JDS - Dumbed down and dumber
Re: JDS on Solaris 10
Summary: Dumbed down does not mean easier.
I don't think I have ever, in 15 years as a Sun customer,
hated anything as intensely as I hate the Java desktop!
Hate it, hate it hate it hate it!
1) Launch menu - cryptic names for things eg. 'Web Browser'
rather than 'Mozilla'. It is a good idea to know the name
of the program you are using. Are people too stupid to deal with
the possibilty that there might be more than one
type of browser, or file viewer, or word processor etc?
Call programs by their names, and organize them into tree-structured
hierarchical menus, with help tips to elaborate on what they
are. Also, what if we have several versions of the same
program on the system?
2) Nautilus - Defaults to 'Documents' directory. Stupid, retarded, one
of the most idiotic Windows concepts ever to infect Unix.
Tells user that they
should dump all their files in a 'Documents' folder. What they
should do is to organize their files by topic in a tree-structured
directory, starting with the Home directory. There is no
way to disable this "feature".
One other thing - why can't Nautilus have an option
such that if there isn't an action associated with
a file, you can have it default to open in a text
editor? The CDE file manager does this easily enough.
3)gnome terminal - Should default to 'Backspace' and 'Delete' as
delete characters, not some silly control character.
4) Evolution - Not well integrated into user's account.
- Can't drag messages into Nautilus
- Can't drag messages into Local folders higher than 'Mail'
eg. some subdirectory not in within Mail
- can't save just the text part of the message
- can't open saved mail files except in Mail directory
The CDE mailer does all of these things. It appears that
progress means "loss of functionality".
5) Launch menu - pretty sparse, with respect to applications.
User has no way to add menus and submenus to the Launch menu
as they do in GNOME. Only the Applications and Preferences
menus can be changed. Instead of hiding a potential wealth
of applications in an "Applications" menu, the main
categories should be right in the Launch menu. One possible
example of menus appearing in the Launch menu:
Accessories
Documentation
File Browsers
Games
Graphics
Internet
Multimedia
Office
Other
Spreadsheets
System
Word Processing
Isn't that intuitive? You can find programs by what they do.
There are many possible variations, if only the menu could
be customized.
6) Dumbing down of StarOffice. SO launches with a "Templates and Doucments"
window, that shows the files listed in the most recently-visited
directory, but doesn't give any clue as to which directory
that is (eg. no path. Okay, it tells the name of the current directory,
but without the larger context of the path, that is only partly
useful. What's wrong with the full path? Also, why only show the names in
the menus, and not the dates and sizes of files? That information
can often help indicate contents.
The people who decided these standards should be fired. I'm not
being facetious. I don't want people who think like that
(what, were they hired from Apple?) working for Sun and dumbing
down Sun's products from one generation to the next. If I wanted
a system designed for idiots I'd use Windows-XP. Sun can't
win by being exactly like Microsoft. Sun must offer a DIFFERENT
and BETTER product.
# 1
Brian,
Just a few comments. With regards to Solaris, my experience has been up to version 9 on Sparc, only with CDE. I expect you mean JDS R3, which I currently can compare with JDS3/Linux beta on x86.
1) 'Web Browser':
I have seen on this more as a 'generic browser name', which under preferences>user selection>prefered applications and browser tab can be set to launch Mozilla, Firefox or Opera etc. as preferred.
Unfortunately I've only been able to change this name temporary under <a href="applications:///Internet," target="_blank">applications:///Internet,</a> and am neither able to create a new launcher there. However, by installing e.g Firefox from gcclinux.com, a Firefox launcher is created correctly.
2) Nautilus:
Not sure what you really mean. It is however possible to create a launcher on the desktop or on the panel that opens another map, e.g the users homedirectory instead, as discussed previous on this forum:
<a href="http://supportforum.sun.com/sjds/index.php?t=msg& #38;amp;goto=5764&rid=0" target="_blank">http://supportforum.sun.com/sjds/index.php?t=msg&goto=57 64&rid=0</a>
3)gnome terminal :
Backspace and Delete keys work correctly on my JDS3/Linux PC keyboard.
