After using Enlightenment Desktop for quite a while now ..... and knowing there's a few others:
I'd be very interested to hear what design choices as to the Desktop we envision or would (not) like to see.
For now I've tried to format my desktop in a way that copies the E17 desktop used in Stable but ..... Seeing that is fairly old: Maybe we need to come up with something more spectacular or at least unique.
I've got some ideas but specifically do NOT want to force those on others.
So please, if you have wishes, vague ideas or anything ... please say so.
We can discus them and maybe incorporate them as .... frankly, I have no fixed idea either (yet) what the desktop of the future should look like.
As to the numbering scheme:
Currently we are on 24.2 which is the latest available version on github and are Beta testing releases.
Elive E16 (current Beta) and E17 (Stable) have quite distinct features and differences in the way they're set-up,
E24 or later is (understandably) fairly bland in it's theming and layout scheme and I was wondering what we existing Elivers would like to see in our next desktop.
all improvements / suggestions welcome, apart of that, it will use as much as possible the same features and designs as the 3.0 version which is already very good
that is not an easy thing , i mean "possible" is perfectly, but a big change affects many things, and the final result should be a good result which is not easy to reach, it will require a big big brainstorming first
definitively we will not be able to use ecomorph / compiz anymore after elive 3.0, but E can do some effects too, but of course not the same ones as compiz
as @triantares said, compositor is already integrated and is also integrated on the 3.0 version of elive when you are not using ecomorph, but compositor is not totally the same thing, compiz brings more effects and features
tiling is good to have available but not by default, normal users are not used of this and can be confusing , maybe can be good to have it as a startup option to pick
I agree ..... and the big thingy is the prominent presence of the virtual desktops. Elive is fairly unique in that. Frankly I couldn't live without it and feel severely limited when on a desktop that doesn't have that.
Another thing is the favorites bar, it's form and position. The current E24 iBar is fairly bland and flakey in some choices like using "connman" instead of "nm", IMO.
I think we need to decide what direction it should go, i.e the mac-like bar, a favorites bar like in Gnome and Unity or a win95 like dock/bar as in KDE or Mint.
Hence my post in screenshots about "polibar", there's a lot more out there that could give interesting results when cleverly combined with other finds.
It might make a big difference if we show what tiling can do and/or maybe offer a beautifully pre-configured Elive version at startup.
Tiling and showing the virtual desktops don't really mix .... that might be a problem.
Scour the net for ideas, try them (however far fetched they may seem), see if what configurations each of us likes or dislikes and implement them if possible.
Maybe it wont lead to anything but then at least it wont be for not trying.
That is not so easy as it sounds, a little talking about the unknown maybe some themes with dynamic weather. On the other hand I struggle a bit to ask for animated stuff, since E is so fast actually. What about so 3D desktop?
Yeah, the 3D desktops were a big thing around y2k but frankly I never did see the use for them other than eye-candy.
Considering a lot of current desktop designs are slowly but surely evolving to touch accessibility .... maybe, just maybe (going out on limb here) ...... future PC ergonomics will be us talking, waving and gesturing at the machine to tell it what it has to do.
My new car does all it's work using widescreen camera's that interpret the surroundings like distance to other cars, lane keeping and local speed limits including traffick signs, et all using software ...... so why not on my laptop, that has more computing power?
oh, dear 20yrs ago? I am gettign old. In the early days of E17 Raster implemented a desktop shell which I still miss and some more widget would be fine - for weather, IPCam, maybe messenger...
I doubt they'll be added any time soon - it'd be a lot of development work , for something that is simply eye candy.
Wouldn't surprise me. One reason is accessibility, the other is "but...I don't want to type all that!"
EDIT:
What do you mean by a desktop shell?
I believe E2* comes stock with a bunch but I had a hard time getting them to work. They're also not for those kinds of things iirc, but for weather you can position a borderless terminal that just runs curl http://wttr.in forever. Or if you prefer, curl http://wttr.in?format=v2 has more info but too much imo.
in e17 it was hard to get e-gadget compiled - I remember. but I am not aware of so many in e2*. for the terminal - it'S not beautiful nad especially E is so much about beauty - so I need a better idea
sth else I just noticed. I need miracast to put YT vids onto the TV so mylady can watch - how does that work?
