“Like for the previous survey, there aren’t much answers anymore after about one week, so I think it’s time to thank everyone and close the survey, in order to publish the results along with some interpretation.” As before, everything is released under Creative Commons CC0 license.
Why no analysis on my free text comment? (the first one)
Anyway, I want to congratulate you on the survey. It was fun answering and I wish you the best of luck on your endeavour.
Oh, and I don’t agree that (small scale) multi monitor setups will go away. As a programmer I need one screen with a browser and one screen with the code (and possibly a third screen for debug stuff like breakpoints, running threads, console output, etc). Certainly, we are a (perhaps shrinking) minority but I still suggest that you make your OS work awesomely with multiple monitors so we (I) can love developing applications for your new OS. As I tried to point out in my free text comment there are a lot of room for improvements. I am satisfied with my setup on Windows 7 but there’s just those small details that annoy me from time to time.
Best of luck!
Edited 2011-09-10 21:34 UTC
Because it’s just good. I had nothing to reply, just wanted to put it on display
It was fun writing it and examining the answers
The problem with this project is that I have lots of stuff to do and little available brain time for it, but I’ve noticed that sometimes, taking a deep breath out of the muddy implementation waters and going on a bit of “okay, let’s go 5 years forward and see how more advanced stuff should work” doesn’t hurt.
Well, I do think it is important, especially as far as future-proofing the graphics stack is concerned : for all we know, future computers might all look like the XO dual-screen tablet… So at least the architecture must support it.
Thanks !
Neolander,
“Well, I do think it is important, especially as far as future-proofing the graphics stack is concerned : for all we know, future computers might all look like the XO dual-screen tablet… So at least the architecture must support it.”
A few predictions I made some time ago:
(I’d very much like to be a part of any project going this route!)
Interactive displays will become integral parts of the environment. For example, walls will not only be capable of displaying information, but they’ll be interactive. One wall will support many different user sessions at the same time. Say I’m at the train station and I want to check the weather, I can knock on the wall and open up a browser (ideally unrestricted) even as other people are using the wall for something else.
When I first thought this up I imagined vividly colored “screen saver” like an aquarium. (One might even “feed” the virtual fish, or go fishing for that matter. However we all know it would fall into the hands of advertisers (frown)…
Of course I think there are many obvious gaming applications too, such as playing shuffleboard or chess with strangers. It would be awesome if we could place video/audio calls to tell someone when we’ll be home (how to capture video from arbitrary points in the wall – I don’t know, but the idea’s cool)
It would be killer if devs could write/sell their own apps to run on public walls without going through a walled garden (yes, pun). However we all know these will be locked down if corps like apple get their hands on it.
I thought this through during my college years nearly a decade ago…the hardware is still not ready for it, which is too bad because software wise I think many of us are willing and able to build it. God knows what the state of innovation killing software patents will be by then. Give us the hardware, let software developers compete on merit, software patents be damned!
Here is something innovative you may be able to do today with nearly off the shelf components:
Arrange a physical desktop with a large single or multi-display in front of you. In front of these displays have a keyboard combined with a touchscreen (the same width as the keyboard but just a couple inches tall). You can then interact with objects on the main display(s) via gestures/clicks on the touchscreen. This is less tedious than raising one’s hands to touch a normal touchscreen and doesn’t result in so many finger smudges.
The touch screen can have context specific operations handy (another pun), like the ms ribbon. The task bar could probably be moved off the main display onto your keyboard touch screen. I could move windows from one primary display to another with a swipe on the keyboard. A clipboard could displayed on the keyboard touchscreen to show what the clipboard contains without interfering with the main screen, etc.
Basically there would be an API for any software/web page to make use of the keyboard touchscreen.
All these touch devices with virtual keyboards are crying out for tactile feedback, at some point we’ll have a type of electro-mechanical virtual keyboard that is programmable. It’s not much fun writing software for hardware that doesn’t exist, but you could incorporate the notion of tactile virtual keyboards into your APIs in anticipation of hardware.
We may have great software ideas, but alas we’re often dependent on hardware manufacturers to make them happen.
I am a dev as well. I really hate this emphasis on the widescreen displays. IMHO what we need is a sensible tradeoff between the Vertical and Horizontal ratio.
Guess what 4:3 seems to work for me very well.
So I have run up the white flag and built my own custom dual monitor rig. I’ve mounted two 1920×1200 screens flipped into the vertical and mounted side by side. I took the screens out of the cases and modded them do that the vertical line between the two screens is as small as possible. I’ve ended up with a 2400×1920 display. Plenty of vertical real estate to play with.
I’d really like it if some company would offer this sort of repackaging. I’m sure lots of gamers as well as devs would like such a rig.
Is the space between the screen small enough to work with a single full screen application at once? Let say a text editor maximized over the 2 screens?
I don’t mind widescreen displays. At any given time I tend to have a few vertical window splits open when coding in Vim.
Shane,
“I don’t mind widescreen displays. At any given time I tend to have a few vertical window splits open when coding in Vim.”
I’m guessing you mean side by side, but the way I read that is one over the other.
I like the 4:3 ratio as well.
When my 21″ CRT monitor finally broke a year ago, I had an urgent need to replace it. I went to the local stores and two things to note:
1. Not a single CRT was for sale. Not that I necessarily wanted one, but an average CRT still has superior color reproduction to the best LCDs. I find many colors now are painfully difficult to distinguish now unless I move my head around to change the contrast.
2. Not a single LCD monitor had a 4:3 aspect ratio, they were all widescreen…I kid you not, none of the stores (staples, best buy, wallmart) had standard ratio displays for sale. I got a 23″ widescreen and have been using it since, however I find that it doesn’t give me enough vertical space. Due to the ratio the 23″ widescreen is even less tall than my old 21″. I need to scroll vertically in every app and website I use, and yet full screen windows leaves 50% of the horizontal space unused (including osnews).