June 2, 2010

Raskin

Implementing a zoomable user interface1 on top of a regular desktop operating system is hard. Raskin for Mac is probably as close as we are going to get.

Raskin Screenshot

Predictably, it's missing some important features that make zoomable user interfaces great. For example, there is still a distinction between zooming in on a document, and actually opening the document—I don't see how it would be possible to fix this problem while still remaining compatible with Mac OS X, though.

Even so, while Raskin probably wouldn't work as a full replacement for the Finder, I do think that it provides a useful alternative view of your data.

Found via Oliver Reichenstein.

  1. I've written about a fully zoomable operating system called Oberon last year. ↩︎

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designed for use cover

But wait, there's more!

Want to read more like this? Buy my book's second edition! Designed for Use: Create Usable Interfaces for Applications and the Web is now available DRM-free directly from The Pragmatic Programmers. Or you can get it on Amazon, where it's also available in Chinese and Japanese.