HI
FIRST..... We are WELL AWARE that this request may be considered "distro/promotion/hopping."  We have seen it in various forii.

If the moderator(s) consider this to be a form of such behaviour, then we respectfully request that they delete this post.

If not....

Some folks may remember me from Xandros Forums, which I left upon learning of the deal with Microsith, I'm now using PCLOS and Ubuntu.  NEITHER of the aforementioned distros are in any way associated with Calypso Dancer, except that they very nicely let me "vent" and have provided some constructive criticism.

The Project Calypso Dancer team has developed a JAVA applet which we consider to be the "possible" future of the Linux Desktop, for *nixs that would like to try it and might feel they might have a use for it.

It may fly, or it may just waddle    or it may sink an ignominious death in the icy waters of the South Pacific/Atlantic....

Anyway....we have about expended what little expertise we have just getting the basic thing operating....

And we would like to request the help of folks in making some artwork for it that is either "static".... the "nodes/circles".... or "dyanmic" ... the "lines"...

We have absolutely no clue about such stuff, and the folks here may not particularly want to get involved, BUT possibly you folks might know "someone" who would like to get involved...

anyway.....here's the link... Calypso Dancer.... notice that we have provided a thumbnail of one of the screensavers from Really Slick Screensavers.... just a thought about what we think it "might" look like in the future....

And, remember this is not ON a distro yet....although we hope it will soon be!      So.....your favourite distro might be the one to try it out...if they so wish.....like I said..... it may just be laughed out of Linuxdom.... dunno!  

any help would be appreciated!

http://linuxextremedesktop.org/index.html

thanks for any help ahead of time!
woodsmoke

Hi guys,
I'm stickin' in there, although I did have to take the better half out for dinner and a walkabout at the Mall.... nice stuff....
I"m hopin' that someone can give us a bootstrap here!
woodsmoke

Welcome to Crystal XP

I read both of your replies but couldn't get any explicit information , may be your English is too good for me to understand , please make it more comprehensive so that everyone can understand it

Enjoy your stay

Hi Ashar,
thank you very much for the reply.

To make it very simple.  Our team has made what we think "might" be the "next" interface for SOME, not all, Linux distros.

If one takes a look at the Calypso Dancer, one might see that this really might be good for people that are sight impaired, the little "circles" can be made bigger, where the present desktop merely makes the menus so big that the desktop becomes unworkable.;

We were able to produce what you see in Calypso Dancer....but we desperately need the help of "folks" who would like to make it "pretty".

Make the little "circles" into "spheres".... make the "lines" into "tubes"....make the  transition between the tube and the sphere "smooth"... kind of like a model of a molecule...

Anyway, we need help making it "look good".

thank very much for the reply.

woodsmoke

It sounds like you want a logo or an image to modify , we will try to do that but the problem is I can't see any logo on the site which suits your specification or do we have to make a  new one?

I think he means something to do with this:

Cylipso Dancer

But I'm not quite shur

I found it here

Doddles Thanks for the link

woodsmoke If you want static images then specify the size of each part to be designed , also tell whether you want separate parts as images or would like to have a complete and a joined structure

Forgive me if you think I misunderstood anything. But I wanted to help.

  I checked out the little applet. it is good.( It reminds me of "The     Brain" ).

    I think the circles and the lines were rendered by java.(i may be wrong).

    All I can make out is that you are looking for a skin for the applet .

    that is animated , clear and cool. (like the rocket dock, for example.)
     
     So if you want us to make some images, animations etc,please
     
     give the specifications. (format,dimensions,scalability etc).

And .... Welcome to CrystalXP .

Hello folks, and thank you ALL FOR THE WONDERFUL HELPFUL REPLIES!

Yes, it is a java applet....

I think what would be cool is that if the lines were made kind of "tubular".... and the circles could be made into "spheres"...

The reason for this is that if we can ever figure out the correct equation to have it MOVE in THREE DIMENSIONS...that is using 3-D glasses.... the things will have to have "volume"..

If the "transition" between the "tube" and "sphere" could be "smoothly transitioned" with a spline or something then that would be great also.

The real problem with the line/tube is that it's length has to be "dynamic" because, as you can see, the lines "collapse" when the next node out is clicked...thus reducing clutter on the desktop...

This might all be under what you guys call "skins"..to .Me.., I'm older than DIRT!  when I use the word "skin" I think in terms of what I'm seeing with Crystal XP.net, and the blue banner above with the nice white/lightblue frames etc...but you folks may use the term differently...

Also.... we read around on this as much as possible and it may be that ....WE DO NOT KNOW.... it may beat a form of art called "ray traced" ?????? would "expand and contract" to make the tube expand and contract,

It may be also that in this first go around, that it doesn't necessarily need to "disappear', it could just get way short with the three "layers" we have... and then it could be modified later to "disappear"...dunno....

But ANY help would be greatly appreciated....

Maybe the best starting point would be the circles.... not making them actually spherical but just making them  "spherical" APPEARING....... kind of like TUX's tummy appears spherical but isn't...

The little red "heart" emoticon is "shiney" like I'm talking about and looks "dimensional"... and various colors....

Actually if the thing is actually USED in a distro frontend the thing would probably have to have different "shapes" also...maybe spherical, cube, star, dunno...

Maybe we could have a Fantastic 4 TUX that stretches his arm like Reed Richards! Woah! would that be cool or what!

Anyway....thanks again for the offers of help and discussion.....

We had gotten so far into just getting the thing working that we decided to take the last few days off.... but I'm kind of "refreshed" now and will be here more regularly!

woodsmoke and the CD gang

Ashar,
we are working on your request as to the size specifications etc.
thanks
woodsmoke

Transforming your java applet would be quite interesting work for me to do but I am pessimistic about one thing , the java applet involves transformation of lines but I would only be able to design raster images which will lose there quality when subjected to transformations in size (mostly when they are maximized) , I don't know how to fix that problem  

Hello!
How about using SVGs ?
You can make them like anything by just altering the associated xml

and the term "skin"¸ for me refers to something like this:-