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- cmost, on 10/12/2007, -12/+49While I think all these Beryl plugins are really cool (heck, a few of them are actually useful) the folks over at Beryl need to do a MUCH, MUCH better job of documenting the system. Right now, the only way to get a straight answer on some of the more esoteric plugins is to post a query in the Beryl forums and hope a kind soul helps explains in detail. I'd like a constantly updated user guide for the most current *stable* version. Who in the world, besides a Beryl developer, can remember which key sequences activate which plugins and the extent of the plugin's feature set? In their mad dash to throw in every conceivable visual whiz-bang effect, they're forgetting their user base. Let's forget form for a few minutes and concentrate on function.
- rmjb, on 10/12/2007, -7/+24@unloud
Wow that Spaces is really cool! How does Apple continue to innovate and leave the others behind like that?
Oh wait, gaim is calling me from Virtual Desktop #2 - lordsandwich, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I love seeing plugins like these--they demonstrate how 3D desktops can allow for greater productivity instead of just eye-candy.
- shakin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11@carvetia
Beryl has alt-tab (with previews) and also the ring app switcher that both work better than as XP's alt-tab feature. Beryl's scale plugin is an expose clone, but with better window placement (try both organic and enhanced mode... nice!).
The point of this is to do something that, as far as I know, you can't do in XP or OS X. This lets you easily drag windows from one virtual desktop to another while also viewing everything on those virtual desktops. It's certainly not perfect yet, but it's an interesting start. I haven't seen what Apple plans to do about moving windows when they release their virtual desktop clone in the next version of OS X.
In Beryl you can also drag a window onto virtual desktops by dragging it past the side of the screen (the cube will rotate that way for you) as well as pressing ctrl-alt-shift + and arrow key in that direction. I don't think this new plugin is better than those methods, but it does look like an interesting way to do it if you can't remember which direction you need to move the window in to get it on the desktop you want.
The more window management plugins Beryl gets the better it will be. Hardly anyone will want all the options enabled, but having those options lets people choose which ones work best for them. I use ctrl-alt-shift+arrow to move windows between desktops, but that's because I'm primarily a keyboard user. Someone who uses the mouse more would probably like this new method better. - raid517, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13You knocked the nail on the head my friend. I already said this on the Beryl forums. Unfortunately I was nearly crucified (over 20+ pages) for even daring to suggest it.
So good luck with getting them to chill out and just make some of this stuff useful. - cinnix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"It doesn't let you get to your desired app in a couple of keystrokes like XP's Alt+Tab"
yes it does, just not in this video.
"...and it doesn't let you see a quick view of every window like OS X's Expose."
yes it does, also not in this video.
"To be honest i don't think multiple desktops (in all OSs) are the answer when it comes to productivity because it's just another level that you have to go through in the interface to get to the window you want."
I beg to differ. I find that organising my windows onto multiple workspaces is quite useful. It helps me manage tasks more easily for the simple fact that I dont have to wade through all the windows on the one screen.
So to answer you forst question "How does this allow you to be more productive?"
Well it wouldn't make you any less productive provided you use it correctly. It has the features of both OS camps, and has incorporated its own. You don't have to use all the features you see in these clips posted all over the place. I can accept its not everyones cup of tea, and it is still in very early stages of development, but it is not all just eyecandy.
[edit] dah, beaten to it by shakin and probably portrayed better :) - wisam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8This one and many previous videos show new features. So the answer to your question is no, there can't be enough videos. Each new feature is well illustrated with a new video.
- geoffp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@carvetia:
For those of us who find multiple desktops useful, this adds utility and convenience by streamlining the process of getting your windows where you want them.
Getting used to working in multiple desktops requires a little effort, but in my case, it's paid off. Not having every one of my dozens of windows piled up on a single workspace (and taskbar) is great! For instance, in my typical web-crafting workflow, I have one desktop for graphics work, one for code, one for testing, and one for goofing off. :) - Kickersny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@cmost:
Have you tried looking up on the Beryl wiki? http://wiki.beryl-project.org/ I find it very useful for remembering what plugins do what and how they are activated. - geoffp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@cmost:
That's my hangup with Beryl, too. Compiz "feels" more finished (and more stable) to me. I cut the Beryl guys some slack, though, because a) they're moving really fast, b) it's at less than version 0.2, and c) they're pushing the envelope. It seems like they're in a "try everything we can think of and see what actually turns out to be cool/useful" mindset, which I think is just fine at this stage. Once they (or distros) figure out sensible and attractive defaults, it should be really cool. - Snoopsor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@carvetia
I partially agree with you - most of the current stuff in beryl is full of bling bling effects. The youtube videos are mainly showing the damn cube off from different angles, as well as wobbly windows. There is a hell of a lot of useful functionality added, which seems to have been brushed under the carpet in place of windows that burn up when you close them.
