This is a page of computer ideas by myself that I think, if implemented would make computers a lot easier to use.

I, as yet, do not have the programming (or other skills) to make these ideas come to life myself, but perhaps you do. The point of this page is to get these ideas out in circulation.

There are some conditions though to using these ideas which I hope you'll abide by:

The Terms:

You can't claim credit as the originator of any of these ideas, unless of course you can prove you came up with the idea before I did. I've placed a date of posting next to the title of each idea which counts as the copyright.

The idea and all source code and binaries must comply with the licensing that the Linux community is using. (I believe it is called the GPL license.) Although you may include it with a commercial product, you cannot charge extra for it.

I want these ideas to spread freely with nobody collecting a toll on any of them - especially Microsoft! I also would like to avoid the "embrace and deform" strategy of Microsoft where they adopt something and change it in ways to make it proprietary, thus I would like changes by others clearly identified.

The ideas:

A Replacement for the Icon

(Posted 3/3/2000)

All graphical user interfaces (Macintosh, Windows, Amiga, etc.) have used icons to represent files, folders, disks, etc. and to give a visual mechanism to open them and to manage (move, copy, select, etc.) them.

Although a very good visual device, icons have one shortcoming - you have to double-click on them to open them. Single-clicking only works for selecting and dragging icons. For the raw novice user this is not intuitive at all because it requires them being taught ahead of time how to do it. It goes against their immediate instincts. (You didn't have to double-push the power switch of your computer, did you?)

In an attempt to simplify things for new users, there has been a move to use buttons instead, sometimes within a browser-like interface. Apple Computer has in its more recent versions of the Macintosh OS included a "Button View" option. Buttons solve the intuitiveness problem for opening items but it introduces a new problem for users who would like to or need to do more: Buttons can't be dragged or selected or if they can be, you have to know to use a modifier key to do it. In the case of Apple's Button View, it is the Option key.

Here is my proposal: Why not combine the two and put a button on top of an icon? The advantage to this is obvious. You can open or select an icon with just a single click with both options clearly visible in front of you. This of course could save your fingers and wrists from a lot of clicks. For a modest increase of screen real estate, you get the best of both buttons and icons. For want of a better name you could call it a "widget" or a "bicon" ("button" and "icon" combined). I really don't care what it is called as long as it works.

The button would of course be the area to click to start a program (with the graphic changing to a depressed button when it is activated). The area around it, including a drag bar, would be what you would click on to select it or to drag it. The drag bar might also provide extra feedback about the status of the item. The title area would work just like it does in the Mac OS.