Philosophical question about portrait vs landscape

#21

Surely this is simply window management?. In windows 11 there are quick ways to put any window on screen into a landscape or portrait shape. In this case the choice is is the window portrait or landscape or not.

With my two 27" monitors they are already by force of gravity arranged relative to each other in a landscape relationship. I can make a window portrait but it is limited in height. I imagine on the Table Top screen you could change sides however then you have problems looking at the landscape oriented items.

Clearly the ultimate solution is Sh-t loads of screen real estate.

Actually, as a “lapsed” photographic enthusiast the hardest part is getting a camera to take what you saw because cameras have their own “processing logic” that differs from your minds representation of what you saw. First there is the color caste and there is a lot more. Ever taken a photo of a “large” moon to find in the picture is a small moon?

I would urge someone in need of more screen space to investigate finding unwanted tvs (with input) and monitors. With the right cable or adaptor most format connectors can be adapted to view video. Just consider a Dumb TV or a Smart TV no longer smart or a TV that no longer receives broadcasts. In some suburbs these are found on the footpath. Sometimes loss of audio is enough for someone to “toss” an otherwise good screen.

#22

I just took the base off my 19" monitor, tilted it sideways, and adjusted the screen orientation for it,
just as an experiment. I can already see that it will be great for reading, […]
I am on the fence about whether I like it for […] TiddlyWiki.

Talk-TiddlyWiki seems to be designed for portrait mode.

When I use Talk-TiddlyWiki on a desktop monitor in landscape mode
there is a lot of unused space to the left and to the right
whether when the monitor is turned into portrait mode, the discourse forum looks more natural.

On the other hand using TiddlyWiki in edit mode with an open sidebar,
even a monitor in landscape mode quickly gets too small.

1 Like
#23

It is certainly true that digital cameras complex the issue. Unlike film they add layers of interpretation. The core issue, for me, is that you have TWO levels of digital. (1) what the (decent) camera does (save to RAW) and (2) what the computer does to Represent (display) the RAW.

TBH I’m very skilled at (1) but (2) is a never-ending mess. Why? Because colour consistency over different systems is a mess, still.

The issue with digital images online is that there is still no proper standard approach. It is compounded by fact that the image (unlike physical film) is only visible in a digital rendering. It is a Catch-22 as you can only see what the specific local interpreter shows.

That said. A typical work-process for RAW images is: (i) take image; (ii) display & edit on a colour calibrated monitor; (iii) apply colour charts that mediate best universal looks over use situations for publication.

This is a bit OT, but you’ll get the general drift.
TT

#24

You are absolutely right, & wrong :smiley:

“Virtualisation” on huge screens alters the scenario. Why? Because it makes virtualisation obvious in a congruent way.

TBH, there is a (needed?) shift in conceptualisation of what a “page” is to optimise usage? Those mega-screens do do that.

But, there is a conflict in that the dominant form factor of our time (used most widely by most people) IS the Mobile Phone. On such a small thing you can’t do everything.

SO, how do you reconcile Godzilla with mini-Bambi? :smiley:

Just comments
TT

#25

Right. This is a “user interface” question that comes up a lot.

TW is quite mature (old?) now. And @jeremyruston has (rightly) been very concerned to ensure backwards compatibility. Meaning it must be fairly Conservative (rightly). I would say that responsive design of it’s CSS is pretty good, except for handling the sidebar.

Just a comment, I may be wrong
TT

#26

@TW_Tones , you bricoleur you.

TT, x

#27

I think that is true. Why bother?

A brandy perhaps? Or an Ovaltine?

TT, x

#28

I just realized that all screens should be round.

The eye ball is round and the pupil is round to spread the light evenly on the retina, around a focal point. Hence the optimal shape on screens are round. No need to move the eyes or the head but instead keep an even burn of the image onto the retina. Like staring at the sun. The rectangular shape is likely an unquestioned dogma from the early days of manufacturing before we invented the ball. I shall put tape on the corners of my rectangular screens to roundify them from now on. This will also be perfect for analogue clocks. And now with the James Webb telescope we can probably expect some pictures of planets and stuff that, in case you’ve never noticed, are typically round.

