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.HTML "Survey: Plan 9 and Touch User Interfaces"
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Survey: Plan 9 and Touch User Interfaces
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Joel Fridolin Meyer
joel@sirjofri.de
.AI
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The user interface of Plan 9 is mostly designed for computer systems with standard human interface devices like a computer monitor, mouse and keyboard.
However, many—if not most—computer systems nowadays come with a touchscreen as the only hardware interface for the user.
Since many users have different ideas for touchscreen systems and also different user interfaces, in order to design a solid user interface it is important to understand what the most important components and features are and what users think of touchscreen devices.
This report presents the results from a survey that was done in 2023.
.AE
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# The survey
The survey was sent to the mailing lists of 9fans and 9front.
Furthermore, it was shared on some social media channels, namely the 9fans Discord and on the Fediverse.
To better capture the users' opinion the answers were not restricted to predefined values—any user could add new answers and add more details.
Due to this nature it is hard to just drop numbers to summarize the results of the survey.
Therefore the results will be quoted directly.
# Questions and answers
Many answers to the questions of the survey depend on the level of experience of the user.
Because of that, the first question is about the level of experience of that user.
For the answers of the subsequent features I'll add the experience level of that user next to their answer, like this: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥.
The answers are fully quoted, including mistakes.
## Level of experience
‥Please rate your level of experience with Plan 9‥ (0 - just started using it, everything is new to me; 10 - I write kernel code and use the system daily)
- 3/10: I have installed it, played around with it and done some C programming with it, consuming API's, trying out libthread. I want to figure out how auth works properly and start using it distributed-ly at some point (adventuresin9 serves as inspiration).
- 6/10: I've been using 9front as daily driver since two years ago. i have been pretty much using it as a terminal (vncv, ssh, rd) until few months ago, however recently started to write code and some patches :)
- ‥(“A”)‥ I had 9front working on a laptop for a short while, but didn't use it too much. Now I have it on my VPS, and drawterm in. (I'd like to set up a grid when I have a better understanding.) I can get by making little C programs with the manpages, and am good at using Acme to do that. But I wouldn't say I know 9 too well yet, especially messing with namespaces, and all the syadmin stuff. Have a DNS server (am my own nameserver), rc-httpd set up, and have made my own rc-gopherd :) Am currently reading, trying to find out the best way to have it run as a user other than none (remove from /rc/bin/services & add in /cfg/$sysname/cpurc ?), and where to store the data (/sys seems wrong, I don't get why rc-httpd defaults to there, /lib seems better, but if I'm going to be doing users $home might be best (which may get mounted over /lib?))
- 5/10: I have been using it as one of my servers erika 9atom. Mostly
used for serving files anf controlling custom devices via serial ports
- 8/10: I use the system daily but do not code.
## Importance of features
The first question is about features of Plan 9 and how important they are for the user experience of the user.
The question provides a list of a few features (namespaces, plumber, text interfaces, GUI, mouse interaction), the user was free to add more features to this list.
(Quoted:)
‥Please tell me how important the following features are for your personal user experience‥.
Give them weighted values from 0 (not important) to 5 (very important).
### Namespaces
- 4/5: What attracted me to 9. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥
- 5/5: Indeed useful in a server. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- 2.5/5: In clients, not yet sure how'd i find them useful in such evinronment. ‥(EL:6/10)‥
- I haven't fiddled with these yet ‥(“A”)‥
- 3/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥
- 5/5: ‥(EL: 8/10)‥
### Plumber (including integration of plumber)
- 2/5: I haven't worked on configuring to my needs yet. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥
- 3.5/5: Useful in some cases, (page, acme, mothra); not sure ofit's usefulness in some other cases (zuke? mail? etc). ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- 0/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥
- 4/5: ‥(EL: 8/10)‥
### Text interfaces (rio window, shell)
- 4/5: I only use acme and rio, but feel more comfortable in emacs :P. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥
- 5/5: Important for reasons you'd guess. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- 5/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥
- 4/10: The shell and rio heterodyne into something better than either of them alone ‥(EL: 8/10)‥
### The GUI in general (are you a pure text guru?)
- 1/5: I haven't used many gui apps, and didn't like page (no continuous scrolling, text search though I get that's not its role). ‥(EL: 3/10)‥
- 4/5: I think GUI is a neat feature as long it keeps both both graphics and text acessible, acme for example. but i'm fine with either GUI or CLI (not TUI :D) ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- 4/5: mostly care about text. I have accumulated a lot of custom
