Comments for Luis Villa

Comment on publicly thanking dwdiff by Gertjan Halkes

Gertjan Halkes — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:47:18 +0000

@Scott Baker:

If you pipe to less, you will have to tell less that it should expect color codes. You can do this using the -R option to less. Otherwise less thinks it’s just random binary data.

There is also an option in dwdiff to just show a few lines of context instead of the whole text: -C so your command line should look something like:

dwdiff -C3 -c old new | less -R

Comment on Notes on Diaspora Talk by Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:57:56 +0000

I’m rather disappointed that they’re going the “micro-networking” route rather than trying to be a Facebook replacement… Facebook’s rather versatile, whereas Twitter is retarded (unless you can read hiragana, Cherokee, Big5 Chinese, or another language that uses a syllabary and not an alphabet for it’s written form). Given that, of the five languages I have any knowledge of (English, français, 日本語, epsañol and ᏣᎳᎩ), only two use a syllabary, micro-networking is Mostly Useless™. I hope that Diaspora isn’t serious about pursuing that route.

Comment on The Libre Web Application Stack (A Code Story) by You've been Stumbled!

You've been Stumbled! — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:15:40 +0000

[...] You've been Stumbled! [...]

Comment on Why I love (and hate) Panorama by You've been Stumbled!

You've been Stumbled! — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:41:16 +0000

[...] You've been Stumbled! [...]

Comment on Notes on Diaspora Talk by WebMii - Luis Villa

WebMii - Luis Villa — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:13:05 +0000

[...] Blog Posts · LegOS · Me · My Talks · Resume. Categories … read… > Aug 24, 2010 … Luis VillaRamblings on software, law, and the spaces in between. …. Just have [...]

Comment on Why I love (and hate) Panorama by Luis Villa

Luis Villa — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:08:50 +0000

Colby: it is hard to explain; it is good to read the linked post and and better to watch the video embedded there. But in a nutshell, when I hit the keybinding for Panorama, I get a visual representation of the tabs in the various groupings, not just numbered or labeled boxes; I can adjust the size and location of the groupings, so I get spatial memory of where things are (not just ‘left/right/up/down’); I can reorganize applications within and between the groupings by moving them around in a tangible way; etc. And it’s all in a big, clear, single field of view, rather than having to move between the desktops like you do in Linux virtual desktops or Apple Places, or use the tiny applet view in the panel. I imagine some of the various GL-based WMs have played with similar things (apparently inc. KDE 4.5?) but I haven’t seen anything like it.

If I were reimplementing it in Linux, I might consider replacing the traditional file-centric desktop with a panorama-like view that could contain both files and application windows.

Comment on Why I love (and hate) Panorama by Colby Russell

Colby Russell — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:45:02 +0000

Luis, you keep saying stuff like:

[Virtual desktops] … don’t generally have the spatial/visual cues that Panorama brings to the table.

Could you explain?

Comment on Why I love (and hate) Panorama by Luis Villa

Luis Villa — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:06:49 +0000

I admit I’m not super-optimistic about automatic aggregation of tasks, but it can’t hurt to take a look. What is the best way to poke at KDE 4.5? opensuse + some magical build channel, or…?

Comment on Why I love (and hate) Panorama by Burke

Burke — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:51:19 +0000

I guess KDE could be worth taking a look at. The Plasma people are developing methods for future KDE SC versions right now that adress those problems in some new ways. For example they working on the semantic desktop with tries to accumulate applications, desktop widgets and information and provide them task oriented. In other words the computer groups tasks for you. And therefore a manual method to achieve this shouldn’t be that far away.

Also the Gnome Shell stuff sounds interesting. It is indeed another approach to that matter. Just have a look at this, too.

regards

Comment on Why I love (and hate) Panorama by Simon

Simon — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:23:23 +0000

@Luis – I agree, Gnome Shell is not currently the same as Panorama. But it (and some of the more speculative Gnome 3 concepts) does look like a step in that direction, of a desktop environment that helps manage your workspace, rather than just being a place to put windows.