, even for just a mockup) that are inconsi…

I'd love to know for who you are working for.

Some place with such incredibly awesome design that this isn't even worth a quick phone chat about a lousy unpaid internship.

Whatever this place is, they must have standards even higher than Apple's or Google's.

Re: Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

#163

Post by supercoder »

GuiA wrote: post #73
dangrossman wrote: post #47

It seems like a lot of people skimmed without reading the top or bottom of this site: It's not a company. It's not a product. You're not being asked to buy it or buy into it, just to discuss the concept if you'd like. This website is a portfolio piece for a 21-year-old university student hoping to find an internship. In my opinion, it's an impressive demonstration of his design and technical skills. It certainly says…

I work at a company where we hire people for exactly that kind of gig, with a heavy focus on building prototypes of your designs that are actually usable because that's the only viable way to design interfaces. Here's feedback as to why I'm not sending this website to my studio lead to schedule a phone screen with the designer: 1) reused assets from other companies (big no no, even for just a mockup) that are inconsi…

Your company is probably doing it wrong if this guy isn't worth an interview.

Re: Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

#164

Post by pbhjpbhj »

orthecreedence wrote: post #33
tomc1985 wrote: post #12

The problem with the tablet analogy is nobody seems to know how to design complex, professional-level (like Photoshop, or Blender) applications in that paradigm. Tablet apps are overwhelmingly consumption-oriented, and those that aren't all seem to be oriented around popular (and populist) appeal. Why is everyone out for the blood of the desktop/windows paradigm? Why can't the simplified-tablet market and the desktop…

Right, this seems to me to be a tiling window manager with a touch interface. This is kind of an odd combination too, because most tiling WMs are keyboard oriented, whereas most non-tiling WMs are pointer oriented. Maybe that's just historical and doesn't really make much of a difference though. But with i3, I have keybindings to "open the last browser window i used" or "open the last gvim window i opened." I can til…

>I do like the idea of a tag-based filesystem though. //

Ditto, I use tags heavily for web content and photos and would love to do the same for local files.

Seems that it might be possible to overload soft-links to do the job - create a hierarchy of tags and then put a soft link for each file in the relevant place. That way you could use current filesystems and filemanagers whilst you develop the concept and apps.

Someone mentioned file searches in Ubuntu (using Baloo) but the default file manager needs to have an interface to apply tags as a MVP og file tagging.

Re: Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

#165

Post by wvenable »

isaiahg wrote: post #32

A traditional desktop does everything I need. This just doesn't seem like enough of an improvement to make me jump ship. This whole "rethinking the desktop" buzz just seems like another fix looking for a problem.

I also think the simplicity of tablet/phone UI's is not applicable. There's always a trade off in design; you cannot make one UI good for everything. As it stands, the desktop UI is a bit too complicated for simple app/game/media consumption. But similarly the tablet/phone UI is way too simple for most desktop applications.

Tablet applications literally do less so they don't need as complex of a UI. You can't take that simplicity and apply to more complex applications.

Re: Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

#166

Post by joepvd »

stormbrew wrote: post #91
orthecreedence wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, this seems to me to be a tiling window manager with a touch interface. This is kind of an odd combination too, because most tiling WMs are keyboard oriented, whereas most non-tiling WMs are pointer oriented. Maybe that's just historical and doesn't really make much of a difference though. But with i3, I have keybindings to "open the last browser window i used" or "open the last gvim window i opened." I can til…

I would personally kill for better mouse integration in i3 (which I use on all my daily-use machines), and I would be extremely happy to augment it with touch screen support (which I would largely want to use for tile manipulation). In fact, a main reason I use i3 is because it is literally the least ideological tiling window manager when it comes to mouse use. The productivity gains I get out of tiling don't come fr…

> I would personally kill for better mouse integration in i3 (which I use on all my daily-use machines), and I would be extremely happy to augment it with touch screen support (which I would largely want to use for tile manipulation).

This sounds interesting. Would you care to elaborate?

Re: Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

#167

Post by shkkmo »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #121
GuiA wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a company where we hire people for exactly that kind of gig, with a heavy focus on building prototypes of your designs that are actually usable because that's the only viable way to design interfaces. Here's feedback as to why I'm not sending this website to my studio lead to schedule a phone screen with the designer: 1) reused assets from other companies (big no no, even for just a mockup) that are inconsi…

I don't believe your comment was intended to be constructive at all. It sounds much more like jealousy and looking for an excuse to tear down someone who's put in great effort. The concept and presentation of it are definitely impressive, especially for someone who's only 21 and still looking for internship-level work. He's easily in the top 5%, probably top 1% of designers, in terms of being able to see a complicate…

> I don't believe your comment was intended to be constructive at all.

You may have a different assessment of the candidate's potential value as an intern. The parent clearly stated "Here's feedback as to why I'm not sending this website to my studio lead to schedule a phone screen with the designer".

Making assumptions about the parents intent provides no value to the discussion.

Re: Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

#168

Post by tdriggs »

This looks like something out of the design team for Windows 8 (in both good and bad ways). It is visually striking, a dramatic simplification of what currently exists, and it makes several assumptions about the real world of what app developers need and how they can plug into OS-provided UI surfaces. One of the most painful learnings for Microsoft with Windows 8 was that overly-standardizing things like content sharing and tagging leads apps into situations where the affordances don’t work.

Re: Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

#169

Post by JimRoepcke »

At 1:00 of the video, he says "In my document I want to make a sentence bold, so I just select it, and then just click..."

But he doesn't explain HOW he selected the text. Since there's no mouse cursor, I have no idea how he just did that. A glance doesn't seem to be sufficient since it requires movement and intent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=71&v=9WZVPM-zZWM

Re: Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for productivity

#170

Post by munchbunny »

tomc1985 wrote: post #12

The problem with the tablet analogy is nobody seems to know how to design complex, professional-level (like Photoshop, or Blender) applications in that paradigm. Tablet apps are overwhelmingly consumption-oriented, and those that aren't all seem to be oriented around popular (and populist) appeal. Why is everyone out for the blood of the desktop/windows paradigm? Why can't the simplified-tablet market and the desktop…

I think this is the best objection I've seen to what could otherwise be a pretty cool idea to try and refine.

The answer to designing complex, professional-level applications in that paradigm is "make it fullscreen, and use a keyboard and mouse". Tablets just don't give you the precision and screen space to work with extremely complex tools.

I think Windows 10 actually manages this well. I'm using a Surface Book, and despite its various issues, this tablet/notebook hybrid actually works quite well. Plug the screen into the base and I have a full blown, high res screen with a keyboard and dedicated GPU for my coding/Photoshop/Blender. But if I just want to consume, I can pull the screen off and sit on the couch.

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