Xref: utzoo comp.windows.misc:800 comp.sys.next:998 comp.sys.mac:24351 alt.cyberpunk:1186
Path: utzoo!utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-rsc!dgbt!cognos!timd
From: timd@cognos.uucp (Tim Dudley)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.next,comp.sys.mac,alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: replacing the desktop metaphor
Keywords: desktop metaphor, graphical interfaces, computing environments
Message-ID: <4919@enterprise.UUCP>
Date: 22 Dec 88 14:34:56 GMT
References: <4362@pitt.UUCP> <257@gloom.UUCP>
Reply-To: timd@cognos.UUCP (Tim Dudley)
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 39

In article <257@gloom.UUCP> cory@gloom.UUCP (Cory Kempf) writes:
>Sorry that this is so long.
>
>In article <4362@pitt.UUCP> bonar@pitt.UUCP (Dr. Jeffrey Bonar) writes:
>>
>>I have an invitation for net readers - create a metaphor for computing 
>>systems that goes beyond the desktop cliche.
>[...]
>
>What I would like to see is the desktop metaphor extended into 3D, say
>for example, an office.  You would have a desktop, a trashcan, a phone,
>an inbasket/outbasket, a filesystem, etc.  Each of the services that are 
>offered by the system are represented as an object in the office.  If you 
>go out through the door, you find yourself in the hall (network), and from 
>there can go into someone else's office (the outbasket & phone act in a 
>predictable manner).
>
etc...

This looks to me like an application of the Rooms metaphor proposed by Card
and Henderson out of Xerox PARC (and more recently Europarc).  As I remember,
the Rooms metaphor presented a means of linking desktops through "windows" and 
"doors", in such a way that if you wanted to look at another application, or
view of an application, you did it through a "window", but if you wanted to
launch an application, you did it by going through a "door" into the "room"
in which the application was resident.  Seems to me that the idea of having
one of the "doors" lead into a hall (network) is a good one.

The Rooms metaphor has been published in several places, including ACM
Transactions on Graphics (don't remember which one, but it's relatively
recent).  It strikes me as being more closely related to hypermedia than to
3D...


-- 
Tim Dudley                           Cognos Incorporated 
(613) 738-1440                       3755 Riverside Drive, P.O.Box 9707 
uucp: uunet!mitel!sce!cognos!timd    Ottawa, Ontario, Canada  K1G 3Z4
 "It's a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word."