4) Evolution:
I have no experience with it, as I use Mozilla mail
5) Launch menu:
By adding a menu bar to the panel, I got a specific Application menu launcher (plus an Action menu):
<a href="http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-0917/6n3afmu rv?a=view" target="_blank">http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-0917/6n3afmurv?a=view&l t;/a>
I myself else also prefer to customize the panel by adding and creating direct launchers for my most often used applications and tools.
6) StarOffice:
I prefere to start each applicaton directly from my panel launchers or from the menu
Launch>Applications>Office>e.g StarOffice 8 Writer
and thereafter possibly use the Open tool to get the full path name
Terje J. Hanssen
terje at 2007-7-5 2:50:03 >
# 2
brian, I recommend you stick to your Unix command prompt.
Then when you want something, you'll be stuck in your little home directory, and you'll only be able to type commands of programs you know.
Example: if you want a web browser, you'll have to type in mozzilla, or konqueror, or firefox, Web browser will not work any more, intuitive enough?
Hows that for simple.
If you don't know how to change/rearrange/organize menu startup items, documents, etc... Maybe your just too smart for your own good.
If you were a Unix/Linux administrator, you would know how to add profiles for users, then you could change all those little pee-ons you talk about.
I also think you should learn more about a product before hackin it like that.
This is just me blabbin away, as I do not like to hear negative comments about JDS.
wew64 at 2007-7-5 2:50:03 >
# 3
There's nothing wrong with negative comments, they can be (and should be) a good thing. However, the way the comments are made are possibly even more important than the actual comments. Constructive criticism is the term I believe. Cheers.
# 4
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>wew64 wrote on Sat, 10 September 2005 18:48</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
brian, I >recommend you stick to your Unix command prompt.
>Then when you want something, you'll be stuck in your little home
>directory, and you'll only be able to type commands of programs you
>know.
>Example: if you want a web browser, you'll have to type in mozzilla, or
>konqueror, or firefox, Web browser will not work any more, intuitive
>enough?
>Hows that for simple.
One of the great things about modern Unices is the ability to
quickly switch back and forth between command line and
GUI. However, especially when bringing in new users who
have never used anything but Windows, you need to have a
good GUI.
I routinely introduce students in my university genetics
courses to Unix. We do all of our bioinformatics on
Unix, and the last thing I want to have to do is
to give them an environment that is less powerful than
Windows.
In our research work in genetics and bioinformatics,
again, we need a fully-featured desktop. The command
line is sometimes ideal, but other times more ackward
than the GUI.
>If you don't know how to change/rearrange/organize menu startup
> items, documents, etc... Maybe your just too smart for your own good.
>If you were a Unix/Linux administrator, you would know how to add
>profiles for users, then you could change all those little pee-ons you talk
>about.
In fact, I do know how to change menus in GNOME, which
is no simple task. I do not have root permissions on our
campus system, so changes would have do be done
using vfolders, which as I've pointed out, has many limitations.
As well, I don't relish the mess involved in getting new users
to each fix their menus.
The issue is not that there aren't workarounds, but rather,
that I consider Sun to be the best computing platform on
the planet, which I why I have had Solaris exclusively on
my desktop since 1990. Therefore, a trend toward dumbing
down what has up to now been a great system is very
troubling to me. Sun should be leading the way in providing
power without sacrificing useablilty.
>I also think you should learn more about a product before hackin it like
>that.
I speak from experience using Sunview, Open Windows, CDE,
KDE, Red Hat's GNOME, Java Desktop, not to mention Windows XP
and limited Aqua.
Currently, the only "computer" in my office is a SunRay. I don't
use Windows for anything. Everything from routine office
tasks to DNA sequence analysis to programming
is done on the SunRay.
The convenience of not having to switch back and forth
among several Windows boxes for different things is
priceless.
My comments, then, are from the perspective of someone who routinely
does real-world work in the Unix environment.
>This is just me blabbin away, as I do not like to hear negative comments >about JDS.
</td></tr></table>
# 5
Wow, a Canadian botanist with an attitude, ha ha! Sun designed Java desktop for Windows users and carried it over to Solaris 10, it's an optional feature. The desktop is not an attempt to replace CDE and annoy every botanists around the world, Solaris is designed for compatibility throughout releases, this is why you can still opt to use CDE. My recommendation to you is, if you think all these features are rubbish, get yourself over to <a href="http://www.opensolaris.org/" target="_blank">http://www.opensolaris.org/</a> and become part of the developers community, your comments, suggestions and application development skills would be more appreciated there. This board is designed to be a user to user forum to deal with support aspects of JDS, <b>NOT</b> a place to complain and critisize the product. As a paying customer you are entitled to take your grievances to customer services as well.
