Direct Manipulation, Scalability and the Internet

Abstract

UNIX has provided us with a tried and tested set of shell utilities. The associated shells provide rich languages for generating scripts to automate common tasks using pipelines, sequences, conditionals and iterations. These facilities are also used to compose components in complex user-defined systems. Unfortunately, the shell-like facilities are inaccessable to the growing majority of users who have never experienced a command-line interface. These users are only familiar with directing computers in a visual manner. The Psh project is an attempt to provide similar functionality to the UNIX shell in a visual context. In this paper, we consider how the project relates to the existing desktop metaphor as found in the Macintosh Finder or a modern Microsoft Windows system. In a separate thread, we also integrate the desktop with the internet by using the URL as the general identifier instead of the traditional UNIX style identifier.