The desktop environment

Depending on the graphics capabilities of your machine, it might be possible to engage a user interface based on pixels rather than character cells. These are typically referred to as GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces), and have underpinned the vast majority of interactive computing for many years. Most GUIs are minor variations on idioms of the desktop environment, that is:

• Interactive applications present sets of distinct windows, objects of varying opacity taking dynamic size in 2 dimensions
  • The contents of the windows, subject to overlap, are controlled by the application
  • Decorators of the windows, subject to overlap, are usually controlled by the application
  • Graphic presentation is typically influenced by a theme -- an instance of a presentation engine's parameters
• Windows are partitioned among workspaces, 2D objects having size corresponding to the display
  • Each workspace provides a z-axis on which its windows are at least partially ordered
  • Some systems support association of windows with more than one workspace at a time
• A root window
• In every system known to this author, a total order is induced upon the workspaces, and only one workspace is shown at a time
  • Workspaces are projected onto windows on a new workspace by tools such as Compiz's Expo and Scale, Vista's Windows Flip 3D, or MacOS's Exposé.
  • The total ordering is sometimes associated with a regular polytope, but this seems a specious association from a topological perspective
  • A single workspace exhibiting non-simple connection/dynamic genus, starting and ending as an e.g. sphere possessing dynamic local metric, seems a fascinating and natural one. Has this not been pursued? -- nickblack.atl (talk)

GUIs

The standard rasterizer on Linux is currently X.org. Alternatives include Wayland and DirectFB.

Theming

SprezzOS's default theme is Allotrion.

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