It was interesting how the efforts at window decoration after Compiz never really seemed to get the useless-but-cool. I recall KDE adding some disappointing compositing effects that combined being useless with not looking very good. It was the difference between an exploration of a cool concept and someone checking a box.

Compiz's best feature was it made changing virtual desktops an exciting and rewarding process. Their specific implementation of the Cube was genius.

The best part about the cube is that it allows me to use my spatial memory to better remember what windows are open on which workspaces.

Cool people had a transparent desktop so you could see the windows open in the other side of the cube.

Which is a technique some memory athletes use to remember things! They often use spatial cues like mentally placing a piece of information somewhere in a room or town.

Maybe the brain prioritizes things placed in the world over ephemeral things.

I think it's more that the brain has special circuits for remembering things spatially (wether real or invented), and spatial-oriented memory "hacks" are just piggybacking on those dedicated circuits. It's like how GPUs were designed for games but it turns out they can work great for other tasks like machine learning too, if we massage the problem a bit.

Hijacking spatial memory like that is really useful.

I used to use 6 desktops (in Enlightenment 0.16) in a 3x2 grid, which I could slide between by throwing the mouse to the window edge.

The Compiz cube made the transition a bit fancier, but only made sense when the desktops were arranged in a line, and anything other than 4 didn't work as nicely.

I remember its flaming effect was my motivation for trying to install an Ubuntu on my PC when I was 13 or so. :)

The wobbly windows were the best for me, and the exposé clone.

oh wow.. I knew I had seen that word before... yeah I remember Compiz now. loved playing with snap to jelly windows...

the little things that make linux fun.