Macworld FEBRUARY 2000 3 Read Me First Simon Jary, Editor-In-Chief
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Indeed, with Microsoft’s DOS on a washing line.The Control Strip at I slavish copying of Apple’s – already secondhand – graphical user interface the bottom of your screeny desk thing is even (GUI), nearly all computer users labour on virtual desktops. Must we forever simpler – a kind of utility belt that’s a better work thus? Or could this new year bring OS cheer to those of us who think stab at an intuitive GUI, but bugger-all to do with desktops or wastebaskets. today’s desktop analagy faintly ludicrous? When graphics guru Kai Krause was in his heyday, he once revealed to When it was first dreamed up – I guess in Xerox’s PARC laboratories, where me that Apple had asked him to help redesign the Mac’s interface. It was just about everything digital, bar the screensaver, was invented – the desktop one of old Apple’s very few pieces of good luck that Kai said “nein”. metaphor must have seemed a rum idea. At the time, Kai was king of the weird interface – Bryce, KPT and Goo were “People will know how to use their computer even when they turn it on for all decidedly odd, leaving users with lumps of spherical rock to swivel, and the first time,” bubbled the bearded XeroxPARC whitecoat.“They can file their glowing orbs to fiddle with just to save a simple file. Kai’s interface were fun, documents in folders, and navigate with that mouse-like bit of plastic that Dirk in a Crystal Maze kind of way. He did show me one possible interface, where from Hardware showed me last week.” the desktop metaphor was adapted to have more sophisticated layers – “Hey, and when they want to delete their files, they could throw the basically, it was the standard desktop but with no filing cabinet and all documents in a trash can!” joined in the labs joker. your folders and documents strewn over your screen as if you’d just turned “Ha ha ha ha!” all the boffins gaffawed. on a fan to full blast and aimed it at your neatly stacked paperwork. “Or we could call it a wastebasket…” piped up Nigel, the British intern. So, I’m asking all Macworld readers to dream up some new concepts and “Get outta here, you stoopid limey!” the other engineers shouted back, metaphors for Apple’s next operating system after Mac OS X, which retains throwing screwed up code pages and prototype joysticks at his greasy head. the desktop despite some Windows-like nips and tucks. Not much work was done at Xerox’s research centre that day, as all the The most popular possible interface revision is a 3D GUI, where you can software guys rushed to the ice-cream parlour to discuss this cracking desktop “reach in” and control your documents in “space”. This sounds like fun, but idea – and invent personal computing for the masses in their lunch hour.The what if your Mac crashed while you had your arm in further than James desktop OS was born, and with a little help from Apple’s Macintosh computer Herriot in calfing season? – and Bill Gates’ innovation/imitation – it wasn’t long before we were all filing How about another virtual 3D space, based on popular shoot-’em-ups such document icons in folder icons, and deleting other icons in a rubbish-bin icon. as Marathon and Quake? You’d be armed with a paper knife and date stamp, Now, we should consign this old-style GUI notion to that real wastebasket taking care to hide secret documents in rooms armed with booby traps under our actual desks.Take a look at your Mac’s so-called desktop.There’s the even Indiana Jones couldn’t survive.You could flame-throw unwanted files, Wastebasket – or Trash if you’ve installed Mac OS 9 – and there’s… a hard-disk and interact with fellow network users by accessing their data labyrinths. icon.We’ll allow for people’s imagination here – of course, that hard-disk icon Anyone dumb enough to let in a virus monster would quickly find the network resembles a filing cabinet, where I’ll keep all my folder and document icons. manager appearing from behind a column with a fully armed plasma gun. Apart from these icons, the Mac OS looks nothing like a regular work desk. Maybe a gardening metaphor would work. Plant your files in fresh Mac The blind on my window doesn’t have ‘File’,‘Edit’,and ‘View’ written on its top. manure, swap the toolbar for a tool shed. Or a sewing kit GUI for old ladies And there’s certainly no rainbow-coloured Apple within reach of my left hand. (knit one, PERL one), or a pub-type interface for the lads (“Error: Sorry, your The desktop metaphor was a useful one, but those PARC engineers, Apple hard barrel needs changing”).Wardrobes, gymnasiums, beach parties… the whizkids and Microsoft drones didn’t follow it through past the document- world (and beyond) is your playground when it comes to inventing the next filing idea and rubbish-bin icon.Where’s the wood-effect desktop pattern, chapter in personal computing. Join in the debate at the Macworld Online with hard-to-shift coffee stain? Where’s the bookshelf, intray or stapler? Forum (www.macworld.co.uk/forum) or email me at [email protected]. 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