FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment • Hacker News Board

Re: FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment

#41

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

jensvdh wrote: post #40

young_unixer wrote: post #39

Why do all open source desktop environments have to be so ugly?

Turns out design is hard and expensive.

Meh I think they just don't care. I've been building a desktop environment and installing dozens of existing ones (open source and otherwise) in VMs to examine crucial components.

It's appalling how the simplest UI/UX items are broken in most of them. It's stuff that's certainly no harder than the technical stuff that these talented people do otherwise, when you look at the issues and complex bugs reported on Github/Launchpad. But they can't be arsed to put a caps-lock warning on the login screen or have a blinking cursor in their text-field, really basic stuff.

As a result I've paused the project and am designing a list of UI/UX specifications for basic desktop environment software. For open-source projects to be friendly to users all we have to do is get the developers to put the editor down and not skip the first step, it's not complicated it's just not a fun technical challenge.

Re: FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment

#42

Post by bklaasen » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #14

I've always felt that OS/2's Workplace Shell was a lost opportunity. Other than NextStep, are there other desktop environments that can do similar things?

Have you seen SerenityOS? https://serenityos.org/

"A graphical Unix-like operating system for desktop computers!

SerenityOS is a love letter to '90s user interfaces with a custom Unix-like core. It flatters with sincerity by stealing beautiful ideas from various other systems.

Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of late-1990s productivity software and the power-user accessibility of late-2000s *nix.

This is a system by us, for us, based on the things we like."

Boots in a VM currently, but it has attracted a good community and people are working on getting it booting on hardware. It's been featured on HN several times: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment

#43

Post by naikrovek » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 8:05 PM UTC

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #41

jensvdh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out design is hard and expensive.

Meh I think they just don't care. I've been building a desktop environment and installing dozens of existing ones (open source and otherwise) in VMs to examine crucial components. It's appalling how the simplest UI/UX items are broken in most of them. It's stuff that's certainly no harder than the technical stuff that these talented people do otherwise, when you look at the issues and complex bugs reported on Github/…

I think some people just simply do not notice the little things. and I think those people tend to work on open source UI toolkits.

Re: FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment

#44

Post by alexvoda » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #41

jensvdh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out design is hard and expensive.

Meh I think they just don't care. I've been building a desktop environment and installing dozens of existing ones (open source and otherwise) in VMs to examine crucial components. It's appalling how the simplest UI/UX items are broken in most of them. It's stuff that's certainly no harder than the technical stuff that these talented people do otherwise, when you look at the issues and complex bugs reported on Github/…

will you publish this?

Re: FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment

#45

Post by andydotxyz » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

Oh man there is a 0.3 release right around the corner which has so many new features added. We should post again when some more of the "fresh look" aspects are clearer :)

Re: FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment

#46

Post by andydotxyz » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

Minor49er wrote: post #12

I hate to be that guy, but the first caption under the Themes section should read: "The standard theme in its dark look." Having the apostrophe in "its" makes it read "in it is dark look"

Thanks, fixed :)

Re: FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment

#47

Post by andydotxyz » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #23

I'm not sure how much of a 'reimagining' or 'fresh look' this is when you really get going, but judging from the home page the novel feature seems to be... dialogue backgrounds that run into buttons?

Yeah so much of the fresh look is a technical aspect at the moment - like being able to develop it on any OS, or the simplicity of the module system. Once we have some more time developing we will be able to get the fresh look better surfaced. Lots of plans!

Re: FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment

#48

Post by andydotxyz » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

young_unixer wrote: post #39

Why do all open source desktop environments have to be so ugly?

As you can probably guess they are mostly built by engineers. The Fyne project has been lucky to get generous sponsors and the money has just about made it possible for us to pay designers. So that is what we will do. Expect great improvements. And if you would like to be involved, every little helps! http://github.com/sponsors/fyne-io

Re: FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment

#49

Post by andydotxyz » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

41209 wrote: post #26

I would pay good money if someone figured out a way to get this thing to run on top of windows, while allowing me to run all my Windows programs anyway. I assume this just isn't possible, but it would be so great. I ultimately love windows, but I definitely do miss the customization options Linux gives you.

Being a Fyne app it is technically possible. In fact we often develop features of FyneDesk on macOS computers. The big challenge is how we replace the windows graphical shell across the desktop - it is probably possible, but the good money required may be quite large :(.

Re: FyneDesk, a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment

#50

Post by andydotxyz » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

Taniwha wrote: post #29

I think that requiring all your desktop apps to be rewritten is go is going to be a big ask - equivalent toolkits like KDE/QT have gone out of their way to provide multiple language bindings, or to just support X-apps natively

At Fyne we believe that the Go language is just so much easier to build with that following its idioms is a really positive thing. Language bridges and library ports can make it harder to develop. Of course you don't have to rebuild your apps, Qt and KDE and EFL apps will all work just fine inside a FyneDesk setup as we follow FDO specs etc.