# 6
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>m-lennon wrote on Wed, 14 September 2005 15:30</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
>Wow, a Canadian botanist with an attitude, ha ha!
How about, "an end-user who cares about the quality of the product?"
>Sun designed Java
>desktop for Windows users and carried it over to Solaris 10, it's an
> optional feature. The desktop is not an attempt to replace CDE and
> annoy every botanists around the world,
Or users in many other fields and businesses, for that matter.
> Solaris is designed for
>compatibility throughout releases, this is why you can still opt to use
> CDE.
Not that simple. Sun is agressively pushing the Java desktop,
andit will become the de-facto
standard, and only "old fogies" will use CDE. CDE will die
the slow death of any standard that is replaced by the next
thing. Therefore, those of us who depend on the Solaris
system as everyday users have a big interest in not seeing
the new standard dumbed down to the point of being useless,
as well as encouraging bad habits among users new to
JDS (or rather, bringing those habits over from Windows).
>My recommendation to you is, if you think all these features are
>rubbish, get yourself over to <a href="http://www.opensolaris.org/" target="_blank">http://www.opensolaris.org/</a> and
>become part of the developers community, your comments, suggestions
>and application development skills would be more appreciated there.
>This board is designed to be a user to user forum to deal with support
>aspects of JDS, <b>NOT</b> a place to complain and critisize the product.
> As a paying customer you are entitled to take your grievances to
>customer services as well.
</td></tr></table>
For one thing, this support forum was the only thing at www.sun.com
that looked like it was specifically asking for end user comments.
All the "contact us" pages have lots of places for buying, getting
tech support etc, but not for product/feature comments.
Lookig at www.opensolaris.org, it does look like there are
discussions of JDS there, and that it is read and contributed
to by developers. The same could be said, of course,
for this forum.
I am baffled at how you distinguish discussions and comments
on features from "support aspects of JDS", which seems to be
why you think this thread is not appropriate for the current
discussion group. From what I've seen so far, the "desktop"
discussion group at opensolaris.org is similar to this one, and
it's not obvious that one is better-suited for discussion of
features than the other.
# 7
Brian, I based my comments on the code of conduct outlined in the link bellow.
<a href="http://supportforum.sun.com/conduct.php" target="_blank">http://supportforum.sun.com/conduct.php</a>
In particular the part about subject matter and matters of opinion:
<i>Subject Matter
Sun SupportForums are intended to be a means of technical support, therefore the subject matter should be technical in nature.</i>
<i>Matters of Opinion
Please understand SupportForum users are a diverse group representing various computing paradigms. Debates and discussions pertaining to preference or opinion should be taken elsewhere.</i>
I feel that your post is an attack on the product! On this forum you are complaining to a bunch of end users just like yourself, we share information, tricks and tips on configuration of the product, but that's it. There are some people that use the forum who are involved with the JDS development team, but I doubt very much they are relying on this forum for customer satisfaction comments, also I would guess that while using the forum these guys would make comments as an end user, rather than spokesmen for Sun Microsystems. Try to take each feature that you have issues with, point out how you have attempted to configure it and how you need it to perform. Then start a thread on that topic, I'm sure you bring some good input into your thread and perhaps resolve / partially resolve some or all of the issues. Otherwise, the only route to take as a paying customer is to contact Sun Customer Service.
# 8
comments or even critics with good will/faith is not considered as attack. i am sorry that this post is about opinions only.
> I feel that your post is an attack on the product!
i won't go item by item on brian's suggestions. i will take the one with 'web browser'. i noticed average Joe like me takes IE (with the logo) as internet due to its dominance short time ago. with JDS sun is able to correct this to get the original meaning of web browser to any candidate of user's choice, not the one (mozilla) of sun's choice.
on the other hand, i respect sun's delay on jds3's release when it's not ready yet. for commercial reasons ms released its products prematurely so many times with patches after patches later, working or not. however, if this been discontinued, this is another story.
ss
# 9
Sorry ss, but I can't see how comments like " I hate it, hate it, hate it " or this or that is " retarded " are anything but attacks, how can you deem that type of crap to be " good will/faith "? This type of carry on is not for the forum, I would suggest that any consumer related problems with JDS be directed to Sun customer service in future, I interpret <i>General Questions to SJDS.</i> as questions about general product configuration etc. ( eg. Is there any possibility to use the JDS with True Color but start one application with an own 256 colormap ? ). That'll do for me on this topic.
