[9fans] Newbie - wassup everyone?

[Keith]

Hi! I've used 9 every now and then for two years now, and its pretty awesome. Rio however, I feel needs a friendlier, sleeker look. Like hi-res image display (is hd available in rio?), option to set your background to that, and softer window edges with terminal options such as other fonts and colors. Rio feels like X from the 80s. Don't get me wrong, I love the look, but I think it needs a more modern appearence. Along the track of what apple did to (their own corporate derivitive of) unix. What do you guys

[a***@9srv.net]

// What do you guys think?

Generally, I think you'll find the answer is "we quite like it".
The main reason it is the way it is (and, talking about just
the UI, it's more or less been this way since 1989) is that
folks who become familiar with the system generally find
it quite powerful. You talk about "sleek", and in the sense
of "minimal waste", rio very much is. What is isn't is shiny.
And I suspect you'll find relatively few people on this list
who'd rather rio look more like OS X.

There's plenty of room for experimenting in wms (I've
been an advocate for some variation of the "alternative
wm" project in GSoC for years now), but I suspect you'll
get very little traction focusing on issues of insufficent
glitz.

Anthony

[andrey mirtchovski]

a vote for the status quo.

keep in mind, the pastel color palette and lack of unsubtle gradient
have been chosen in rio/acme/sam/etc to keep the programmer's eyes
comfortable throughout the day. i subconsciously change all other
backgrounds and colours on my non-plan9 desktop and terminals to mimic
the plan9 ones because i find that it's the only way i can spend a day
in front of the computer and still enjoy life.

on the topic of bells and whistles: recently in my latest attempt to
"make linux work", i had to switch from unity to xfce and from xfce to
rio because i found the linux world to have moved (yet again) closer
to windows than closer to macs in terms of distractions. sure, i can't
use a few programs such as Synergy (which appears to desperately need
a tray to attach itself to), but on the other hand i don't have to
kill "pulseaudio" every time i want to listen to music. that's so 2003
it's not even funny :(

if you want an advice from the old farts on this mailing list i bet it
would be 'keep distractions to a minimum'. distracting colours too.

cheers!

ps: pastel color schemes are available now elsewhere, thankfully, and
the light "solarized" guicolor theme for vim does wonders to make it
palatable, but quite a few of those make text a pale grey. why?

[l***@proxima.alt.za]

Post by andrey mirtchovski
if you want an advice from the old farts on this mailing list i bet it
would be 'keep distractions to a minimum'. distracting colours too.

In my opinion, there's merit in revisiting the assumptions applicable
to RIO, specifically to reinforce the ones that have stood the test of
time as well as reconsider those that have been overtaken, perhaps
most importantly anything touch related.

I'm fine with what I have, but I suspect my comfort will not last
forever. But I am loath to sacrifice the snappiness of RIO for the
sluggishness of any Java-implemented tools, for example.

++L

[Erik Quanstrom]

Every element in rio has a functional justification. Without abandoning that principle, I'm sure there is room for improvement. Or even a better model like tiling.

- erik

Post by Keith
Hi! I've used 9 every now and then for two years now, and its pretty awesome. Rio however, I feel needs a friendlier, sleeker look. Like hi-res image display (is hd available in rio?), option to set your background to that, and softer window edges with terminal options such as other fonts and colors. Rio feels like X from the 80s. Don't get me wrong, I love the look, but I think it needs a more modern appearence. Along the track of what apple did to (their own cor