Re: SEUL: What GUI style

[Michael Peck <mjpeck@mailhost.rsn.hp.com>]

Jeffrey S. Dutky wrote:

> Not meaning to start a flame war, but, I don't like the Win95
> interface and I DO like the Mac. This, however, is not a question
> of personal preference. We are trying to build a system that will
> be attractive to people as an ALTERNATIVE to whatever system they
> are currently using (Windows or Mac). If we try to make SEUL look
> just like one of the existing systems it will not be seen as an
> alternative but as a CLONE. A rather poor clone at that.

Agreed. Do not ape other systems. MacOS itself is a moving target as it
will be evolving *very* rapidly over the next six months and for another
year beyond, at least. Go with advanced concepts, think hard about what
makes a good Linux GUI. Don't bother copying Win95 since it's a copy of
a lot of other GUIs anyway.

> I think we should use one of the more unixy window managers or
> else one of the ones that is just completely off the wall. There
> are two that spring to mind: One is Enlightenment and the other
> is wm2. Both are distinctive and interesting. Both would set the
> SEUL project apart from it's peers.

Matthias Ettrich of KDE points out that a window manager is not a GUI.
Simply slapping a wm on top of an install is a poor decision, in my
mind. The concept of a desktop and an integrated environment is
completely missing from the window manager, as are widget standards. If
we are to leverage other work, I say use KDE as a foundation.

> wm2 can be found at
>    <http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~cannam/wm2.html>
> 
> Enlightenment is at
>    <httl://www.PLiG.org/xwinman/enlightenment.html>

I would say that at this point Enlightenment is to be avoided. It offers
an innovative approach but is untested, immature, and has high resource
requirements. More than that, it is about style and look rather than
usability, as far as I am concerned.

MJP
-- 
Michael J. Peck
Hewlett-Packard, Convex Division
mjpeck@convex.com
Opinions expressed above are not necessarily those of my employer.
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