Re: ToPaZ, anyone?

[Rodney Dawes <dobey novell com>]

I think this question hits at the very heart of the issue with designing
a whole new concept of "desktop." Not only do we have the whole mouse
vs. keyboard issue, but as software, we are limited by what hardware our
users have access to. We can design a system that takes advantage of pen
computing, touch screens, holographic displays, and any other number of
new input and display devices, but if we implement it, and let the
classic "desktop" fall out of mind, we end up losing a large amount of
our user base, when they don't all have the new hardware, when we
release the new desktop. And I think for the current set of readily
available and inexpensive hardware that people use and have access to,
the current classic desktop metaphor is what works best.

If we had had the ability to drive hardware development as well, we
could do something a lot more extravagent with the "new desktop". In
fact, it would be nice to move away from the idea of a "desktop" for
one's computing experience alltogether, and move toward a more universal
design, where you have many devices with similar interfaces, designed
for specific tasks, which all integrate and co-operate with each other.
Then your "desktop" would just be a common place where these devices can
collaborate to sync information, charge, and do other similar things.
But, as I said, doing something that interesting, requires the ability
to drive hardware development as well as the software.

-- dobey



M�re , 2006-09-22 at 14:47 -0400, Willie Walker ka shkruar:
> Pretty neat looking.  At first blush, there seems to be a lot of
> dependency on the mouse.  I'm curious what your plans are for
> keyboard-only access?
> 
> Will