One thing I don't see mentioned anywhere including the plans is accessibility though. Not having basic accessibility support would be a serious issue, so I'm hoping it is either already there and just not mentioned or at least planned in some way.
Smaller, simpler, more hackable software is inherently more accessible.
Edit: Of all the comments to disagree with, I am blown away that this is today's. You guys desperately need to explain what you're disagreeing with here. Seriously, leave a reply.
If you look at how classic Win32 applications are constructed, I don't think you need anywhere near the support for screen reader software that you do with modern applications. All of the elements of a dialog box, for example, are constructed from a standard set of controls, and can be interrogated programmatically for their text.
I don't know anything about the internals of BeOS software, but I would bet that it's closer to Win32 in this regard than it is to more modern UI systems.
https://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/bebook/ClassesAndMethod...
This was the mantra of BeOs. Here’s a technology preview. Watch videos on a cube, now a sphere!
The OS was sold as a technology preview that was easy and accessible and the users only needed to wait for developers…
…that never showed up.
Similar occurrence with Microsoft phones and lack of developers. Pebble watch and lack of developers…
What these projects all lack are meaningful engagement instead of a few ‘oh wow’ moments.
> The Flora Prius was preinstalled with both Microsoft Windows 98 as well as BeOS. It did not, however, have a dual-boot option as Microsoft reminded Hitachi of the terms of the Windows OEM license.[4] In effect, two thirds of the hard drive was hidden from the end-user, and a series of complicated manipulations was necessary to activate the BeOS partition.[5]
The engagement was certainly starting, and I think there’s a chance—a small one, to be sure, but a chance—that if Be, Inc., hadn’t clearly decided that carving out a comfortable niche just wasn’t enough, BeOS might have succeeded. (Instead they decided to go all-in on “Internet Appliances,” which ended up dealing them the death blow rather than a big success. Ironically, I think that market effectively succeeded a decade later, but in the form of the iPad.)
the way windows are styled/handled. so i'd like to see a BeOS styled compositor/window manager.
the database like filesystem, and of course gui and commandline tools to use it. (can the filesystem features be emulated with extended attributes, or is a full port of the filesystem driver needed to get a filesystem with the same features? (i am not looking for compatibility, just the feature set))
But all BeFS has in the way of being "database like" is arbitrary named & typed btree indices, chosen by the owner. You can have a btree of filenames, a btree of "sent by" email addresses, maybe one of file types for example. If enabled (which is the default) you pay for this feature with a significant perf overhead on operations because those tree indices must be updated, but if it's disabled (common for disks with lots of small files) you lose the facilities enabled by having such an index.
Compared to full text indexing, which was also popular on some systems at about the same time, this doesn't produce very impressive results, yet you're paying for it everywhere. No surprise then that even the text indexing remains a niche feature, I know people who care about it a lot and others who've never been interested.
It's probably one of those niche features like wall switches for floor lamps (a socket is run off the lighting circuit and switched just like ceiling lights, but a floor lamp is plugged into that socket). A few people love it, most people aren't bothered, so, it's usually not done.
indices are a standard feature in databases, and yes, they can slow down some queries while speeding up others, so you should use them judiciously. maybe BFS has an issue there, but that does not negate the concept.
practically speaking, what i want is a gui filemanager that lets me set arbitrary keys and values on files, display them and filter for them. indexing them is not required.
btw: UK style power sockets all have individual switches to turn them off or on. maybe elsewhere people aren't bothered because they are not used to the idea.
If you decided to do this for, say, Windows, Microsoft is going to release a new Windows version with new stuff you can't do and too bad.
But BeOS itself is dead, and the Haiku project (to basically make BeOS again, once named "OpenBeOS") is about a quarter of a century old yet seems barely closer to releasing anything. A lethargic snail could sleep walk to the finish before Haiku ships version 2.
About the only thing I think you miss out on is GPU acceleration and maybe wifi? I haven't kept up with the current state.
pjerem•3h ago