The network access is too poor and the distractions too much fun here at GUADEC to write a proper release note just yet, but I wanted to let everyone know that the first Gimmie tarball is up.
UPDATE: Released 0.1.1… Realizing that people first running Gimmie are seeing a very empty bar, so I added some default bookmarks for Nautilus, Firefox, the README, and my AIM account. This last one is probably a bad idea. Also, there was a bug when dealing with filenames not encoded in UTF-8, so I worked around this and fixed a few other bugs too.
UPDATE UPDATE: Andrew Karr, author of the Gimmie icon, made this beautiful mockup for a possible future layout. Check it out!
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As for the mockup, could it be rather something in the lines of Gentle GNOME?
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The mokup looks good!
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Love the idea of combining Gimmie with the cool Cairo/SVG bar hack, however I think I’d prefer to centralize it in a single bar instead of 4 different corners.
A common complaint I have seen on gnomedesktop is the color theme… Light pastels, especially pink, don’t seem to be a popular choice for a geek’s desktop
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Link is broken for me…. looks like 0.1.tar.gz is the only file in the directory…
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yes its broken the real one is this
http://www.beatniksoftware.com/gimmie/releases/gimmie-0.1.tar.gz
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I would kill for that mockup compared how its nowadays, somehow reminds me SGI machines, dont ask..
but it needs some love still.. -
The idea in the mockup is fantastic. Finally a real good use of the corners!
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The mockup looks nice, but I’m concerned about how much screenspace it takes up, since it looks to be bigger than the current Gnome panels, both top and bottom. While I’m lucky enough to have a large screen, I bought it to display the things I’m working on, not incidental things like this. And not everyone has large screens either – the one in front of me right now is a 1024×768 CRT…
I think that like Raphael Jannone said, keeping it as a single bar like it is now would be preferable for me.
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The mockup idea is an interesting one. It runs up, however, against one important consideration for any kind of panel idea: the panel must intrude upon the desktop space as little as possible. If the panel or panels always stay on top, then the physical space the applications are using will likely be constrained by the panel. With the four-corners idea, you’ve boxed the working space of the screen into a smaller box than what you started with. (Will the window manager automatically stop the maximized application from intruding upon the panels?)
At least with the Windows bar or Apple’s Dock, you are limited only from the bottom of the screen. In the current default GNOME situation, you are limited from the top and the bottom. In the four-corners idea, you are limited from all four sides.
Another way to look at the situation is what panel configuration (1) allows the user to get the information/tool most efficiently and (2) interferes the least with a maximized application window. My unscientific understanding is that most people work with maximized windows most of the time. (Do people agree?)
Gimmie is impressively focused on (1) [I like what I'm seeing!], but I’m not sure it’s focusing on (2) as well.
My 2 cents, at any rate. Good luck with the development!!! Gimmie looks very promising!
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Ugg, sorry about the download link. It is fixed now, so please try out 0.1.1. Thanks!
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Perhaps the corner-bars could be “hidden” by default such that they leave only the icon of the bar they represent (”computer”, “document”, “person”, “app”) and as soon as the mouse hits the corner (fitts law), the full bar slides out for use?
I think the mockup rocks.
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I agree with the comment about the colors — I would really dislike having those colors imposed on my desktop … it would be like going back to Windows again.
Looking through the slides of your presentation, I am curious about how you use Mac OS X as a motivation. I agree that the way Applications are accessed in OSX is crap, but I have been using Quicksilver for a while now, and I think that nothing beats it. No need to move my mouse to click something else, and through the same interface I can perform many different actions, like searching for documents, contacts, etc. It remember the last applications I have started, it does completion of the application name, etc etc, and it takes zero screen real estate. Of course, OSX has the advantage that the applicatiosn are usually graphical, and are all places in the same place, under a standard packaging, etc, but I think the simplicity and speed of Quicksilver cannot be beat.
