Aqua-Soft ForumsI'm obviously new. Glad to meet you all.
I'm going to be blunt. I think it's great that so many of you have put in so much effort recreating the "Mac OS experience" for us Windows users, but it seems a little misguided in spots. I'm a computer tech... hardware mostly... I don't dream in code... but it seems like you're taking the hard way around recreating the interface.
I used to use Macs back in the System 7 days... wandered off towards the cheap nirvana of the x86 platform and rediscovered the Mac platform recently. I fell in love with OS X, and grew a horrible and bitter hatred for *Apple's* PPC "hardware" and their "only our hardware will run our OS" attitude that makes building a PPC clone more hassle than it's worth for the money.
So, here I am in no-mans-land... caught between the realities of the Windows UI and the yearning for the OS X interface. I've poked around here and a few other places. I'll admit... you got the look down cold. I don't care about the look. If I want the look, I can use Stardock's software. That gives me a modacrum of functionality with a crapload of unstable bloat. I need a stable system more than the OS X interface.
MobyDock is a great start. From what I read, I can hardly wait for the next build. It's relatively lean on resources, seems to be stable, and it has a functional task manager, limited Windows Explorer functionality as well as a nice little quick launcher. There's a third of the Mac interface for me that counts.
The second part is where it gets hairy, the hybrid menubar/systray. Object Bar won't cut it, and it seems like the long way around for something that would seem simple. They're halfway there with what I'd like to see... removal of the menus from the windows. The real question is though... why do we need an entirely new program to just do what Windows can already do? Why doesn't it seem like anyone has just tried working with what they already have?
My suggestion is simple. Why not just create a menu toolbar for the taskbar? Basically just relocate all the menu items and maybe the application name to a fixed toolbar like the quick launch toolbar or the taskbar and let it use resources Windows is already using to generate it? Change the taskbar to an optional and removable component, include the option of removing menus from windowed applications and presto! You'd have the unlimited ceiling and menus up at the top after a brief relocation of the big old gray bar.
I would try and do this myself if I could as it sounds relatively simple, but like I said, I don't dream in code. If it's as simple as I'm guessing though, not only do you have two thirds of the important functional interface down, but you've done it in such a way that it doesn't add to the Windows overhead, can be skinnable in XP and easier to do a global visual change with all the software without resorting to three or four programs and tons of minor skinnable applications to take the place of pre-existing ones.
As for the third part... it's been crossed many a time... a full replacement for the Explorer shell. It's a big project, and it'll cause more problems than not the way MS has been tying Explorer and IE together. Would it be great to have file search and a windows explorer that mimicked Jaguar? Yes. But I can live without if it means I get unlimited ceilings and a dock. And push comes to shove... there's always a scab fill-in for Explorer just for file browsing that can mimic OS X that I noticed a couple of the guys here are working on.
Basically, what I'm asking for and suggesting is for the community to possibly try shifting gears and try making clean and simple interface changes that simply rearranges the Windows OS into something more user friendly than trying to reproduce every single visual nook and cranny. That can be done after the UI has been improved and brought up to snuff with what we're trying to reach for through imitation and recreation.
I hope that I haven't bent any noses out of joint with the huge blarg I've released. If I have, my apologies. I hope I've made some sense, and inspired a couple new lines of thinking with trying to create what we all want.
Thank you for your time.