damn the desktop

Desktops are for WIMPs. I don't like WIMPs. I never did, and I never will. Windows, icons, mice, pointers, desktops.... yuk.

Windows are for letting the light into a building, and for letting the occupants observe the world outside. And they can be opened to let air in. They have no place in a computer screen. There is only one natural window on a computer, and that is the screen itself: it has a frame and sometimes even a glass. What is this telling us? There is no need to subdivide this window into smaller windows. And if you just can't help yourself, then at least tile the windows, as with old-fashioned window panes - split the window into a number of smaller panes. But the slippery, sliding, overlapping "windows" which have become the norm in computer interfaces, are nausea inducing - they certainly make ME sick. If graphic designers can't live without them, then let their graphic applications create and maintain their own hideous mess of overlapping views. For the rest of us, this abstraction just steals lots of our screen estate, fills it with unnecessary clutter, and converts much of our time into frustration as we try to find the "window" we were trying to get some work done in. So, go FULL-SCREEN (or for Apple geeks: "mega-zoom"), and get back to basic simplicity. I want full screen when I am watching video. I want full screen when I am looking at pictures. I want full screen when I am reading. I want full screen when I am writing. I want full screen when I am programming. I want full screen. I want full screen. I want full screen. Wahhhh.

Icons are for religious devotees. Images may seem like a good idea for representing menu options, as they are language independent. But in practice most icons are incomprehensible to most people. Words, on the other hand, we all understand, so long as they are in our language. These days computers have no problem handling different languages. So we don't need icons. An icon of a printer just causes the majority of naive computer users to say "how do I print this?". Most of them would already have the printed sheet in their hands if there had simply been a button saying "print". Even if they think the icon looks like a printer, they are scared to press it in case it actually means something else, such as "wipe my hard disk clean".

Mice are for entertaining cats. If your real desktop had a real mouse on it you would be calling for your cat, or else you would be running out to buy a mousetrap or some rat poison. Or, in the case of certain traditional women, you would simply shriek "eeeeeeeeeekkkk" and jump on a chair and dance around in a frenzy. This is what mice are for. They are not for helping you navigate around a computer screen. Even our WIMPy friends, the graphic artists, (and the CADs and their ilk) all prefer (even demand) tablets and pens. Nobody wants a plastic mouse. Even cats find them dull and boring. The point and click interface of the browser is very intuitive and useful, but no that we have touch screens that actually work, there is no longer any justification for plastic mice.

Pointers. The creator gave us several: One index finger on each hand, and a bunch of backups in case our primary pointers are eaten or cut off in some unfortunate accident. From very early childhood we naturally point at what we want. We don't need a "pointer" image on the screen to do it for us. Just a touch screen and a finger or two. Lets lose those middlemen, the pointer image and the pointer device. They just get in the way - the pointer devices specialize in malfunctioning, and the pointer images specialize in getting lost, and/or becoming invisible. Lets consign them all to the dustbin of history (along with the QUERTY keyboard, but that is another post..). When we need to remember where we were on the screen, we have good old-fashioned cursors - just like pointers but without the pointiness. I like cursors, just so long as they are big and flashy, so I can find them....

Desktops... WTF?!??@#$%^&*! I have a desktop. It is made of wood, and on it there is a hideous clutter of keyboard, mouse, headset, glasses, glass of water, empty coffee cup, random piles of paper documents, DVDs, memory sticks, USB cables, pens, you name it. A man's desktop is like a woman's handbag. One desktop is more than enough for me to deal with in my life. Why anyone imagined I would want a computer representation of a desktop is beyond me. And then they implemented it so badly that I can't even use it in a useful way, without a degree in computer science. What is this nonsense? A picture - fine, I like pictures, and I get to choose my own - but I don't want icons all over it! Maybe in place of the screen saver (screen savers!.. don't get me started..), I would like to have my favorite picture or pictures display full screen.. in fact that is exactly how I have set up my mac. So I have my picture. Who ever put a real picture on a real desktop? It is futile because it gets covered in junk, which spoils the picture. OK.. all those icons on the "desktop" - what are the for? If I want a representation of a bunch of files and folders and application shortcuts, then I have my home folder in my file manager. I can view that as words, if I like, or I can view it as if I want to introduce more serendipity into my day. So why do I need the separate "desktop" to do the same thing in a different (and generally dysfunctional) way? Short and simple answer - I don't. Computer desktops are truly superfluous.

So - give me a full screen browser and some decent web apps, along with a full screen file manager (and in my sad geeky case, a full screen terminal with a copy of mc), and I have everything I want and need from a computer interface. No windows. No icons, No rodents. No damned desktop. If only life were that simple.....