Define "eye candy"

[brawnypandora0]

I see this term on the forum from time to time. What does it mean specifically?

[Peter09]

Well here is one definition.

eye candy
n Informal 1. a person or people considered highly attractive to look at, often implying that they are lacking in intelligence or depth
2. something intended to be attractive to the eye without being demanding or contributing anything essential

[brawnypandora0]

I don't understand. Are they talking about desktop wallpapers when they use this term?

[hhh]

Eye candy is something visually appealing, so that's up to each person's individual taste. Regarding desktop environments, I started seeing it used frequently when 3D drivers/Compiz effects were becoming mainstream, especially things like the Cube effect, animations for opening/closing windows and Expo. Transparency also would definitely fall in that category.

[Legendary_Bibo]

Compiz, docks, gnomenu, gnome-do, emerald themes. All that stuff is eye candy.

[brawnypandora0]

Eye candy is something visually appealing, so that's up to each person's individual taste. Regarding desktop environments, I started seeing it used frequently when 3D drivers/Compiz effects were becoming mainstream, especially things like the Cube effect, animations for opening/closing windows and Expo. Transparency also would definitely fall in that category.

Oh! So kinda like that Windows Aero gimmick?

Do those things actually help you to be more productive? I don't understand why people would want that if it serves no functionality. They just use up more memory.

[jtarin]

Re: Define "eye candy"When we used to extract the eyeballs of Gummi Bears at Halloween......my mother asked one day,"Where did you boys get that eyecandy" and the phrase has been around since.:p

[Legendary_Bibo]

Oh! So kinda like that Windows Aero gimmick?

Do those things actually help you to be more productive? I don't understand why people would want that if it serves no functionality. They just use up more memory.

Some of the plugins do have functionality actually. For instance, I use the Scale plugin so I don't have to have a window list selector, and I can use a global menu and still be able to access my apps with one click. I use Expo and Desktop Wall so I can more easily move windows across workspaces, and see when I do it more easily. Also with compiz I have transparency with the terminal so if I'm reading off a command that I can't just copy and paste, I can read it still while I'm typing.

A lot of the eye candy is still functional, and I like having something nice to look at while I do stuff. If you want you could use the old grey Gnome with its 8-bit icons. Also for a home desktop an aesthetically appeasing desktop doesn't really take up that much memory, or CPU if you have a computer from the past 5 years from applications you would be running. It only matters in a scientific/academia scenario.

[el_koraco]

Given that you've started 5 threads one after another just on this subforum, I'm having a tough time believing you're serious.

[nzjethro]

When we used to extract the eyeballs of Gummi Bears at Halloween......my mother asked one day,"Where did you boys get that eyecandy" and the phrase has been around since.

haha. I thought the term came form Sir Howard Eyecandy who invented eyecandy in 1764.

Na, eyecandy is all the pretty stuff going on on your desktop. Some people reckon anything more than a terminal is eyecandy, others go all out with a desktop cube, flames on their windows, ice around their mousepointer, etc etc. I tend to use functional eye candy - scale, expo, a binary clock, and a wallpaper terminal.

[jtarin]

Actually it was a game we played when we lived in Tuscaloosa. We would suck on candy canes until they were nice and pointed and then see who could plunge them the deepest in to the eyeball. I've sworn off peppermint. :P

[Paqman]

It's a new sugary treat launched by our friends from Cupertino. It will come in one colour, one flavour and cost $378.

[Mariane]

Fake progress bars.

A progress bar fills up from left to right and when it's completely full the process it is referring to has finished.

A fake progress bar displays a blob going from left to right along the bar, but when it reaches the end of the bar it starts up again from the beginning, so you have no idea how long the process is going to take.

Irritating and definitely counter-productive, because if you could estimate by looking at the bar that the process would not finish for another quarter of an hour you would go and do something else with your computer meanwhile, instead of sitting there staring at this stupid fake progress bar.

Mariane

[oldos2er]

Eye candy is something visually appealing, so that's up to each person's individual taste.

I would add to that definition, something visually appealing that has no practical use or benefit. Some compiz plugins may or may not fall into the category "eye candy" depending on how one uses one's computer.

[philinux]

Moved to Cafe.

[Gremlinzzz]

Beautiful women.:D

[aysiu]

Beautiful women.:D
Or beautiful men, too.

[Bart_D]

Eye candy is something visually appealing, so that's....

1. anything on a Macintosh desktop
2. Faenza icons
3. elementary icons
4. Gnome 3 Shell
5. Linux Mint
6. anything found at Gnome-look.org
7. KDE
8. the look/feel(the feeling you get from looking at it) of any Application launcher
9. Google Chrome, when compared to the (vomit inducing, for me atleast) Mozilla Firefox
10. the contents of www.customize.org

[forrestcupp]

Do those things actually help you to be more productive? I don't understand why people would want that if it serves no functionality. They just use up more memory.

That all depends on what you're doing. What is useless "eyecandy" to one person might be very functional to another. If you don't have a reason to make windows transparent, it's a waste of memory. But someone else may want to use Gimp to trace a picture that is showing under their window, and it wouldn't be useless.

Some plugins, like wobbly windows or raindrops on your screen, have no useful function other than amusement. If I'm amused by something like that, it may be worth the memory footprint to have it enabled.

Anyway, today's computers have an insane amount of memory. It seems like more of a waste to me to have a computer with 4 Gigs of RAM and work extra hard to keep your total memory footprint to 512 Megs. What's the point?

