SCRINGLY DINGLY @quiet@shrike.club

kinda glad covid picked the time of gdq to infect us to we can watch silly block if we dont pass to sleep first

I have just learned the positive covid test result we had came back in not more than 5 minutes. And that @SophiaSurname shouted "holy shit".

We have Super Covid

ok i need to get food and rest before i start rambling about our ideas for a desktop environment for the blind that uses a pen and a matrix of dots that can be raised to allow non-visual spatial interaction for a variety of purposes including things like simple paint style programs and how significantly that could change what layout of an environment could be desirable and whats most important

[window menu] [minimize] [close]
is probably a pefectly servicable order but. that still leaves the question of where to put literally everything else related to the current app

you *could* get around this 21st century button order nightmare the tech industry has left us with by skipping the maximize button, as is seen in a lot of GNOME setups. but that gets rid of the maximize button. though everyone just drags the window to the top of the screen, or resizes it, or double clicks it, so, maybe that's a reasonable loss? theres also still the issue that if you want to put things like the active app menu on the right you have a menu start from the right

macOS has a wonderful little button order that goes from most to least destructive that it's had for over 20 years, that also looks like a traffic light on its side as seen on american roads

Windows doesn't have this and instead since 1995 has had what i call the cringe bad order of minimize maximize close

everything that puts all its buttons on the right copies the Windows 95 layout

reordering that'll make it feel weird and if vertical make an upside down traffic light

just putting them next to each other doesn't make sense because we all expect both of those things to be in corners but *especially* the menu and putting one of them away from a corner disregards the usefulness of being able to fling your pointer to a corner (which is an infinitely large button under fitt's law) to get the everything menu

a lot of people expect window buttons to be on the right which is fine except for button order which is complicated

so the close button being on the left has a history that goes back to the 80s with windows and mac os sharing it not to mention systems like the atari st

but languages and the start button suggest putting any kind of start or app menu on the left. those things dont conflict inherently but if youre obsessed with giving window controls to the desktop environment to make them consistent and reachable then one of them has to not get the left corner and has to go somewhere

up at 2am thinking way too hard about what side various ui elements should go on in a desktop environment and how they relate to each other and the physical world and expectations/assumptions