The Y project team are pleased to announce the availability of the beta test version of the Y window system. Y is the result of international collaboration between leading computer scientists, psychologists, linguists and ergonomists, and sets out to redress many of the problems reported by users of the X window system, and in particular the related problems of screen clutter and icon underload.
The fundamental problem with all previous window/icon/menu systems is the necessity to present the user with an every-increasing number of icons, as the complexity and range of tasks which the workstation is configured to support increases. Despite the improvements in technology (particularly in the area of active-matrix displays), there is little likelihood of monitors becoming available in the near future with major diagonals much in excess of 19". Combined with the limits of phosphor resolution, which we are approaching at 0.24mm, many researchers have reported that they are unable to place all necessary icons in the screen concurrently, and are having to resort to multi- level hierarchies of icon (`icon hiding') in order to retain legibility while allowing for the necessary complexity of display.
The Y window system (or Y, as it will be generally know) seeks to address these problems by several interrelated improvements. These include reducing the complexity of icons (thereby allowing the icons to be presented at a smaller size without loss of intelligibility), and `icon chaining', a patented system whereby icons have no meaning in isolation - instead, icons are chained together into `words' (ordered sets of icons), and the words themselves express the desired concept. (Further developments of this technique are already being investigated for the Z window system, in which words will be further grouped into `sentences').
Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Y is that the icons are not pre-presented, thereby avoiding from the outset the problem of screen clutter. Instead, the Y user is presented with an almost blank (i.e. uncluttered) screen, with a vestigial icon phrase (`prompt') at the far left. Using a digital input device, or DID, the user dynamically creates a series of icons on the screen, separated by icon delimiters or `spaces' (alternative forms of icon separator are provided with different semantics attached to each; for example, in the U window system, a horizontal bar represents the assertion of the following icon, while an intersecting horizontal and vertical bar represent the retraction of the icon, in accordance with current usage. The V window system uses a diagonal bar to indication assertion, and requires additional icons to indicate negation or retraction). When the icon-list is complete, the user indicates that the indicated action is to be carried out by a further, reserved, button on the DID.
One of the most significant advantages of Y over X, and other similar systems, is that icons do not have any reserved meaning in isolation. The same icon may occur in different contexts, and its meaning will be taken from the context in which it appears. This context-sensitivity, although requiring greater power in the icon-string analyser, allows an infinite set of icon groups productions to be creatable under user control; if an icon group has a predefined meaning, then use of the reserved `enter' button on the DID will cause that meaning to be communicated to the processor; if no predefined meaning exists, the processor will indicate this to the user by means of a further icon string, this time generated by the system. This may of itself lead to a further icon string being generated by the user, and thus processing continues.
The Y window system has been placed in the public domain, subject only to the normal conditions of the Free Firmware Foundation. Copies may be found on all major archives and mirrors, though the exact location may vary from site to site. Potential beta testers are asked to contact their local archive or mirror for further details on availability and registration.
[Submitted on behalf of the Free Firmware Foundation, 1 April 1992]