[Trac #1053] OLPC needs a usable GUI (i.e. not Sugar)

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#1053: OLPC needs a usable GUI (i.e. not Sugar)
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 Reporter:  gnu     |        Owner:  jg       
     Type:  defect  |       Status:  new      
 Priority:  normal  |    Milestone:  Untriaged
Component:  distro  |   Resolution:           
 Keywords:          |  
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Comment (by gnu):

 Here's the classic hubris, straight off the devel list:
 {{{
 > Wouldn't it be better to fix Sugar and Matchbox to handle "normal"
 > applications running directly on the real X server?

 Not if that involves overlapping windows, no.  The whole point of
 classic was for those apps that people, for whatever reason, just _have_
 to run that don't deal well with Matchbox, which fullscreens all
 non-dialog windows by default.

 Which is the behavior we want.  If you're running a legacy application,
 you use Classic to do so.  Those legacy applications do not fit into the
 Sugar framework.

 The problem with having something like Classic is that it's a crutch
 that developers can use to ignore optimizing their application for the
 OLPC laptop.

 Dan }}}

 The problem with having something like Sugar is that it requires every
 application to be "optimized" for it.  It's already hard enough to get
 every application optimized for a 128MB,
 swapless, slow machine.  Shouldn't it be a Sugar design goal that the
 thousands of ordinary X applications OUGHT to just work, out of the box,
 over the network, with it?  Why cut off that reservoir of working code?

 To answer some of the questions above:

 * Complaining about missing features:  I want a web browser that works
 like Mozilla.  That
 can open more than one web page at a time, and do more than one thing at
 once.  That can download files to ANY ARBITRARY LOCATION OF THE USER'S
 CHOICE.  That lets me see where a link will go BEFORE I click on it.  That
 has a scroll bar I can see, and hit.  And that better handles idiotic web
 pages that assume a particular screen size.  I want a terminal emulator
 that can open more than one window, and that has some way to switch back
 to doing something else.  I want a way to switch applications easily.  I
 want copy and paste.  I want the last twenty years of user interface
 design, without having to go back and reinvent every wheel individually.

 * Unresponsive objects on screen:  The XO that is the only thing on the
 screen after it boots.
 The undocumented triangle that sometimes appears on that same screen.  The
 application icon
 in the top frame.  The right mouse button EVERYWHERE.  The vast majority
 of keys on the keyboard almost all of the time (except within specific
 applications).

 I showed the XO to someone new last night.  (This happens all the time,
 people love it.)  When nothing worked in the UI, I had to explain that
 everything useful is hidden around the edges of the screen where it's hard
 to find.  People who use it for ten minutes can go, oh, whatever.  They
 took it as a mystery.

 But no developer is actually developing ON the machine, because it's so
 sucky.  And the kids won't be so lucky.  Eat your own dogfood, Sugar
 developers; write and edit and debug your code on the XO.  I bet you won't
 last two days before you run screaming back to a real GUI.  Yet we expect
 the kids to be able to read and modify the sugar code, on the XO?

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/1053#comment:5>
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