# 10
m-lennon,
you know sometimes words are very political or diplomatic. To me by no means this is just venting of frustration; it's quite constructive. when with no details or with distorted details, i would agree with you and i believe it would have been cleaned on this forum, thanks to the moderators.
while your suggestion is a proper way to do it, it doesn't exclude other options, for example, to post here and in the hope to get directed to customer service when sun thinks that's more proper internally.
last, i am in no position to be involved in a debate.
regards, ss
# 11
I'm one of the people (partly) responsible for the design, who hasn't been fired yet :) Some of your grievances are known issues, and I've circulated the rest to the product design team.
It's true that one of the design goals for JDS was to minimize retraining costs for companies migrating from Windows. This clearly isn't one of your particular needs, but it was *the* top priority for the majority of potential customers that Sun questioned about migrating away from Windows, and to a Linux desktop in particular. We would have been foolish to ignore that demand.
That said, you're probably aware that Sun has recently announced plans to concentrate more on Solaris than on Linux again, and to re-target the developer/technical market rather than the more 'transactional' workforce that JDS/Linux is aimed at. As part of this, I'm sure you'll see JDS becoming more tailored to suit those users, and losing some of the more extreme Windows look-alike features along the way.
calum at 2007-7-5 2:50:04 >
# 12
i am pleased with the ongoing change. the question is really about who are going to get the default and who with customization. for users from 'transactional' workforce, they will get significant customization anyway.
when is jds3? thanks, ss
> target the developer/technical market rather than the more 'transactional' workforce that JDS/Linux is aimed at.
# 13
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>ssonbridges wrote on Tue, 27 September 2005 14:32</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
i am pleased with the ongoing change. the question is really about who are going to get the default and who with customization. for users from 'transactional' workforce, they will get significant customization anyway.
when is jds3? thanks, ss
> target the developer/technical market rather than the more 'transactional' workforce that JDS/Linux is aimed at.
</td></tr></table>
I second agreement with having a "less Windows-like" setup for developmental/technical users. (I still contend that you don't
win over Windows users by creating a faux Windows, when
people already have the real Windows).
Since it was pointed out earlier in this thread that this is meant to be a
support forum, where users answer each others' questions, I have
managed to come up with some workarounds for the default setup, and
written a web page for my users when they set up their JDS for the first
time. It covers issues such as window focus, getting rid of desktop
launchers, making the Backspace key work for corrections on the
command line, creating a launcher that starts Nautilus in one's $HOME
directory, rather than $HOME/Documents etc. These settings are aimed
at technical users (eg. molecular biologists) who simultaneously
work with many datafiles, in many directories, and in many windows.
Others may find this page useful:
<a href="http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~psgendb/local/public_html/setup.jds/desktop. html" target="_blank"> http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~psgendb/local/public_html/setup .jds/desktop.html</a>
# 14
That looks like a handy page... I'll add a pointer to it on my blog, if you have no objections.
FWIW, I somewhat agree that you don't win over Windows users by giving them something that looks the same, but (in all honesty) isn't yet quite as polished in some areas. However, it's a fact of business life that the people who buy and deploy desktop software in organisations aren't necessarily the people who are using it every day-- and, understandably, their eyes light up when Sun or anyone else comes along and offers them the same features, with minimal retraining required, for a fraction of the cost they're paying Microsoft. And although, as a usability person myself, I'd prefer the end-user to be the #1 consideration at all times, any company's marketing department would be remiss not to take the buyers' POV into account too.
In that respect, I think JDS has proved to be a good "foot in the door" for Sun, on which (I hope) we can now start to add more powerful and innovative features for our technical and developer markets.
