Orbit: We need something like this.

[Chibi]

Well, as I've been on the dark side for a few weeks due to driver issues (small stuff, eax-wine, usb tv tuner), I've been digging a lot around the internet for ways to make my interface comfortable. I installed about everything desktop related that was out there (except startdock stuff, xp64 issues), and had settled that xoblite and cygwin xfce are the best shells for windows.

I'm a big fan of the eye-candy dock we all stole from OSX, I usually grab one and high-res icons for my common applications first thing after security stuff. But I found something different, something unique.


http://www.ecocardio.com.br/orbit/


This, my geeky friends, is orbit. It's a windows application, yeah, and a very unique one, in my opinion. The concept is that you middle click (or keyboard shortcut) and a radial menu appears around your mouse. This program acts as a launcher, a tasklist, and you can even have it browse through folders. And of course, it's eye-candy packed. It's the greatest shell supplement (or even stand alone shell) that I have ever layed eyes on.

Now that you have this in your head, like it, or like it not, we need something like this in linux, and no, not just as some bloated gdesklet, someone needs to write a clone of this, and make it better. Spread the word, if you would.. I wasn't sure exactly where to place a plead such as this. I have no programmer buddies who would dare attempt it, and my own skills aren't good enough.

If a developer does arise willing to take this challenge (please guide them here), good things to keep in mind would probably be freedesktop's icon naming spec, .desktop, and compositing. The windows program uses DirectX, and a sloppy scheme similar to .desktop, so those would probably match well.

Radial menus are radical, yes, but they're easy to use. If you've ever played "The Sims" or "Second Life", you know the joy of them, and how much better they are than scrolling through rectangular menus.

Please, one last time, I beg of the ubuntu artist's community, spread the word on getting this lovely idea into our lovely little geek world. (Or at least test it in wine. I'm going to hold off from installing ubuntu again until dapper betas

[lizardking]

There is a similar gdesklets like this less powered.
;)

[super]

looks pretty cool. i would love to see something like this in ubuntu.

[commodore]

This is an old idea. Many people want it allready. And I have seen a gdesklet similar to this.

[d3x7r0]

There was a plugin for firefox to replace the right click menu with something like this... it was cool and very functional but could be a newbie nightmare... People are used to simple right click menus :?

[Chibi]

"and no, not just as some bloated gdesklet,"

Miss much? :P
I didn't say it was a new idea, I said it was something we are missing. I think it would theme well with ubuntu, as well. A person holding hands for each orb. :D

[Iandefor]

Sounds pretty cool. In response to people mentioning the gdesklet that already does this:

Circlebuttonbar or whatever the hell it is, is only a launcher. A pretty simple starter. This is actually cool :-D.

[Lux Perpetua]

There was a plugin for firefox to replace the right click menu with something like this... it was cool and very functional but could be a newbie nightmare... People are used to simple right click menus :?
The last point can be overstated. The fact that it's innovative doesn't mean it will be difficult to learn or use; the two concepts are really orthogonal. I think this really makes sense from a usability point of view. It's clearly a more efficient way to organize a menu, since you don't have to move the mouse much to reach any particular item. I think the only reason radial menus are so much rarer than rectangular menus is that they're just plain harder to implement.