Will we ever see operating systems with webpage-like interfaces?

**Kvark** · March 28th, 2006

Originally Posted by Brunellus

I hate that. Nothing else in GNOME or KDE behaves like FFX in that respect, and it really irks me.

I am very annoyed by that inconsistant behaviour too. Every program that supports tabs has it's own special implementation. Some programs doesn't even support tabs at all. The cause of this problem is that everyone thinks it is every single program's job to reinvent and manage tabs. IMO it should be the WM's and only the WM's job to manage both windows and tabs.

If you add tab support to the WM and remove tab support from all other programs. Then all tabs everywhere would behave the same. Tabs would work with all programs. A setting related to tabs would only need to be changed once instead of one time in every program. If you find a WM with a great implementation of tabs then you can use your favourite implementation of tabs with all programs rather then only one. You could mix tabs for different programs in the same window and do other cool stuff individual programs with separate tab implementations can't. It would also make it easy to combine tabs with other features from the WM or panels.

**prizrak** · March 28th, 2006

A web style OS desktop would be the most horrible and vile idea on the planet. It is also quite unnecessary, desktops right now can be set up in the way the user prefers them so what would be the point in making it look like a web page? What should be concentrated on right now is increased usability, by that I mean some features that help with moving around the desktop. There was a thread on that 40 suggestions for a better desktop or something like that.

**keifer** · April 2nd, 2006

They already exist, to a degree; things like embeded devices ,which have input devices other than the keyboard/mouse, use them. Things like kiosks in stores, gaming hardware, and the like.

In their current form, they are not useful for devices like a workstation, because while they can be *very* good in an enviorment when one task is done at a time, they would be obtrusive in an enviornment where you need to switch between multiple tasks.

The computer desktop may also be slowly moving that way, with projects like Mezzo, Plasma, etc. Vista, Symphony OS, and KDE4 look to be a step in that direction, to a degree. I think this route is more likely to end up in a (productive) web-like interface, as these projects are being developed in an enviornment where switching between tasks is common.

-kkkeifer