Of course, we are also somewhat in the hands of the open source community, with whom we collaborate to bring you JDS... the issues you have with Evolution, for example, aren't things Sun have done deliberately to make your life difficult :) That's just the way Evolution works when we pick it up from the community, and while we're quite at liberty to improve on that, like anyone else we only have a certain amount of resources to apply to the list of things we'd like to do.So in some cases, we just have to file a bug or RFE upstream in the community and encourage them to fix it so we can pick it up in a later release. (And one nice thing about doing it that way is that any of our users can do exactly the same thing, any time they like.)
calum at 2007-7-5 2:50:05 >
# 15
Sun still haven't announced a release date for JDS3/Linux I'm afraid... the product is ready to ship AFAIK, but in light of our 'scaling back on Linux' announcements recently, I think marketing are still contemplating whether it's something we'd want to release as a supported product at this time.
at 2007-7-5 2:50:07 >
# 16
I feel it is seasonable to look at Solaris vs Linux, in a trial to uncover Sun's disappointing and reversal commitment to JDS/Linux. Before JDS/Linux, Sun had a somewhat "ambivalent" or dubious Linux history and record. However, many trusted on Sun's highly profiled and public commitment to JDS/Linux, and were willingly to forget the history and give Sun a new chance.
Even if we finally should see a JDS3/Linux release, it is very, very delayed. Its base SLES9 platform had its roots already two years back to the first Suse Linux 9.0 Professional release. And today on 30th September Novell/Suse Linux 10.0 begins shipping! In the meantime Sun and Microsoft looks to have become confidential allied against Linux as their common enemy. I think this more than other words examplifes Sun's changed priority and strategy with regards to Linux and the frustration this has created. I am afraid the Linux users will not forget another time, if they feel that Sun has deserted them.
In fact I myself have been a SunOS4 user since 1989, and I'm still running the good old Solaris 2.5 and relative newer Solaris 9 (dualboot) on my Sparc workstation/server. Both parts have been rock solid and done a wonderful job during over 15 years as my main platform for my Cad system.
I also bought Solaris 7/x86 in early 1999 for my home PC, but disappointing enough, it would not even install caused by lack of drivers. Surely later Solaris x86 versions have become better compatible. At the same time I tried my first Redhat Linux 5.x (I think), and it installed streamlined out of the box on the same PC. Also compared with CDE on Solaris, I became impressed how fast the desktop environment was developed on Linux in the years and versions that followed.
In a longer term I myself tend to look at Sun's "Janus" as yet another Solaris project. Although not neccessary comparable, Sun some years back (before Wine) had the "Wabi" project ongoing to enable Win3x apps to run on Solaris. By installing some native Win3.1 libraries, the Winapps could run even better, but my experience was that there was extra configuration efforts and often the most important Winapp didn't run properly. Later as Windows 95 was released from Microsoft, Sun gave up to run 32 bit Winapps, which then became the EOL for Wabi 2.x. After Wabi I also experienced the period and lifetime of the Solstice Network Client/server 3.x solution.
The OpenSolaris project compared with the common accepted OpenOffice is a quite different situation. Sun alone with Solaris in the future against most of the other major vendors, will be forced even further to become a special purpose OS for workstations and for large scale servers. Linux pushed by Redhat, Novell, IBM, HP and others vendors will continue to grow fastest and become the mainstream "Unix" on workstations and general purpose servers, from small to medium but also speedy towards the highest end. The other mainstream OS to fight against will of course be Windows continued.
Rgds,
Terje J. Hanssen
at 2007-7-5 2:50:07 >
# 17
Brian you can also get rid of that " Web browser " title you hate so much by right clicking the application name in the launch menu and selecting properties, the properties box that you will be presented with is the same as the " Launcher properties " box in the " Create a launcher for the Nautilus file manager " section of your configuration guide, change the name field to mozilla or what ever you like.
at 2007-7-5 2:50:07 >
# 18
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>calum wrote on Tue, 27 September 2005 12:56</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
I'm one of the people (partly) responsible for the design, who hasn't been fired yet :) Some of your grievances are known issues, and I've circulated the rest to the product design team.
It's true that one of the design goals for JDS was to minimize retraining costs for companies migrating from Windows. This clearly isn't one of your particular needs, but it was *the* top priority for the majority of potential customers that Sun questioned about migrating away from Windows, and to a Linux desktop in particular. We would have been foolish to ignore that demand.
