>I think GNUstep needs a reference implementation of a user-oriented desktop environment.
I wonder why he didn't just contribute to Étoilé, since he seems aware of it.
This is a hobby and passion project and yet it looks more alive and better maintained than Étoilé, which features "news" from 2014 about doing random Smalltalk things - and while I _love_ Smalltalk it doesn't give me confidence that they're focused on building a modern Cocoa-style desktop environment.
That, and the last activity on Etoile was quite a while ago, and seems to have stalled out rather badly.
I do rather like the NeXT aesthetic more, personally.
* NextStep
* macOS
* GNUStep
* Nextspace
* Étoilé
* KDE/Gnome themes emulating any of the above
For me, NeXTstep is still the high water mark of GUI design and usability.
I like the look myself but i don't even use Window Maker itself that much nowadays (it is still my #1 WM for Linux, i just use Windows more).
However, overlapping windows and toolbars and launchers and mousey-mouse-mouse for everything ... it's bad usability and very inefficient.
The high water mark for GUI design is something like ion3/ratpoison, xterms running screen/tmux and a "desktop" that you never see ...
Citation needed.
""The high water mark for GUI design is something like ion3/ratpoison, xterms running screen/tmux and a "desktop" that you never see ...""
Says who? Again citation needed.
(Second place is probably a tie between Windows 2000 and Windows 7 depending on how nostalgic I'm feeling.)
Then you get Ubuntu, Mint, etc... for free.
This can of course be done as last pass a part of a CI runner pipeline with Gitlab or Jenkins build job.
”” Note: Workspace is NOT:
WindowMaker with some patches. WindowMaker with some good configuration defaults only. Another implementation of WindowMaker. It's written from scratch. Some WindowMaker code is a part of Workspace (as well as configuration defaults) to provide window management functions. It's tightly coupled with Workspace to provide seamless intergation. Configurable parameters of the integrated WindowMaker are spread across Workspace's Preferences and Preferences application. Theoretically, Workspace can be used without WindowMaker. However, the current development focus is on a single application to deliver the best user experience.
Note: Workspace is NOT:
WindowMaker with some patches
WindowMaker with some good configuration defaults only
Another implementation of WindowMaker*
Edit: formatting
Which is quite interesting, considering that the classic Finder is often thought as the pinnacle of spatial navigation. And Linux does have more obscure file managers cloned, like Amiga's Dopus[1] or the RiscOS one[2].
There are some themes, like Memphis98, that sort manage to create the sort of visual appearance that you're after. However, the GTK 3-ness is obvious even there: the "Open file..." dialog has huge, unresizable widgets on the left, combo bars are long. Lots of UI elements are bulky and oversized.
Consequently, in my experience, you're actually better off with a GTK2 theme and Qt applications with the gtk2 style engine.
I'm not really a fan of old-time themes -- I mean, I miss my Amiga but not that much. I know about this stuff for altogether different reasons -- I spent a lot of time trying to get a more compact layout, because GTK3 applications are pretty much unusable on small/low-density/low-resolution screens (and, IMHO, way too large even on "normal"-ish screens. I have a 27" monitor and, at 2560x1440, everything is so big it drives me nuts). I even tried to write my own, and failed pretty badly. So yeah.
https://people.gnome.org/~bmsmith/build/nautilus-spatial-mod...
We all have our dead favorites I suppose...
Although to your point of keeping track, I do think tabs could be integrated with Exposé ("Mission Control") a bit better.
> Prefer tabs when opening documents: Always | In Full Screen Only | Manually
It's difficult to find because they put it under "Dock" for some strange reason.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/05/maxx_interactive_de...
Legally speaking, though (as a not-lawyer), I reckon it'd be contingent on however the Oracle v. Google war goes.
To enable NEXTspace:
- sudo systemctl stop display-manager
- sudo systemctl disable gdm
- sudo systemctl enable loginwindow
- sudo systemctl start display-manager
- sudo systemctl stop display-manager
- sudo systemctl disable loginwindow
- sudo systemctl enable gdm
- sudo systemctl start display-managerObjective C I've found to be a great and productive language for writing GUI based apps, with the selector based event handling.
Nice work by the developer.
(nice job - feeling very nostalgic)