Not bad I suppose. Double-clicking the icon should open the item, not double-clicking the name. A bit slow on my PBook 1,67Ghz with 1.5GB RAM. Also does the author not realise that the hierichial file system is dead now we have advanced search like Spotlight?The App is worth a look though. Well done.
@StarManta: +digg. 3d desktop is such a bad idea. Like flip3d, at least they could have put the task name or something on the binding. Apps aren't 3d, windows aren't, apps aren't. I'd love to see someone make a good 3D interface but it's failed so many times.Like XGL. I see people spinning the cube on youtube but then they stop day-to-day I bet. 3D cube on Desktop Manager (osx), not so useful. Flip3d not as useful as plain alt-tab previews in Vista 5728. Project Looking Glass from Sun, didn't really impress. As far as XGL offloading to the GPU, sure, I see that. But we haven't made the metaphorical leap to a real desk yet in the 2d UI. Nor should we just because we can.Take a phone book on the present web, a paper phone book and a 3d phone book. You can type in "dry cleaner" and hit enter. You can flip through a paper book A-Z to find your dry cleaner. Or, the VRML way in 1998, you could run through a forest and over hills to find your dry cleaner's number. :P
@DaffyDuckNo, you can't perform file management tasks with this application yet - I asked and was told that this is coming in version 1.5 towards the end of the year. If you wish to copy/move or delete a file/folder then you are recommended to select the desired object and then press Command + Return to select the object in Finder.Anyway, promising product but I believe it needs updating before it is truly useful.
Some stuff is accelerated in OSX 10.4 It's quartz non-extreme, (lol) and the GPU does it. It throws it into a PDF-like form (though not a full pdf) and the GPU ends up doing some of the work. Throw in real vector graphics and you see why you can do things like "play a movie in the task bar(dock) even while it's minimized and see the thumbnail animated at 29.5fps" and all that eye-candy that's going on.Shift double click a window in OSX and it shrinks slowly to the dock = interpolation just like in a game engine. But yes, I look forward to when the marketing falls off and 10.5 is _really_ 64-bit and Quartz Extreme for 2d _really_ accelerates everything with the GPU. It's yet another wait and see thing.
Well the article states,"The standard file browser on the Mac is the Finder, which can show thumbnails of image files, but shows all other files and folders as standard icons."Anyway, we both know that the fanboy culture is what will digg me down. Talking negativley of an Apple poduct...?!
I think it's like a very good replacement for icon view in the Finder. It has the architecture for being a file manager, just doesn't have the functionality yet.Positive: Excellent keyboard navigation and icon spacing make the mouse kind of extraneous. That's a VERY good thing in my view. This may need some extra work when the file management aspects are made functional, but as a browser it's great.Positive, with room for improvement: I really like the visual animation when you come back out of a folder. However, I'm not sure just wobbling the folder is the best choice. It grabs your attention to where you were, but it doesn't feel like a natural way folders behave. A translucent folding effect as the current folder shrinks back into place, might be better, but is purely just eye candy. The functionality of wagging the folder helps out much more than I ever imagined it would.Negative: Very heavy dependence on previews and standard file formats. If you go into a folder with unrecognized file types (e.g. gimp xgf files) the navigation becomes uncomfortable. For the un-previewable files in a folder, I'd love to see them in a list view or table view at the top of bottom of the screen but with files you can preview in the current "icon" mode. If there is no preview, the filename, date, and other info becomes VERY important in browsing. The Finder does this poorly right now by making me swtich modes to see previewable files and file info in a list view. It'd be great to have a hybrid.Negative, but irrelevant: This is not a substitute for the magnificence of column view. You can't quickly navigate down from the / directory to /Users/Me/Documents/MyPron/ with any speed. That doesn't seem to be the goal of what the program authors are trying to address though so I don't really hold that against them. If intended as a Finder replacement it's a need that would have to be addressed though.Very good job. I hope the authors will be compensated for the efforts by satisfied users. I expect that other file browsers will lift parts from them without acknowledgement or compensation so I'd just like to say "Great job gang. Hope your next product is as great as this demo!"
newbill123: Thanks for the useful feedback. Regarding the "wobbling" folders: there is some reasoning behind that, actually. Miniature icons inside a folder icon are slanted left. Full-size icons are not slanted, except when you preview a file; then the icon slants to the right. Likewise, when you open a folder, its icon is shown in the upper-left corner and is slanted right. That makes sense because it looks like the folder is opened and its items are spread out. The idea is that icons rotate clockwise when you go a level deeper. The same with a song icon, which shows the album art slanted right, and the rectangle with the track number not slanted. That's because the album is not the actual file; the track is. The album is much like a parent folder. Back to the wobbling folders: when you exit a folder, it wobbles from the orientation it had when it was in the upper-left corner (slanted right), back to the normal orientation (straight). Hope it makes sense now. :-)
stukdogSep 27, 2006
a 3D finder would look more like this finder scape<a class="user" href="http://www.freemacware.com/finderscape/">http://www.freemacware.com/finderscape/</a>
jeriqoSep 27, 2006
Dugg for Portishead
matmanSep 27, 2006
Not bad I suppose. Double-clicking the icon should open the item, not double-clicking the name. A bit slow on my PBook 1,67Ghz with 1.5GB RAM. Also does the author not realise that the hierichial file system is dead now we have advanced search like Spotlight?The App is worth a look though. Well done.
