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Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment

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Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment

#71

Post by Nevermark »

[Posted different version under a now flagged comment]

I would love a completely customizable desktop system.

Be able to select different window arrangers, docks, etc., for each workspace.

--

Thinking bigger, something useful would be persistent and named "worksets" of workspaces, that can be closed and reopened. One workset at a time, or multiple.

It would help to be able to view/edit/access the same docs and tools in multiple windows, across workspaces, with different sizes and placements. Think the same Word doc, open in different workspaces, with disparate sizes.

I would optimize worksets for every possible context: crafting areas, development projects, regular tasks, etc.

The result would be dozens of worksets, that let me return to useful contexts months or even years between visits. So the workset manager should allow for hierarchical organization.

And I would want worksets to sync across devices, along with my regular file and app syncing.

Yup. That's it. That is all I want!

Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment

#72

Post by bityard »

culebron21 wrote: post #24

I see a slightly restyled Mate desktop environment. Nothing really new, some marginal advantage like a tiny bit more visible window focus. Scrollbars still invisible. Buttons even harder to distinguish from not-buttons, and not clear how a disabled button can look when everything is so graywashed. Generally, looks like another designers take on style, not usability.

I ran MATE for years because I thought the GNOME3 rug-pull redesign was a major step backward. MATE has not really evolved a ton since it was forked from GNOME 2, so I honestly don't see the similarity between Cosmic and MATE. If anything, Cosmic looks to me more like "GNOME 3, but behaves even _more_ like MacOS."

If you like real buttons and scollbars, KDE is very nice these days and is MUCH more stable than it used to be.

Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment

#73

Post by rjzzleep »

teekert wrote: post #33
culebron21 wrote: post #24

I see a slightly restyled Mate desktop environment. Nothing really new, some marginal advantage like a tiny bit more visible window focus. Scrollbars still invisible. Buttons even harder to distinguish from not-buttons, and not clear how a disabled button can look when everything is so graywashed. Generally, looks like another designers take on style, not usability.

If it's a fast, Rust written, modern, Wayland native DE with quarter tiling I am already happy. Let it grow from there.

Cosmic has a huge opportunity to make a desktop toolkit that doesn't suck. With proper components that you need for modern applications. I tried reaching out to the team on LinkedIn, but I guess it just goes into the LinkedIn spam. If they can nail the component library on their rust framework, I believe Linux Desktop applications might finally take off. But so far it doesn't seem like I could catch their interested.

Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment

#74

Post by gizmo »

juujian wrote: post #53
mwidell wrote: post #43

Look at how the icons at the bottom have almost zero margin to the overly rounded sides. Why is it so hard for anyone outside of Apple to make a visually appealing GUI? It just requires a little bit of taste and sense of aesthetics. I am baffled that this hasn't happened yet. The closest thing so far is probably ElementaryOS.

I have no admittedly no understanding of aesthetics. Is the ideal big margins and this is far away from it, or is this close to the ideal with minimal margins? From a functional standpoints margins around a dock would be a waste of space, no?

The problem isn't that margins should have a specific size but that the design as a whole should feel cohesive. It's the balance of padding, margin, font sizes, and text alignment that is all wrong. Not just one specific thing, but the whole thing. Nothing lines up vertically. There are too many and too few borders. Some invisible borders take up space and others don't.

Big margins and tons of whitespace is fashionable. Good design doesn't need to be fashionable, but it does need internal consistency. A Mac-style dock with big rounded corners needs some space to breathe. If you don't want to sacrifice that screen space then maybe it's better to go for a more angular design.

Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment

#75

Post by martzy13 »

criddell wrote: post #34

All of the Linux desktop environments feel like thin skins compared to what we had in the past. I keep hoping somebody will implement OS/2's Workplace Shell for Linux. Rexx would be nice too but I suspect most people would rather stick with a scripting language they already know. https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/The_WorkPlace_Shell,... https://komh.github.io/os2books/pdf/OS2_REXX.pdf

Is it possible to summarize what this is/was? I know I could RTFM but it's 336 pages, and the wiki didn't seem to shed any light on this for me.

Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment

#76

Post by jeremyjh »

troyvit wrote: post #26
Pfhortune wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The beauty of open source is that many philosophies have room to prosper. The Linux ecosystem is not the Apple ecosystem.

At first I was going to say something like "Well with that attitude we'll never get the 'year of the Linux desktop.' But actually, what you say describes exactly what the Linux desktop is. It isn't about hegemony but rather a free marketplace of ideas and philosophies that gives its users a depth of choice between desktops and configurability within desktops that you can't find in any other operating system. So with…

It will be the year of the Linux Desktop when I recommend it to my parents.

I don't actually think that is ever happening, and I'm totally fine with it.

Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment

#78

Post by jklinger410 »

stonogo wrote: post #63
jklinger410 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see a slightly restyled Mate desktop environment You should look harder.

Why? What will we find?

A built in mac-like dock, completely different styling on components, no weird bottom window bar, no windows-like application menu, customized theme engine, built in window tiling. Just a few little differences.

Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment

#79

Post by calvinmorrison »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #39
culebron21 wrote: post #24

I see a slightly restyled Mate desktop environment. Nothing really new, some marginal advantage like a tiny bit more visible window focus. Scrollbars still invisible. Buttons even harder to distinguish from not-buttons, and not clear how a disabled button can look when everything is so graywashed. Generally, looks like another designers take on style, not usability.

I couldn't agree more. I feel like as the computer literacy of the people making decisions in tech companies has gone up, the care that's being invested into actually making good user interfaces has gone down. This applies to Macs, Windows, and also to Linux desktop environments. Just 15 years ago, there was a heavy focus on usability and making user interfaces clear and readable. Now, the focus seems to be much more…

KDE 3.5 still exists and is still usable. check it out at trinitydesktop.org

Re: Cosmic: A New Desktop Environment

#80

Post by shortrounddev2 »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #79
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more. I feel like as the computer literacy of the people making decisions in tech companies has gone up, the care that's being invested into actually making good user interfaces has gone down. This applies to Macs, Windows, and also to Linux desktop environments. Just 15 years ago, there was a heavy focus on usability and making user interfaces clear and readable. Now, the focus seems to be much more…

KDE 3.5 still exists and is still usable. check it out at trinitydesktop.org

Oh that is just beautiful
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