Best of both worlds. . . functionality vs aesthetics

[Macfunky]

What is everyones favourite applications that provide a good balance of functionality and aesthetics? Anything from file managers and above. If you disagree with either side give me an alternative and explain why :D Look forward to hearing all your replies :D Thanks

[Viva]

Miro
AWN
Audacity

[Gallahhad]

Windows 3.1, definitely
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/631/qemuwindows31.th.png (http://img411.imageshack.us/i/qemuwindows31.png/)
:D

On a more serious note, any GNU/Linux I'm running at the moment with GnomeDo, Gnomenu, and a very light amount of Compiz.

In the Windows World, gotta say Aero is pretty snifty.

[Tristam Green]

On a more serious note, any GNU/Linux I'm running at the moment with GnomeDo, Gnomenu, and a very light amount of Compiz.

I gotta agree with this.

Compiz settings for me that qualify are the ring switcher, scale, and expo plugins.

Gnome-Do in Docky mode for the ultimate win.

On the Windows side? The advanced switcher and the Windows 7 Taskbar.

[lovinglinux]

plasma-desktop
kwin
firefox
smplayer
dolphin

[J_Stanton]

i'm not big on eye candy, although i do think kde looks good. my main concern is usability and stability, no matter the os.

[NightwishFan]

I like the Nautilus browser. You can have spacial mode if you want. You can customize the background and add emblems to icons. It is also fast at thumbnailing and easy to read and see what a file is.

[ve4cib]

e17 seems like it should fit the bill. I've only played around with it a few times, so I haven't gotten used to it yet, but it's definitely got some aesthetics going for it. Check out MoonOS (http://moonos.org/) for a really nicely-themed, out-of-the-box version of e17.

Pidgin always struck me as being a well-put-together IM program. Not much to say about it, really. It's simple, intuitive, and does what one would expect of an IM program.

Gnome-Do is just great.

The Gnome Global-Menu panel applet is also very nice. It only works with GTK+ applications (right now), but it gives you the Mac-style menu on the panel, instead of in the window. Saves a bit of screen real-estate, and make it so you can just throw the mouse to the top panel to get the menus, instead of precision-clicking on the menu strip inside the window.

On the KDE side of things, I like the Plasma widgets. The default theme that ships with Kubuntu I quite like, actually. I've never been a huge fan of KDE, but the newer versions aren't too shabby. I think I still prefer Nautilus to Dolphin though.

Finally for the one oddball application I'll toss Stellarium out there. For those who haven't heard of it, it's a planetarium program. I've used it a few times out at the lake as a convenient star map. With the laptop monitor brightness turned down and the "night mode" turned on in Stellarium (it makes everything red so it won't mess with your night-vision) it's great. Much easier to use than a star map and a flashlight, and with more information available to boot.

[etnlIcarus]

Xfce: looks like the love child of Windows 95 and System, while it's extremely elegant to use. You get a few UI rough edges, while the reasonably well-defined scope of it's apps helps to avoid feature overlap, visual complexity and mediocrity. Additionally, it comes with a reasonably sophisticated window manager.

[chucky chuckaluck]

with a nice font and color scheme, terminal apps can be pretty aesthetically pleasing.

[arnab_das]

Songbird with the media flow add on.
Chromium
AWN
Compiz (although it is all looks :P)

[etnlIcarus]

Compiz (although it is all looks :P)

I disable most of compiz's aesthetic touches and use it primarily for the functionality it offers: full-screen zoom, scale + title filter, Place Windows and Window Rules, etc.

[earthpigg]

pcmanfm
gnome-terminal