User Interface

[Jecel Mattos de Assumpcao Jr.]

I don't think that the current window-based standard will last
more than five to six years. It does not make the best use of
limited screen real estate and is not well suited to the future
generation of Virtual Reality computers.

It is a very good start, though. One thing that I think is very
important is what I call "transparency". I don't like for the
system to be built one way and the UI in another with a big, fat
translation layer in between ( Windows/DOS or Motif/Unix are
examples of what I am talking about ). I believe that the system
should seem to the user to be what it actually is. You should
learn deeper versions of the same ideas as you go down levels,
not totally different ideas.

Speaking of ideas, Self 4.0 ( due early 95 ) will have a 3D UI
and I have a very ugly prototype that can be seen at:
      http://www.lsi.usp.br/~jecel/gui.html

Ken Perlin has a very neat "fractal user interface" that is
described in the Siggraph proceedings of around two years back
( if I am not mistaken ). Here you see an infinite 2D plane that
you can scroll in any direction and zoom in or out as much as
you want. Information is nested graphically - you might get a
file's content, for example, by zooming in what looked like a
tiny dot after the file's name!

There are many neat ideas out there. The current Windows users
might resent any big change, but they'll have to face it sooner
or later ( some command line die-hards still denounce the evils
of windows :-)

-- Jecel