Re:Desktop Neo – rethinking the desktop interface for produc...
by Symbiote on Tuesday January 19, 2016 @03:28PM
(#10933721)
I see those concepts in RISC OS¹, developed by Acorn (as in ARM, originally Acorn RISC Machines).
The buttons on the left open windows containing applications and files, like the Resources window that is already open. On the right are running applications. The menu on the text editor has been opened with the middle mouse button; to complete the save action (for a first time save, or new destination) the icon can be dragged to a file window.
The desktop can have files, folders or applications pinned to it, but there are none in this screenshot.
The screenshot is as the OS was released in 1991. The first released version, from 1987, had similar functionality but lacked icons on the desktop ("pinboard").
(The other thing I liked about this OS was how applications were packaged. They were simply directories beginning with "!" containing, at minimum, an executable file called "!Run". This made it nice to explore, especially as !Run was often written in BASIC, and there was a BASIC editor and interpreter in ROM.)
The buttons on the left open windows containing applications and files, like the Resources window that is already open. On the right are running applications. The menu on the text editor has been opened with the middle mouse button; to complete the save action (for a first time save, or new destination) the icon can be dragged to a file window.
The desktop can have files, folders or applications pinned to it, but there are none in this screenshot.
The screenshot is as the OS was released in 1991. The first released version, from 1987, had similar functionality but lacked icons on the desktop ("pinboard").
(The other thing I liked about this OS was how applications were packaged. They were simply directories beginning with "!" containing, at minimum, an executable file called "!Run". This made it nice to explore, especially as !Run was often written in BASIC, and there was a BASIC editor and interpreter in ROM.)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_RISC_OS#/media/Fi...