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I’m really glad that somebody had the idea about 4 corner style and did a mockup of it, because I had this idea too after reading this preceding post
Well reading comments now, I agree this is not the best option. Maybe a kind of tabs appearing at the edge of the desktop which would pop the related part of gimmie while overing it, or with an appropriate shorcut would help reducing the onscreen size of gimmie.
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As long as the corners thing is optional, I’m all for it – Fitt’s law is great and all, but I’d place it 2nd after the law that says ‘I find things quicker when they’re all in the same place’
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That mockup rocks! Hope to see it soon
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Interesting alternative; SymphonyOS use this concept as default”.
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When installing Gimmie on my FC5 distribution I get the follwiing errors. Any idea? Thanks!
./gimmie.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “./gimmie.py”, line 14, in ?
from gimmie_bar import GimmieBarDock
File “/usr/lib/python2.4/ihooks.py”, line 404, in import_module
q, tail = self.find_head_package(parent, str(name))
File “/usr/lib/python2.4/ihooks.py”, line 440, in find_head_package
q = self.import_it(head, qname, parent)
File “/usr/lib/python2.4/ihooks.py”, line 495, in import_it
m = self.loader.load_module(fqname, stuff)
File “/usr/lib/python2.4/ihooks.py”, line 270, in load_module
m = self.hooks.load_source(name, filename, file)
File “/usr/lib/python2.4/ihooks.py”, line 168, in load_source
return imp.load_source(name, filename, file)
File “/home/jordi/mono/gimmie/gimmie_bar.py”, line 5, in ?
from gimmie_base import IOrientationAware -
the mockup is an awesome idea. i like it very much.
maybe some transparency effects (mac slows cairo clock?) would be good when the menus are not needed instead of / or fading away.
keep up the good work
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@ Simon :
“Perhaps the corner-bars could be “hidden†by default such that they leave only the icon of the bar they represent (â€computerâ€, “documentâ€, “personâ€, “appâ€) and as soon as the mouse hits the corner (fitts law), the full bar slides out for use?”A better idea, in my opinion, would be to put the bars in the background by default (rather than hiding them) and move them to the foreground on mouseover (or when the mouse hits the corner if the bar is totally hidden.)
Thus the bars would always be directly accessible when no application is open, while not taking valuable space when needed.That mockup is awsome, yeah.
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Jake, this is literally exactly what Gimmie does today. Try it out!
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I love it! I agree with Simon’s comment:
Simon Says:
June 28th, 2006 at 6:47 pmPerhaps the corner-bars could be “hidden†by default such that they leave only the icon of the bar they represent (â€computerâ€, “documentâ€, “personâ€, “appâ€) and as soon as the mouse hits the corner (fitts law), the full bar slides out for use?
Actually, they didn’t need to be hidden, they could be always on top as smaller icons (right at the corners), and take over as soon as the mouse hits one of the corners or hovers on top of the icons.
Great work!
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Thanks for the feedback on the mockup! Gus (and others), that is what I meant by the “autohide from corners” comment in the mockup. See the mailing list thread for more (space concerns, closing maximised windows etc):
http://beatniksoftware.com/pipermail/gimmie-list_beatniksoftware.com/2006-June/thread.html#173
I have quite a few more ideas to mockup (once I finish some uni work), but code is certainly more useful to get a feel of how ideas work (and don’t) – hats off to Alex and the other Gimmie contributers!
PS: it’s “Kerr”
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Yeah, gimmie those corners, with those for i’ll be happy to throw panel away.
I only hope that the documents will not do the zoom thing like in OS X (you never know, where to put your mouse while targeting).
Also, i wonder – will it be dual-screen friendly?!
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I love the mockup and use of the corners!
I agree with Simon’s comment about an always-on-top icon in each corner, with (instant) menu slideout with mouse-over. (no transition effect though – you don’t want to wait for the menu to pop out). You could always have an “always on top” for a particular corner menu you really want visible all the time (or all four if you like it that way).
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