</td></tr></table>
But, from an outsider's point-of-view, all you did was take Gnome Desktop and put a Windows 95 skin on it. For all its good points, Gnome is not exactly user-friendly to Windows users. Ximian's XD2 was several steps in the right direction; Sun missed a trick when Novell bought it for NDS 9.
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>calum wrote on Tue, 27 September 2005 12:56</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
That said, you're probably aware that Sun has recently announced plans to concentrate more on Solaris than on Linux again, and to re-target the developer/technical market rather than the more 'transactional' workforce that JDS/Linux is aimed at. As part of this, I'm sure you'll see JDS becoming more tailored to suit those users, and losing some of the more extreme Windows look-alike features along the way.
</td></tr></table>
The real problem is that JDS appears to be based on a very old MS Windows desktop style (Windows 95) when it could have incorporated some of the better (and more innovative) functionality that Windows XP and OS-X users now take for granted. Sun should also note that many of the ideas of Project Looking Glass have already been implemented in OS-X and are soon to be incorporated into Windows Vista. That Sun's own desktop has failed to deliver these ideas is therefore unforgivable.
The most obvious feature missing from JDS is an equivalent to Desktop Search (Windows) or Spotlight (OS-X). The latter is a prefereable system as it allows you to launch executable applications as well as documents (and indeed, Windows Vista will allow this). Why on earth use an unwieldy start menu to launch a when you can simply type what you want to do and then pick from a list of matches?
Another is the ability to "zoom out" and see all windows at once as well as other 2D/3D manipulation of program windows such as flipping, tilting etc.. This negates the need for multiple desktops or workspace switchers, which was always an ugly solution to the problem of desktop space (in fact, the workspace applet crashes every time I log in to JDS, so I have removed it). Again, Microsoft are incorporating this and other similar features into Windows Vista.
The ability to arrange or hide all windows on the desktop at the click of a button is a most obvious feature that is missing from Java Desktop. Since the very earliest version of Windows, you have been able to right-click on the menu bar and hide all windows, tile them vertically or horizontally or stack them one behind the other. In OS-X, similar effects can be achieved with buttons F9 through F11.
To a lesser extent, support for transparacency effects makes JDS look rather dated. In OS-X for example, the ability to run a fullscreen terminal with my web browser window sitting behind it is extremely useful when I am editing a website.
I am one of two people running JDS in a company of approximately 500 people. Of the others, roughly 90% use Windows XP, 5% run OS-X and 5% run Solaris with either CDE, Gnome or KDE. Out of all of those desktops, JDS is the one that receives the most derision.
at 2007-7-5 2:50:07 >
# 19
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>Mothra wrote on Mon, 30 January 2006 11:49</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
But, from an outsider's point-of-view, all you did was take Gnome Desktop and put a Windows 95 skin on it.
</td></tr></table>
That's somewhat true, because most of our customers who wanted to migrate were using Windows 95 or 98. Very few were using XP. Most of the intended value-add was in the non-GNOME parts of JDS, i.e. our integration a bunch of stuff that Windows users expect, but that you don't get with most "free" distros: StarOffice, Acrobat reader, Flash, RealPlayer etc.
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>Mothra wrote on Mon, 30 January 2006 11:49</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
For all its good points, Gnome is not exactly user-friendly to Windows users. Ximian's XD2 was several steps in the right direction; Sun missed a trick when Novell bought it for NDS 9.
</td></tr></table>
All I can say about that on a public forum is that Sun /didn't/ just stand by and watch it happen. But hey, competition is good, right? :)
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>Mothra wrote on Mon, 30 January 2006 11:49</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
The real problem is that JDS appears to be based on a very old MS Windows desktop style (Windows 95) when it could have incorporated some of the better (and more innovative) functionality that Windows XP and OS-X users now take for granted.
</td></tr></table>
It could have, but then all those customers who we were trying to keep happy by minimising retraining would have ended up having to retrain anyway, so they'd have been just as well upgrading to XP and retraining for that. (Microsoft are very good at offering massive upgrade discounts when a customer threatens to leave them.)
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>Mothra wrote on Mon, 30 January 2006 11:49</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
Sun should also note that many of the ideas of Project Looking Glass have already been implemented in OS-X and are soon to be incorporated into Windows Vista.
