ArcaOS - OS/2 - GUI Improvements Suggestions Discussion

[Martin Iturbide]

Hello

At the Warpstock round table discussion, there was a little moment to talk about there should be some GUI improvements for ArcaOS, and I think it is good to write the down somewhere and discuss it on the open.

The question is, based in your experience with different OS GUIs, what do you think it could be interesting to have in ArcaOS ?

My ideas/suggestions will come in a while.

Regards

[Martin Iturbide]

Hello

One thing that is used now in several OSes is the feature to resize windows in the desktop by dragging those to one side of the screen or even the top. I call it "WarpSnap" just for fun and I posted it as a request on lSwitcher, but maybe it should be more related to XWorkplace intead. I guess, since the screen size went to 16:9 it turn into a desirable feature on every OS's GUI.

The idea of this functionality is to enable that for OS/2 windows on PM you can drag the window to the “left-edge”, “right-edge” or “top” of the screen and the window will resize:

    “left edge”, the window will resize and maximize to convert the left side of the screen (from the center to the left).
    “right edge”, the window will resize and maximize to convert the right side of the screen (from the center to the left).
    “top” , the window will resize and maximize on the screen like the normal “maximize window”

This functionality is similar to the one indicated here: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y2YG8xydGk

FYI:

Here it is how Windows does it:

    ​https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/snap-your-windows-885a9b1e-a983-a3b1-16cd-c531795e6241

Linux has WinTile

    ​https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1723/wintile-windows-10-window-tiling-for-gnome/

MacOS has it too

    ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OPA1Xg4CXg
    ​https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/sak82f/macos_has_builtin_window_snapping_just_hold_option/

Regards

[Martin Iturbide]

The other people's favorite is "X-it"

Even that I haven't poll all the people that uses it, it looks to me that having more icons to navigate between windows is the favorite feature of it.

Long time ago I contacted Michael Shillingford (the author) about his software and he told me he lost the source code. It will be desirable to have some kind of re-implementation of it. Possible with icons that blends (looks more like) ArcaOS, and maybe taking it further and even being able to manage the OS/2 default window icons and supporting different styles of icons... maybe.

Any other things you love about X-it? the clock?

[MPJ]

There has been a discussion about it before:
https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,3518.msg42363.html#msg42363

I would like a toolbar in windows and a kind of start menu for the X button

[Martin Iturbide]

Thanks MPJ for the reminder.

Just to try to summarize the GUI ideas.
- Windows snap feature (WarpSnap)
- Customize windows icons (X-It reconstruction)
- Run commands feature on X Button.
- A navigator bar for windows (Object Desktop), navigation buttons and an "address bar" that shows the path.
- Font rendering improvement.
- GUI Copy Files. Combine folder contents or replace directory request (Currently only replace directory is available).
- GUI Copy several Files. A "overwrite all files" option while copying files.

Regards

[Dave Yeo]

- Run commands feature on X Button.

We already have this one. Click the X button and just above Shut down... is Run...

[Martin Iturbide]

Hello

- Run commands feature on X Button.

We already have this one. Click the X button and just above Shut down... is Run...

What I understood about this request is, like Win95, is to have a search bar when you can type directly and press enter. Or maybe like Win10, just click the WinButton and start typing to run a command, but in our case with XButton it will break the hotkeys.

Regards

[Martin Iturbide]

Hello

On a different thread Devid suggested something that I think it is interesting as part of the GUI:
"Another feature could be files preview (image, pdf, text, ecc.) with some sort of keyboard shortcut (in OSX is the spacebar key)."

Regards