[BrokenKingpin]

On these forums it usually refers to flashy effects in the DE, such as compiz effects. Personally I find simple interfaces a lot more appealing, and all that compiz stuff looks like crap. So eye candy is really subjective.

[brawnypandora0]

That all depends on what you're doing. What is useless "eyecandy" to one person might be very functional to another. If you don't have a reason to make windows transparent, it's a waste of memory. But someone else may want to use Gimp to trace a picture that is showing under their window, and it wouldn't be useless.

Some plugins, like wobbly windows or raindrops on your screen, have no useful function other than amusement. If I'm amused by something like that, it may be worth the memory footprint to have it enabled.

Anyway, today's computers have an insane amount of memory. It seems like more of a waste to me to have a computer with 4 Gigs of RAM and work extra hard to keep your total memory footprint to 512 Megs. What's the point?

Well some people only have less than 512MB RAM.

[forrestcupp]

Well some people only have less than 512MB RAM.

And those are the cases where it's understandable. My main problem is with people who have loads of RAM, yet they still feel like they need to keep it down that low.

[Copper Bezel]

Personally I find simple interfaces a lot more appealing, and all that compiz stuff looks like crap. So eye candy is really subjective.
Simpler interfaces generally are more attractive. At default, Gnome Shell is simpler in apperance than Gnome 2, but it also has more eye candy. DockBarX is simpler than a series of launchers followed by a taskbar. And so on.

I really have to draw a sharp line between things intended to make the desktop experience attractive, tasteful, and dynamic and things meant to, well, paint fire on the screen.

[fattacky]

anything that "pimps ur computer" without actually improving its performance.

[jtarin]

K.I.S.S......Give me good wallpaper and appealing icons.

[Eldera]

I am a KISS person, too, and never bothered to install Compiz or study its features.

However, transparency as mentioned earlier in this thread is something i could use. Is this a feature of Compiz or some other apt or plug-in?


If you don't have a reason to make windows transparent, it's a waste of memory. But someone else may want to use Gimp to trace a picture that is showing under their window, and it wouldn't be useless.

[nerdy_kid]

Fake progress bars.

A progress bar fills up from left to right and when it's completely full the process it is referring to has finished.

A fake progress bar displays a blob going from left to right along the bar, but when it reaches the end of the bar it starts up again from the beginning, so you have no idea how long the process is going to take.

Irritating and definitely counter-productive, because if you could estimate by looking at the bar that the process would not finish for another quarter of an hour you would go and do something else with your computer meanwhile, instead of sitting there staring at this stupid fake progress bar.

Mariane

Like the Windows vista SP1 install that I had to suffer through the other day...

[Copper Bezel]

I am a KISS person, too, and never bothered to install Compiz or study its features.

However, transparency as mentioned earlier in this thread is something i could use. Is this a feature of Compiz or some other apt or plug-in?

Yeah, by default in Compiz, you can scroll down while holding Alt and reduce the opacity of the window under the cursor.

[Eldera]

Thanks, Copper, I'll Try that out soon.

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, it can be fairly useful. (Now that I think about it, the Opacity, Brightness, and Saturation plugin might not be enabled by default, but that's one click in CompizConfig. It appears with the Accessibility plugins at the top of the list.)

[Eldera]

I'll Find the help screen or Google it after I down load it. I can usually figure things out. It just takes time and I have other projects "in the works".

[el_koraco]

In the Linux world, anything other than twm.

[jtarin]

In the Linux world, anything other than twm.
Ha,ha! TWM is eye-candy compared to byobu.:p

[pzwt]

"eye candy" refers to someone or something that is visually very attractive or inviting.

[brawnypandora0]

How does the cube thingy improve productivity?

[Copper Bezel]

So far as I can tell, it doesn't. There's a reason Unity went with the Wall. But we've had a topic on that.

[brawnypandora0]

So far as I can tell, it doesn't. There's a reason Unity went with the Wall. But we've had a topic on that.

went with the Wall????

[Peter09]

went with the Wall????

Yep, instead of each workspace being on the side of a cube each workspace is painted flat, one alongside the other - as thought painted on a wall.

[el_koraco]

went with the Wall????

Yeah, like Israel, they're building a dumbed down Wall around the hearts and minds of power users and replacing it with bloat and eye candy.

[Thewhistlingwind]

Yeah, like Israel, they're building a dumbed down Wall around the hearts and minds of power users and replacing it with bloat and eye candy.

All in all it's just another brick in.............

[BrokenKingpin]

Simpler interfaces generally are more attractive. At default, Gnome Shell is simpler in apperance than Gnome 2, but it also has more eye candy. DockBarX is simpler than a series of launchers followed by a taskbar. And so on.

I really have to draw a sharp line between things intended to make the desktop experience attractive, tasteful, and dynamic and things meant to, well, paint fire on the screen.
100% agree.

[Legendary_Bibo]

How does the cube thingy improve productivity?

It gives you a 3D perspective on all running applications on each workspace that you can see at any given time.

Also, it spins!

Why does everything have to be productive? Why can't Linux have pretty effects and interfaces like MS and Apple? Why do we have a screenshots thread where everyone has their own idea of what they want their UI to be like and even some of the most productive people are making some cool looking and pretty desktops?

Should we be pushed back to vanilla Gnome with the default icons?

[Gremlinzzz]

A bug light:D