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Well, that's always a risk you take when you run a project in the open, particularly one with very few development resources. Looking Glass still has some unique features that we'll be looking to include in OpenSolaris going forward, but with things like Sun Ray to support, graphically-intensive "sizzle" is always going to be somewhat of an issue, and isn't likely to be a /core/ part of any desktop we can offer anytime soon. We can add some optional frills, though, and we certainly have some plansin the pipeline for that.
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>Mothra wrote on Mon, 30 January 2006 11:49</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
The most obvious feature missing from JDS is an equivalent to Desktop Search (Windows) or Spotlight (OS-X). The latter is a prefereable system as it allows you to launch executable applications as well as documents (and indeed, Windows Vista will allow this). Why on earth use an unwieldy start menu to launch a when you can simply type what you want to do and then pick from a list of matches?
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Such a thing is already available for recent versions of GNOME, which OpenSolaris will doubtless be picking up soon if you can't find third-party packages. (The main problem from Sun's POV at the moment is that the best implementation uses mono; one thing we're looking at is how we might leverage that to implement a Java version.)
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>Mothra wrote on Mon, 30 January 2006 11:49</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
Another is the ability to "zoom out" and see all windows at once as well as other 2D/3D manipulation of program windows such as flipping, tilting etc.. This negates the need for multiple desktops or workspace switchers, which was always an ugly solution to the problem of desktop space (in fact, the workspace applet crashes every time I log in to JDS, so I have removed it). Again, Microsoft are incorporating this and other similar features into Windows Vista.
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Again, we're always somewhat reliant on the community to help us out with major features like this, and so far they haven't been too interested-- partly because many of the cool things we'd all like to do are already patented by our friends from Redmond and Infinite Loop. Sun is potentially in a better position to do something about that than the GNOME community, certainly, but up to now at least, getting the basic desktop functionality right has been a higher priority than innovating, just for practical reasons.
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>Mothra wrote on Mon, 30 January 2006 11:49</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
The ability to arrange or hide all windows on the desktop at the click of a button is a most obvious feature that is missing from Java Desktop.
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There's a "Show Desktop" button on the default JDS panel that hides all windows on the desktop at once-- is this the function you're referring to? (At least there is in JDS3; in earlier versions it may only be on the menus.)
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>Mothra wrote on Mon, 30 January 2006 11:49</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
To a lesser extent, support for transparacency effects makes JDS look rather dated. In OS-X for example, the ability to run a fullscreen terminal with my web browser window sitting behind it is extremely useful when I am editing a website.
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This really is just an X server issue... the compositing extensions for X are very immature at the moment, and nobody has shipped them in an enterprise desktop product as yet AFAIK. They are definitely planned for inclusion in future, although again, there are likely to be performance considerations for Sun Ray etc.
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>Mothra wrote on Mon, 30 January 2006 11:49</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
I am one of two people running JDS in a company of approximately 500 people. Of the others, roughly 90% use Windows XP, 5% run OS-X and 5% run Solaris with either CDE, Gnome or KDE. Out of all of those desktops, JDS is the one that receives the most derision.
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Well, if you keep filing bugs and enhancement requests, we'll keep fixing them as best we can. I'd really suggest you look at OpenSolaris and the version of JDS that's coming along with that, too (currently based on GNOME 2.12)... you should find a good number of improvements, although there's certainly still more work to do before it becomes our next official release.
at 2007-7-5 2:50:07 >
# 20
The web site doesn't seem to be up anymore. :(Does anyone know how I can make sun JDS have icon on desktop that points to $HOME instead of $HOME/Documents/?I can change the name but I need to know how to change the target.
# 21
Don't have an S10 box here to check how things were in JDS 3, but here are the two ways you can do it in OpenSolaris (based on GNOME 2.16):
1. Use gconf-editor to set the /apps/nautilus/desktop/home_icon_visible gconf key to "true", or
2a) Right click desktop, select "Create Launcher" to open a dialog; then
2b) Set Type=File, location = /home/username (or whatever); then
2c) Click the Icon button to pick an icon; you'll find the default icons under /usr/share/icons/<your-favourite-theme>. (It's a known bug that you have to pick a specific icon to use here, rather than one that will change when you change themes.)
Message was edited by:
calum
calum at 2007-7-5 2:50:07 >