I also think we must adapt the TiddlyWiki core ASAP. Who’s with me? Don’t be so square people! This will be a revolution!

1 Like
#29

I used to work with a guy that said Mac (then Windows) got it all wrong – instead of windows, he wanted portholes.

eejit.

#30

Oblate spheroids actually but round is close enough in 2D.

But to truly free up your display, let’s dispense with bordered presentation devices (square, round, triangular) and go for aerial projection.

#31

It is nice to see someone revisiting phenomenology for computer screens.

TT

#32

You ​missing human beings move. The scope of the eye in NOT what it does staring ahead. It is what it can see with full rotation and ascension and declination of the head movements too. The “moveable field-of view” is normal vision scope. What is that?

Certainly it ain’t a rectangle. But it ain’t a perfect roundy either.

Your post is interesting, but let’s get some facts straight first. :smiley:

TT

#33

Pah! You’re not keeping up with the times, you old fogey. I predict this recent invention shall be in every mans home within a decade:

image

I rest my case.

#34

That’s an awful lot of theory “resting” on the terms “conscious” and “consciousness” (157 mentions) when, as we all know, there is no consensus on what consciousness actually is.

Gotta love the grey sciences, they can talk (write) for hours and say very little of true substance. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#35

Interesting idea, But then I would miss the screen space taken away from the corners, it would make it easier to pivot the screen but then there would be no reason to. It would still be as wide and as tall to fit on your desk but missing contents.

The real answer? I think ultimately AR - Augmented Reality will win, we could make screens appear anywhere in our field of view and of any shape.

1 Like
#36

Dear young fogey :smiley:. Get real and go back. This was done in 1959 in the DEC PDP-1. It is very important in computing history. By 1962 it was also the hardware most favoured by emerging “video gamers”; especially for Spacewar! that was an early, influential, open source game. BTW, even though cathode-ray, it had a screen-pen.

440px-Spacewar!-PDP-1-20070512

1 Like
#37

@DaveGifford , small footnote on early GUI development. It was not assumed that “correct” is Landscape. Xerox’s pioneering work on GUI’s at Palo Alto, California, thought more in terms of the shape of typical paper (portrait)… Xerox Alto, 1973 …

480px-Xerox_Alto_mit_Rechner
480px-Xerox_Alto_mit_Rechner480×640 57 KB

[Xerox ceased all their innovation work on computers mainly because upper management could not see any market for it. Jobs & Mr Microsoft both knew the Xerox work and used it, especially Jobs for the Apple early GUI.]

History is interesting :slight_smile:

Best, TT

#38

My first experience with a GUI was GEOS. The picture below is not shrunken. It’s showing GEOS in its original 320x200 resolution. The good old days!

image

1 Like
#39

My first experience with a GUI was on a Xerox Alto in 1980 in the Computer Science Dept of Carnegie-Mellon University, where I was an undergraduate software engineer working for the Speech Recognition Research Group with Raj Reddy and Alex Waibel.

In 1983 I has a summer job with 3RCC (Three Rivers Computer Corp) – a CMU spin-off company, later renamed “Perq Systems Corp”. The “Perq” used an OS called “Accent” which was a predecessor of the Mach Kernal, and also had a vertically-oriented screen.

The year after that, I was part of the group that developed “Andrew”, a CMU project for a campus-wide GUI-based OS (built on top of IBM RT hardware, which had a horizontally-oriented screen). I contributed to the design of the scrollbars (the use of a “variable height thumb” — the drag box in the middle of the scrollbar – was my idea.)

-e

3 Likes
#40

My first GUI was GEM, possibly GEM2 in 1986 which I prefered over the first Windows OS. I used it along with DR DOS and lots of TSR’s (Terminate and stay resident programs).

Until this point I used pen and paper to draw and design things and record ideas this was my GUI and second brain. My HDD at the time was limited to 20MB which I had filled at the same time as I learned MS-DOS and its equivalents.

Post script, I always felt WIMP’s (Windows/Icons/Menus and Pointers) and GUI’s were inevitable and all the attempts to copywrite these things was like copywriting the toothbrush, My Grandma or apple pies. I think these issues created a generation of Hackavists and started the escalation of copy protection which lasted a few decades and arguably was lost. The open source movement being part of this.

1 Like