I've been trying to get myself to do a video demo showing off the useful features (at least that I find) of beryl, but I'll give a quick rundown of the useful features I've found to enhance my productivity.
The expose like plugin (scale) - very close to the mac os x equiv..scale allows you to bring all windows from all desktops and scale them onto your visible desktop, and lets you click on the one you want to use. It has a few alternative uses, which include showing all applications of the same type (all terminal windows, all firefox windows, etc), and just displaying all windows on current desktop (not all desktops combined). Great for finding an application - it's easy to get lost in the sea of windows from many virtual desktops.
Zoom - zooming into the desktop - very useful for graphic artists as they can spot little problems with designs without having to import in gimp, or another. I've also found it very useful for watching embedded videos on web pages, as you can't full screen those, but with zoom you can zoom in far enough so it takes up the entire screen without much quality loss.
Scale and zoom used together is quite nice as well..say you scale all windows from all desktops, then use zoom to inspect each window in far more detail..when you've zoomed in on those little thumbnails that scale creates, it still looks really great. I'm hoping for the ability to interact with those in the future.
Unfold - This plugin unfolds the cube into a horizontal view of desktops, allowing for quick selection..can browse between which desktop you want. This is useful if you're searching for a few apps on a desktop, but are unsure which desktop it's on. It's another method of an already offered feature from scale..Just like how alt+tab is another similar method.
this current drag/drop view-ports for managing groups of windows on different desktops - great for the micro-organizers who like to use each desktop for a specific set of things, such as programming on one, entertainment on another, reading material on another, email clients/chat clients on another, etc.. I would like to see it offer functionality of not just being a horizontal list, but more a grid, or something selectable.
Transparency - I find this really useful when I want to compare two windows/text documents. Gnome, unlike windows has the brilliant ability to make any window 'always on top'..When I want to compare two documents I have a window with each, set one window to always on top, put it slightly over the other window, then make it semi transparent. This way I can read through both documents, and well..it's hard to describe, but once you use it for a bit, you end up really liking it. It's less back and forth trying to find the same line with your eyes, and less head movement, which is always good for preventing things like RSI, or other aches and strains.
Really most of these things address the problem of search: Finding what you want quickly. That's what all the extra functionality boils down to. Organizing windows into places so you can find them easier, scaling windows so you can find the one you want quickly.
The other problem that's being addressed in features like zoom and transparency (at least the methods I illustrated) was making a task that is annoying to do (comparing two documents, or viewing an embedded youtube video, or looking at a web design to see if it's pixel perfect) easier.
About the bling..well you can also say that's addressing a problem as well - attempting to humanize computers. Take wobbly windows..Whenever I see them wobbly I can't help but laugh, because it reminds me of the slime from Ghostbusters II. If a user is happier using the computer because of the added laugh value, or actually enjoys the effects like water, then all the better to their mental health. - leobaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Ahhh, it's so nice to see some useful window management. I'm sick of windows everywhere I don't want them; and this looks like something that will help me get some work done.
Looks like linux is moving toward pleasing the power user / workaholic, and not just geeks, while windows panders to novices. Anyone notice that vista has an annoying 10 pixel border around every single window? And that even the first window you see (the welcome window) has a scrollbar that scrolls to nowhere? - mrfrosti, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Wow, a plugin that is actually useful in Beryl. Maybe the community is starting to get the idea that plugins can help productivity.
- coredump0x01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6And zoom, and scale, and cube, and transparency, and plane and color/brightness/invert control (if you're a graphics designer). There are a lot of useful Beryl plug-ins, this one just adds to the list.
- jasmin888, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@cmost "the folks over at Beryl need to do a MUCH, MUCH better job of documenting the system."
Hey! You could help out yourself starting a Beryl-documenting project or something. You get it for free - so why not give something back? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Please have a look at this other usefull Plugin;
http://digg.com/linux_unix/New_Beryl_Plug_in_Group_Tab - BxBoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4so what's the key shortcut for this? i can't seem to find it.
