Hi,
Il 25-12-23, 18:48, Didier Kryn <kryn@???> ha scritto:
> Le 25/12/2023 à 04:52, Steve Litt a écrit :
>
> As far as launching apps, the way I do it is with dmenu from Suckless
> Tools. If you're a keyboard kinda person, dmenu is by far the fastest
> and most efficient way to launch apps.
>
> Le 24/12/2023 à 21:27, Gianluca Zoni via Dng a écrit :
>
> over a decade ago I started using StumpWM. Desktop environments
> are a waste of time: you have to gesture to make yourself
> understood by the computer, when we can talk to it or give it the
> right commands by typing key combinations in a single "musical
> chord" on the keyboard. StumpWM is programmable and integrates
> seamlessly with Emacs, Mutt, Conkeror, ... especially because
> over the years I've built an entire system of scripts and
> programs that I call the "zigzag system".
>
> You both, what you achieved is the result of a lot of configuration
> and scripting work. Instead, any DE works almost fine out of the box and
> is configurable through a menu.
>
> I think the general answer to the original question is that heavily
> using menus is less efficient than heavily using command-line, but, on the
> other hand, a menu is self-documenting, therefore, more efficient for
> applications you rarely use. For example, a terminal emulator is the very
> interface for command-line, but do you like to spend days in customizing
> its apearance? No, this very task you do only once is more efficiently
> done through a menu.
>
> In Xterm, everything is configurable through one zilion command-line
> options, which, in practice would imply to RTFM and write one's own script
> to start it, because it does not read a config file. Konsole,
> Gnome-terminal or Xfce4-terminal, what more are they than front-ends to
> Xterm with config files and menu-driven configuration.
>
> For what regards Dmenu, in all DEs there is an application menu for
> all applications which are "integrated" in the Freedesktop sense, which
> just means they come with a .desktop file stored in
> /usr/share/applications/ . Do you, Steve, find it feasible to
> automatically read all the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications/ and
> build a Dmenu tree for all of them? Each .desktop file includes a
> "category" which drives the structure of the menu as a two-level tree. I
> think this kind of tool might boost the adoption of Dmenu.
>
> -- Didier
a desktop system is not just its graphical layout. Let's get some
clarity:
- graphical setup is not an everyday practice:
whether it is accomplished by filling out a graphical form or
by writing very complicated software, it usually ends there,
once and for all. Only people with severe psychological
problems incessantly continue to change the parameters that
define the graphical appearance of the system: the
"self-documented" "ticked" GUI serves only once. And it can be
done even without "desktop": it is just a software to change
the configuration with a friendly interface.
--> A friendly software for configuring the graphical appearance
can be used even without desktop, for xterm as well as for
any program, if you really want to. I don't think that's
what the "desktop" is aimed at, because no sane person
keeps - insistently - changing the settings
- A desktop is a system that provides too many things in one
block, because they consist of daily practice: for example,
file-system navigation! All operations in the file-system via
"desktop" applications are "gestural," they are by "primitive"
monkeys. But those who turn on a computer are more advanced
monkeys: they can write! If you can write, you can tell the
computer what you want it to do, without having to repeat
operations in a boring and stupid way. If you can write to the
computer-in simple, elementary language (bash is easy to use,
to take one example) - what you want the computer to do for
you, you not only don't need a desktop, you don't even need to
gesticulate like a stupid monkey, because you are a literate
monkey
- the desktop is for the illiterate: if you are not illiterate,
then it is a limitation on your expression and action. Many
people, used to the desktop, do not imagine what they can do
with a computer. Basic principles of command-line programming
are the basis of any elementary education. A 6-year-old
learning to read and write can give articulate language orders
to a computer.
- a desktop system is systemic software designed for an overall
experience: it is a habit of life. What I am contesting is
precisely this closed view of the possibilities of using a
machine that can have far greater potential even at an
elementary level: "computer literacy" means being able to
write to a computer telling it what to do, even in iterative
operations and using variables, through the file system...
Without a desktop, users would be forced to think, rather than
gesture with the mouse.
The power of the written word - according to logic - would
become central. It is a pedagogical problem, but above all a
civil and political one: it concerns habits and the attitude to
freedom
--> as McLuhan said: «the medium is the mEssage»
--> but also (as claimed by his successors, for example De
Kerckhove) «the medium is the mAssage»
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--
Z O N I N O Z
Gianluca Zoni
zoninoz@???
http://inventati.org/zoninoz
http://savannah.gnu.org/users/zoninoz
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