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Comment by sz4kerto | Hacker News Reader

Please no. Material design might work well for mobile devices, where you don't spend too much time in front of a single screen (by screen I mean app screen, not the physical screen). The screenshots show exactly what the problem is:

- really bright colors in the top bars: that's exactly what we _don't_ want in desktop apps, as the focus is on the (changing) content, not the title bars. Grab this http://quantum-os.github.io/images/desktop_layout_1.png, resize it to full screen, and you'll see what I mean.

- large empty spaces: for me it's too much even on touch-based devices, but on the desktop it's just utter waste of real estate.

I want the desktop to get less and less popular, so then the OS and app makers can start optimizing for people who create stuff (e.g. me), and it could look like http://i.imgur.com/7Tu2i6W.png or http://yxbenj.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/vs2012_colortheme_...

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> really bright colors in the top bars: that's exactly what we _don't_ want in desktop apps, as the focus is on the (changing) content, not the title bars

Bright colors serve as good visual anchors. If you have a lot of windows open, they can help you find the one you want to focus on, although in this case it'd be better if the user set the colors rather than the applications.

> Grab this http://quantum-os.github.io/images/desktop_layout_1.png, resize it to full screen, and you'll see what I mean.

You'll have to spell it out for me, because I don't :(

> large empty spaces: for me it's too much even on touch-based devices, but on the desktop it's just utter waste of real estate.

I agree that the information density is too poor. As long as there's a compact mode I'm good, but few app makers bother, even though it would be trivial to offer.

> I want the desktop to get less and less popular, so then the OS and app makers can start optimizing for people who create stuff (e.g. me), and it could look like http://i.imgur.com/7Tu2i6W.png or http://yxbenj.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/vs2012_colortheme_....

You know, if the desktop gets less and less popular, OS and app makers won't start optimizing for people like you. They will pack up and leave. These two screenshots show the current extent of the effort deployed to cater to power users, and I'm afraid they show their future extent as well.

The really bright color should only be on the app who has focus I think, the other one could be dimmed when not on focus.

On Mobile you see only one app at a time so it's fine, but it would be tiring quick to have all these bright colors everywhere, plus when you get back to your desktop you would have no idea on which app you are.

Good point. It's important to properly highlight the focused window on desktop so that it's clear where keyboard input goes, and in the screenshots it doesn't look like they do that. I hope the final product fixes that.

Totally disagree on the only mobile point. I've been using Google Inbox as my main mail client for about 2 weeks now and it's great. Doesn't get sore on the eyes and my workflow with it is really quick (as in, it doesn't rely on touch to work). Yes I know it's a web app, but it may as well be a standalone application.

I do agree on not using material colours for app title bars. But that's my only real issue. I personally think material design looks great, and this example screenshot looks much cleaner and aesthetically pleasing already than the current linux offerings

Also, given that touchscreens on laptops and even desktops seem to be a thing now, this could well be a starting point for a Linux operating system which can scale seamlessly from smartphone to tablet to laptop. Obviously it's not for everyone, but it could be good as a kind of 'tablet plus', for watching videos, checking emails/facebook etc.

Although Sailfish OS and Ubuntu seem to be much more serious in that respect.

I personally love Inbox on my phone, but hate it on my laptop. I don't like how everything is so spaced out and personally don't find it easy on the eyes or matching my workflow at all. In fact, I've been trying to do as much of my email-related tasks as possible on my phone these past three weeks because of it, because Inbox itself is fantastic.

In terms of space usage, I' actually prefer the more spaced out approach. Other apps look a bit cramped and cluttered now in comparison.

A few related data points: I'm a developer and project manager.

I do all my work on a 13" laptop with nearly every app full-screen (I hate having two tasks visible unless I actually need both at once - which is very rare).

My eyesight isn't marvelous so that might be a factor. :-)

I found that zooming out the Inbox page on the laptop doesn't make it perfect, but more pleasant to use. (90% or 75%)

>> Please no.

Well, to me, this is what I love about Linux - there are different flavors for different sensibilities.

This particular flavor isn't for you, but it clearly scratched an itch for someone.

I guess the holy grail of Qt is to have one codebase for all devices. Perhaps different GUI (to a degree), but most logic can stay.

The thing is, you CAN creat the kind of app layouts like you linked - QML makes it incredibly easy to roll out your own UI.

But it could be argued that for many types of applications that is not the kind of GUI that works best, and a responsive, modern, touch friendly widget library is the way to go. It really depends on the application.

What window manager/etc is http://i.imgur.com/7Tu2i6W.png?

Openbox, probably running w/ CrunchBang Linux. Looks like the primary application in use is a terminal emulator with tmux.

What's the monitoring program on the far right? It looks like it's running in a terminal as well, but I don't recognize it.

Isn't it Conky with nice theming?

http://conky.sourceforge.net/

http://conky.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html

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