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Eug Wanker · Jun 22, 2006, 10:07 PM

lpkmckenna · Jun 22, 2006, 10:14 PM

Very

ironknee · Jun 22, 2006, 10:16 PM

woah

loki74 · Jun 22, 2006, 10:20 PM

Take the unnecessary flashiness of Aero, plus a lot of good UI concepts (dock, expose, rotating cube) and the performance of Aqua, and there ya go!

It does look very cool, but not in a professional environment. I don't see why I need my windows to go clear and jiggle when I drag them... the multiple desktop thing is cool, but for me the better solution would be just to save up and bounce for another monitor.

Anyway, what actually impressed me the most was that they did have a lot of nice flashy things, but the UI responded fast enough that it could keep up with me for the most part. Some UIs are rather sluggish; I don't mean as in, lagging, but .... well think of those flash sites where you have to wait for each nav button to race from one side of the screen... looks cool but it slows you down. Xgl had a nice, quick resonse.

goMac · Jun 22, 2006, 11:11 PM

You know, I noted this a while ago and got flamed by SWG for how not cool it was. : sigh :

Tomchu · Jun 22, 2006, 11:14 PM

The concepts and demonstrations are cool, but as can usually be expected from the Linux community, 2 alternatives will pop up that will yet again splinter the efforts of many.

And the video card makers will want little to do with the political/philosophical wars going on in the Linux camp -- as usual -- hence, lack of good/updated drivers.

DeathMan · Jun 23, 2006, 12:32 AM

Xgl suffers from a lack of restraint. Its cool as a proof of concept.

P.S. I need to get me a copy of Labyrinth in wide-screen

- - e r i k - - · Jun 23, 2006, 02:59 AM

Labyrinth is out on DVD.

Demo looks fairly useless (apart from obviously stolen things from OS X). And what is it about the windows stacking directly on top of eachother when opening documents? No wonder you need a window switcher like that.

Only good thing is making windows translucent when dragging, easy way to show what's behind it. Keep that wobblyness away from me though.

Big Mac · Jun 23, 2006, 03:25 AM

Yeah, it is pretty cool. I like the way they accomplished multiple workspaces with the stolen cube effect, and the transparency of windows during dragging is quite nice. It's clearly a step above Aqua in many respects. Maybe Apple can find some time copying some of those features, assuming the engineers aren't too busy with the Intel defection.

Goldfinger · Jun 23, 2006, 04:09 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

assuming the engineers aren't too busy with the Intel defection.

You don't give up do you?

Hawkeye_a · Jun 23, 2006, 04:25 AM

There were some cool effects...sure. but....meh.....

I mean OSX 10.2 (the one with Quartz Extreme, i think) could have accomplished these sort of effects like 4 years ago. from a developer/technological standpoint ..... big deal, similar effects have already been a part of shipping products. technologically there isnt a whole lot of new...just a few more effects using similar technology.

As far as a proof of concept..... do we need our windows transparent when dragging them ? or sticking to some point/line on the screen ? how many people would use the cube effect as demonstrated in that video ?

From a user perspective, theres a whole lot of flash with no real purpose and definately not much ease-of-use.

It was cool seeing some new effects, dont get me wrong, but is this all we can hope for now with 3D accelerated desktops ? i sure as hell hope not.

If the XGL is actually making better use of graphics cards than Quartz Extreme that would be the "cool" factor for me.

Big Mac · Jun 23, 2006, 04:53 AM

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

You don't give up do you?

Not really, no. And you ain't seen nothing yet - just wait until the last Macs are discontinued.

greenamp · Jun 23, 2006, 07:04 AM

Looks like the evil offspring of Tiger and Vista.

Peter · Jun 23, 2006, 07:07 AM

whoa.

Eug Wanker · Jun 23, 2006, 07:12 AM

Originally Posted by greenamp

Looks like the evil offspring of Tiger and Vista.

Yeah, I'm not saying it's necessarily better than either, but just that it combines elements of both Tiger and Vista.

No scratch that. at least from the video I like parts of it better than Vista. Flip 3D in Vista is totally useless. (BTW, I have some Vista videos in my sig for those who haven't seen Flip 3D yet.)

P.S. This is the first YouTube video I've seen in a while that doesn't totally suck @ss.

kick52 · Jun 24, 2006, 02:25 PM

looks pretty cool, but i bet it uses tons of ram and graphics card resources.

Kerrigan · Jun 24, 2006, 02:32 PM

So basically it takes a boring, cluttered UI and makes it jiggle and become translucent?

Goldfinger · Jun 24, 2006, 03:07 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Not really, no. And you ain't seen nothing yet - just wait until the last Macs are discontinued.

So what are your plans ? Buying a PowerMac and using it for the rest of your life ? Switching to Linux on some IBM Risc workstation ? Or something else ?

production_coordinator · Jun 24, 2006, 03:24 PM

Does it look flashy? SURE

But regarding the functionality, it doesn't seem all that great. The cube thing seems confusing... and the transparency when moving a window seems like an amateur move.

The matrix thing made me laughing... Very cool... for the 1999

Chuckit · Jun 24, 2006, 03:56 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Not really, no. And you ain't seen nothing yet - just wait until the last Macs are discontinued.

Apple discontinued the original Mac chipset a long time ago.

Chuckit · Jun 24, 2006, 03:57 PM

Originally Posted by kick52

looks pretty cool, but i bet it uses tons of ram and graphics card resources.

I don't see any logical reason why it would be a lot more RAM-intensive than Quartz.

Tomchu · Jun 24, 2006, 04:30 PM

It's like the difference between Quartz 2D and Quartz 2D Extreme.

Millennium · Jun 25, 2006, 07:46 PM

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

So what are your plans ? Buying a PowerMac and using it for the rest of your life ? Switching to Linux on some IBM Risc workstation ? Or something else ?

Undecided, in my case. It will almost certainly involve a Linux switch -OSX won't be running on any elegant architectures for all that much longer- but that also opens up a large selection of architectures from which to choose. I may even choose to run x86 once I've gone Linux; on x86 (unlike any other contemporary architecture) I might not be able to build a better machine than Apple can, but I can certainly build a machine as good as any Apple makes for less than they insist on charging. That's what happens when you use the single worst computing architecture out there.

Millennium · Jun 25, 2006, 07:48 PM

But in terms of the original thread, XGL is more like Quartz 2D Extreme than it is like Aqua. If you want to talk about the interface, that's the default theme of Luminocity, the window manager running in that demo, and that is similar to Aero or Aqua in some aspects.

Chuckit · Jun 25, 2006, 07:57 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

Undecided, in my case. It will almost certainly involve a Linux switch -OSX won't be running on any elegant architectures for all that much longer- but that also opens up a large selection of architectures from which to choose. I may even choose to run x86 once I've gone Linux; on x86 (unlike any other contemporary architecture) I might not be able to build a better machine than Apple can, but I can certainly build a machine as good as any Apple makes for less than they insist on charging. That's what happens when you use the single worst computing architecture out there.

And it will run a much shittier OS that will soak up all your time just making a mother****ing movie player run correctly.

Tomchu · Jun 25, 2006, 08:36 PM

Chuckit: Amen.

I don't see how anyone can possibly care about what ARCHITECTURE their machine runs on. It's not like you have to touch any ASM while using your modern OS, so why be such a purist/elitist and refuse to use machine X just because it's x86 and not PowerPC/MIPS/Alpha/whatever?

It comes down to raw performance, and x86 offers the best performance on the desktop. Period.