programs and scripts that takes advantage of ncurses gnu enhancements that
would require a bit re thinking to move plan9 ‥(EL: 5/10)‥
- 3/5: Anyone who claims not to GUI is a fat liar ‥(EL: 8/10)‥
### Mouse interaction (chording, etc.)
- 3/5: Feels awkward in rio using rc but I like using it in acme. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥
- 4/5: Having mouse interaction is a nice idea. mixing input methods to gain faster ways to communicate with system i believe is a nice way. however it's clear methods that plan 9 are dependent are upon are quite hard to “assume” these days. mouse users don't have a mouse or a trackpoint, let alone a 3 button one. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- I'd find it hard to rate these seperately, 9's UI is very focused on using the mouse & text together, and textual GUIs. I find 9's way of doing UI great, finally a break from typewriters & gooey GUIs. But, the system could work with other GUIs, there's no reason to stay married to what we have. Right now 9 is very "there is one choice", esp. true with rio. Honestly I'd love to try a rich-text window, it's always been a dream of mine, though I have no idea if it'd be useful. I've been thinking of making a Win 3.1 or old Mac style file browser, purely for fun. Visual "shell scripts" are an idea I've had, pipeing data to/from files, through programs etc would suit a graphical flow-chart interface well I think. ‥(“A”)‥
- 5/5: I find plan9 gui is a lot more straight forward than X or windows ‥(EL: 5/10)‥
- 2/5: I don't chord at all, ever ‥(8/10)‥
### Others (tell me/add them to the list)
- ("fake") filesystems! this is like, the most important part of 9! small tools that allow everything to be scripted! (though there are a couple tools missing that have C-only impls.) plus, just the KISS nature of it all. when I try to set up & navigate a Linux systems there's so many things to know, each of which you could spend months mastering. when programming, even simple things have silly complex APIs with stupid interfaces. so much config.... and everything disagrees how things should work, and, even with the massive configs, you often get little choice about how things work. ‥(“A”)‥
## Ultra-text-based systems or widget-based systems?
‥Do you prefer ultra-text-based systems like acme, sam, shell, or purely widget-based systems like fgui, mothra?‥
- Haven't used any of the widget based systems. I'm not in love with text apps either, since I haven't yet suited the plumber to my needs. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥
- 4/5: i like the idea that you may copy text from everywhere and edit it, however i'm not sure how graphics fit in it, since neither sam nor acme can display images in themselves. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- 1/5: not a fan of pure widget-systems. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- I've not heard of fgui or used sam yet. Mothra serves it's purpose of just having a web browser to keep people happy, but I think it's designed in a very non-9 way. I'm not quite sure how it'd work, but ideally there'd be a standalone graphical html viewer (like `page`?), mothra is just a barebones copy of your regular monolith browser. ‥(“A”)‥
- Mostly use ed+9term ‥(EL: 5/10)‥
- acme should burn. I am a sam user. I require all of my input devices to be supported and useful. Any system which excludes one was designed by short-sighted children and is not suitable for adult use. ‥(EL: 8/10)‥
## Opinions about devices with different screen sizes
‥When you think about computer systems with touchscreen interfaces, about which of the following systems do you think immediately? Tell me more about your thoughts of the others.‥
- smartphone & tablet. Nintendo DSi & WiiU. styluses generally make them better as fingers are imprecise, get in the way of vision, & swiping with them isn't always the best. ‥(“A”)‥
- mostly just tablet or phone. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥
- LCARS. All I want is LCARS. ‥(EL: 8/10)‥
### Very small screen: smart watch
- Don't use it, seems cumbersome to me.
- 1/5: i assume these have 16-512 mb of ram, while plan 9 will work better on 16 mb of ram than unixen, i'm not sure what use it'll have on a 1-2 inch display, or what a hackable smartwatch running on plan 9 might have. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- I don't really get making these touch, too small. The ones with physical buttons or the swiping-the-side thing are much better. ‥(“A”)‥
- I find Smart watch too small to be useful except for simple things. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥
### Small screen: smart phone
- What I think about first, in particular iPhone. I prefer the very put-together and uncustomisable UI at this form factor. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥
- 4.5/5: most of my friends are most likely to have a phone. and it's one of the places that i believe plan 9 can shine and put unixen TUI/CLI interfaces in shame, it'd be wonderful if interface were consistant between touch UI an desktop UI, but with input methods adjusted for each one. (for example, swipe with to fingers to chord-copy) ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- good for what they're generally used for, too small for serious work. ‥(“A”)‥
### Standalone big screen: tablet
- I don't use it but would use it for reading and annotating PDF's‥[sic!]‥. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥
- 4/5: same points as small screen ‥[“most of my friends…”]‥ ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- very nice, I have an old one with a magnetic-attach keyboard which would be lovely if it could handle newer, greedy software. ‥(“A”)‥
### Mixed big screen: desktop computer with mouse/keyboard in combination with a touch screen
- I suppose it could be useful in a classroom? ‥(EL: 3/10)‥
- 3.5/5: not really sure ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- used one of these for most of my younger years, could watch TV & DVDs on it too! the perfect multimedia device :P was probably the only device well suited to Windows 8, they were a perfect match. There were quite a few games that it was superb for. I don't know what it'd be useful for beyond that. ‥(“A”)‥
- And touch screen desktop feels weird to me ‥(EL: 5/10)‥
### Others: for example, big whiteboard, media table
- Again, may be useful in classrooms and presentations. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥
- 2/5: never even saw those irl :) ‥(EL: 6/10)‥
- Don't really have any comments on these. Projector with pen whiteboards, later smartboards (running Android, but just used for the drawing, browser & then as a second display) seem to just serve their purpose. ‥(“A”)‥
# More relevant user comments
- Talking touchscrens, I've always imagined a tablet-sized device (or slightly larger?) which a stylus. The stylus having the three mouse buttons & scroll-wheel on it, so you could use it like a regular mouse. Would sound perfect for 9.
# Thanks
Many thanks to anyone who participated in the survey.