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6It's better than all it's competitors. That is what's so special about it. People always ask what the killer feature for Linux is and this is just one of them. A better 3D rendering system than all the competition.
- cstrippie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Per author, the plugin in question is called "wall."
- n8r0n, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Works fine on my laptop that has an X200 card...
- leobaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@snoopsor
I'm not referring to the shadow, I'm referring to the thick ugly border around every single window. Just look at a screenshot. It's fine when you have a single window open, but five or more and its downright ugly and annoying. Even if you try to manually set it (active window border, and inactive window border) to 1, it's still huge. - coredump0x01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It definitely makes me more productive as it helps streamline my workflow (game dev). Use one side of the cube for source files, other side for terminal windows compiling stuff and running the game server, another side for actually running the game and other graphical stuff (skinning, etc), and the final side for general stuff like reading digg when noone's looking :) And I'm looking forward to using this plug-in as it seems like it will make it even easier to organize stuff.
This vid shows the alt-tab switcher and expose clone at about 0:50 mins into the vid http://youtube.com/watch?v=2SWTW6CAYFQ (on first page of a youtube search for Beryl). - Thibod, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Does anybody care about what you say?
If you don't like it, don't click on the damn link. Easy, isn't it? - cinnix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Its more the fault of ATI for the terrible drivers they chuck out to the Linux community. Nonetheless, it works pretty swanky with my x800 GTO lately, asides from the occasional hiccup on video playback sometimes. Im using the latest FGLRX driver and XGL. Too the best of my knowledge there is no way for our cards to use AIGLX :(
- Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3WAKE UP!!!! cmost posts the same thing for EVERY beryl article. Check it out yourself....
- wisam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Now that's a plugin everyone would use. If only this plugin worked along with Scale.
- coredump0x01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3A video is worth 1000+ screenshots.
- jezzball, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2O RLY?
- plumeria, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2One word: Awesome!
And how I hate the fact that AMD/ATI's fglrx drivers do not support AIGLX. - Snoopsor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4@leobaby
The 10 pixel shadow is a funny one. What I really don't like is the only way to tell which is the active window, is by the size of the windows shadow. The active one has a bigger shadow. And agreed about power user features.
Thanks to schestowitz for providing the link to that login manager mockup..Was thinking about it the other day :) - SniperSlap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've been following qualar's comments and he appears to be very anti-linux. My only conclusion is that he's some freelance MS PR representative.
He has obviously been feeding off of Microsoft's teat for the past while because he has all this news in the typical backwards order MS fans regurgitate it.
Too stupid to do research himself. - Xilon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@rmjb: I think he was referring to the Expose features (which scale is most definitely based off, come on) that Spaces provides. Spaces pretty much brings Expose to Virtual Desktops. I'm sure the developers of this plugin were aware of OSX's product.
- searayman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2same, cant find it?
- searayman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2ok i found it, super+e
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It would be much more impressive if you could drag-and-drop things between windows, not drag windows around.
- Thibod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1need the proprietary driver, I know I had problem with beryl when I installed it on an iMac 20" (Wanted to show the dual booting on a mac at work and we didn't want to buy a winXP licence for dual booting only...) But the RC-1 fixed everything.
- Teaboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Does this stuff work with ATI cards yet? My X800 didn't work at all with Beryl, and just flickered lots last time I tried XGL.
- Refrag, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I like Apple's visual representation of Spaces better. It gives you more real estate to manage the windows and to recognize each space. It will also support drag & drop.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/spaces.html - informatech, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1and I thought minimaps where only for games...
- morbidous, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0You can already do this with Scale and I do think that's possible using this feature, as well. Didn't test it on my box yet so I can't confirm it, though.
- kiranlightpaw, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3What, no spinning cube? It seems like every time I see a Compiz or Beryl video, the maker is going ***** over spinning cubes.
- The_Ox, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1A website in the video was digg.com
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -15/+5This bears a resemblence to something which was almost included in Ubuntu 7.04's login manager (with binary GPU drivers):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28313023@N00/327762113/ - qualar, on 10/12/2007, -20/+1Does anybody think we have seen enough of these demos yet?
- unloud, on 10/12/2007, -29/+8http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/spaces.html
It bears resemblance to Spaces, without the black boarders. - 1jaxstate1, on 10/12/2007, -21/+0Do someone on this site has something to gain from all the Beryl stories. Sheesh. What's so special about it.
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