True but Rasterman & co. are working hard to get E done and a lot of the Elive (E17) optimizations were by the hand of @Thanatermesis.
It's still very early days but by having a clear perspective of what we'd like to see and have, we could get started on optimizing those features.
So for me (if it wasn't obvious):
I'm a great proponent for the virtual-desktops/pager element available on the screen like in the previous versions of Elive.
It's the first thing that made Elive different from all the other desktops, at the time ...... and still should IMO.
The Mac-like dock (it was good at the time) or bar, I can go without but I can/will not miss out on the pagers.
this is not a problem if is well brainstormed (made in a correct way to not take resources, and not including them animating "all the time" but only when some specific action happens, for example)
available on the version 3.0 stable of elive but very probably not possible anymore in the future
it has some uses, like in the stable version of Elive with ecomoph enabled if you go to the corners you can see some of them (a very handy and visual way to organize your desktop for example), transparencies in windows can be useful too in order to read the other window behind it, etc..
that's more or less the actual future (siri, touch, etc), but specifically for phones which are the device for that... computers in the other hand are something more specific "for professional work", they still require a mouse for point with precision and a keyboard for fast and correct typing, there's some things that we cannot do so easily from phones (but they evolved a lot!), a simple example is how we could use the terminal with voices and touchings? heh sounds funny to imagine
by other side yeah, a computer can be "anything you want", but what I meant is that the most use we give to them is for "work" and use some specific applications in advanced mode (not like a cursor moving around the items in Netflix, that's a much simpler interface for a single purpose)
the stable version of elive still uses e17 and in any case...
mmh, seems like the website has a problem with the automated rendering here
many things:
depends on e17, e17 is good but is old, unmaintained, and could be better to use a newer E desktop with more features and such
I tried, but it simply doesn't works
e17 (and ecomorph) too is too bugged on the new versions (new versions of EFL, of the OS, etc)
old EFL on which can work good, doesn't compile because a dependency in xorg that doesn't exist anymore
in short, we are stuck in using new E without ecomorph (unless we spend a good amount of $$$ to pay full time devs to implement all that as we wish to have , could be good!)
but is also specially a very different way to make effects, E uses GL to render, but the GL effects of ecomorph (compiz) are something more direct and somewhat faster and smoother, but in any case, they are very different in code, compiz uses 3d calls and E uses its own animation system which has not much relation with 3d vectors and stuff (more like using the GL engine to compute the rendering)
we can code them ourselves too and yes with commands like curl is an easy way to get some results faster, there's a small intro (very old code, but good to have an idea):
agree totally, and about the dock, yeah is not so useful for -us- but is very friendly for normal or novice users (also somewhat beautiful), without it, the desktop will "lack something" visually
It's perfectly theme-able, lightweight and pretty.
The only downside I've discovered is that, like cairo-dock it reserves a segment of the screen (corresponding to it's size) that becomes unresponsive to mouse clicks.
Using "tint2" to incorporate the systray is IMO better than the loose icons currently in use. They give a sort of lost impression up there by themselves, top left.
Tomorrow we'll have the AR keyboards and mouse too so we wont have to lug all that hardware around.
Too an outsider it'll look as if there's madmen or magicians gesticulating in the air but in reality they'll be working in their computers.
A few decades ago if you met someone on the street or in a bus mumbling to himself, you kept your distance just to be sure.
Nowadays half the population walks around talking into space.
I wouldn't go as far as making a judgement like that in general but one thing is for sure:
We totally under estimate the energy resources being used to keep the current networks alive.
, i mean "possible" is perfectly, but a big change affects many things, and the final result should be a good result which is not easy to reach, it will require a big big brainstorming first
maybe some themes with dynamic weather. On the other hand I struggle a bit to ask for animated stuff, since E is so fast actually. What about so 3D desktop?
They're also not for those kinds of things iirc, but for weather you can position a borderless terminal that just runs 
and in any case...
, could be good!)