hurfydurfurSep 27, 2006
@StarManta: +digg. 3d desktop is such a bad idea. Like flip3d, at least they could have put the task name or something on the binding. Apps aren't 3d, windows aren't, apps aren't. I'd love to see someone make a good 3D interface but it's failed so many times.Like XGL. I see people spinning the cube on youtube but then they stop day-to-day I bet. 3D cube on Desktop Manager (osx), not so useful. Flip3d not as useful as plain alt-tab previews in Vista 5728. Project Looking Glass from Sun, didn't really impress. As far as XGL offloading to the GPU, sure, I see that. But we haven't made the metaphorical leap to a real desk yet in the 2d UI. Nor should we just because we can.Take a phone book on the present web, a paper phone book and a 3d phone book. You can type in "dry cleaner" and hit enter. You can flip through a paper book A-Z to find your dry cleaner. Or, the VRML way in 1998, you could run through a forest and over hills to find your dry cleaner's number. :P
kelmonSep 27, 2006
@DaffyDuckNo, you can't perform file management tasks with this application yet - I asked and was told that this is coming in version 1.5 towards the end of the year. If you wish to copy/move or delete a file/folder then you are recommended to select the desired object and then press Command + Return to select the object in Finder.Anyway, promising product but I believe it needs updating before it is truly useful.
hurfydurfurSep 27, 2006
Some stuff is accelerated in OSX 10.4 It's quartz non-extreme, (lol) and the GPU does it. It throws it into a PDF-like form (though not a full pdf) and the GPU ends up doing some of the work. Throw in real vector graphics and you see why you can do things like "play a movie in the task bar(dock) even while it's minimized and see the thumbnail animated at 29.5fps" and all that eye-candy that's going on.Shift double click a window in OSX and it shrinks slowly to the dock = interpolation just like in a game engine. But yes, I look forward to when the marketing falls off and 10.5 is _really_ 64-bit and Quartz Extreme for 2d _really_ accelerates everything with the GPU. It's yet another wait and see thing.
collywollySep 27, 2006
Well the article states,"The standard file browser on the Mac is the Finder, which can show thumbnails of image files, but shows all other files and folders as standard icons."Anyway, we both know that the fanboy culture is what will digg me down. Talking negativley of an Apple poduct...?!
newbill123Sep 27, 2006
I think it's like a very good replacement for icon view in the Finder. It has the architecture for being a file manager, just doesn't have the functionality yet.Positive: Excellent keyboard navigation and icon spacing make the mouse kind of extraneous. That's a VERY good thing in my view. This may need some extra work when the file management aspects are made functional, but as a browser it's great.Positive, with room for improvement: I really like the visual animation when you come back out of a folder. However, I'm not sure just wobbling the folder is the best choice. It grabs your attention to where you were, but it doesn't feel like a natural way folders behave. A translucent folding effect as the current folder shrinks back into place, might be better, but is purely just eye candy. The functionality of wagging the folder helps out much more than I ever imagined it would.Negative: Very heavy dependence on previews and standard file formats. If you go into a folder with unrecognized file types (e.g. gimp xgf files) the navigation becomes uncomfortable. For the un-previewable files in a folder, I'd love to see them in a list view or table view at the top of bottom of the screen but with files you can preview in the current "icon" mode. If there is no preview, the filename, date, and other info becomes VERY important in browsing. The Finder does this poorly right now by making me swtich modes to see previewable files and file info in a list view. It'd be great to have a hybrid.Negative, but irrelevant: This is not a substitute for the magnificence of column view. You can't quickly navigate down from the / directory to /Users/Me/Documents/MyPron/ with any speed. That doesn't seem to be the goal of what the program authors are trying to address though so I don't really hold that against them. If intended as a Finder replacement it's a need that would have to be addressed though.Very good job. I hope the authors will be compensated for the efforts by satisfied users. I expect that other file browsers will lift parts from them without acknowledgement or compensation so I'd just like to say "Great job gang. Hope your next product is as great as this demo!"
techpediaSep 27, 2006
click the label below the item.
thundererSep 27, 2006
@ collywollyHere's a screenshot of column view. I don't think I could live without it.(It's kinda large at 1242 x 462px, but otherwise it might be a bit difficult to understand by just looking at the screenshot)<a class="user" href="http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8696/screenshotmr6.jpg">http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8696/screenshotmr6.jpg</a>"This screenshot uses the UNO theme and heavily customized icons. Your mileage may vary."
rvurgbSep 28, 2006
newbill123: Thanks for the useful feedback. Regarding the "wobbling" folders: there is some reasoning behind that, actually. Miniature icons inside a folder icon are slanted left. Full-size icons are not slanted, except when you preview a file; then the icon slants to the right. Likewise, when you open a folder, its icon is shown in the upper-left corner and is slanted right. That makes sense because it looks like the folder is opened and its items are spread out. The idea is that icons rotate clockwise when you go a level deeper. The same with a song icon, which shows the album art slanted right, and the rectangle with the track number not slanted. That's because the album is not the actual file; the track is. The album is much like a parent folder. Back to the wobbling folders: when you exit a folder, it wobbles from the orientation it had when it was in the upper-left corner (slanted right), back to the normal orientation (straight). Hope it makes sense now. :-)