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24 oct 2004: A new screenshot of the CVS version is up. The only thing preventing a new release is that the docs aren't ready. Contributions are welcome.

13 oct 2004: The OneFinger kicker applet is now available in CVS. The applet integrates OneFinger into KDE; it can replace the kde taskbar and allows dragging files from external apps to OneFinger. The applet is meant to be used with the CVS version of OneFinger. See the "download" section for info how to get the applet.

8 Oct 2004: added screenshot of the upcoming 2.0 version.

25 sep 2004: Version 1.9 released. There are major new features. Most notable:

  • Implemented drag and drop of files to a window. This is particularly useful because the target window doesn't need to be visible: it is automatically activated. So you don't need to resize any window in order to drag.
  • The taskbar now doesn't show utility windows (e.g. gimp non-picture windows, if you set the appropriate setting in gimp).
  • In the taskbar, when you activate a window, all utility windows with the same pid are brought on top. This is especially useful for gimp.
  • The program now scales its widgets according to the current resolution. This makes it usable in resolutions other than 1024x768.
  • It is now possible to sort the open windows by recent usage or creation date.

24 sep 2004: Version 1.8 released. This release contains major new features. Briefly: 1. added mime support to better suggest programs; 2. added a new panel which can act (A) as a taskbar (B) paste WIds in the command line (this is useful to simulate drag and drop, thus bypassing the individual programs' file managers).

20 sep 2004: Packages for mandrake cooker 9.1 are now available.

19 Sep 2004: Version 1.1.1 released. There are some major bugfixes from 1.0, and some new features as well.

About OneFinger

Welcome to the home page of OneFinger, a general-purpose GUI (graphical user interface) for Linux. Although entirely graphical and "pretty", OneFinger does not attempt to hide the underlying "bash" command line language: instead, it lets you compose shell commands with the mouse (and only one finger!).

While at first it may seem inappropriate to use the mouse to compose textual commands, OneFinger increases your productivity over classical hand-typing, for the following reasons:

  • The commands you type in your terminal tend to be highly repetitive. OneFinger improves your productivity by "caching" them, so you never have to type the same thing twice; later, you can select them from a list (usually ordered by last usage time).
  • OneFinger has an integrated file browser that helps you insert filenames without typing them.
  • OneFinger has a feature called "narrowing", which allows you to see only those programs that make sense with a given file, or viceversa, only those files that make sense with a given program. In particular the first one (file --> program) is a key feature that current CLIs do not offer. This way it will be easier to select the right program than to type it.

    How does OneFinger know which programs can manage a given file? As time passes, OneFinger learns this by watching the way you work; it can also use the MIME informations in the system.

  • While bash is a task-oriented only language, OneFinger is both task-oriented and document-oriented.
  • OneFinger collects statistics of your work: it can sort practically everything by recent usage, frequent usage, name, date and size. For example, the files in a directory can be ordered by recent usage. This is surprisingly useful, because you tend to use only a small fraction of the files in most directories. Furthermore, for each program you can have a list of recent arguments passed to it; you can have a list of recent directories; the programs can be ordered by recent usage, and so on. This way the average number of items you have to scan with your eyes is minimal.
  • Other than using the mouse, OneFinger allows you to type any piece of the command by hand---although in practice you will only do this when typing a program name for the first time.
  • OneFinger bridges the gap between CLI and graphical interfaces by giving you the best of both worlds: you can have total control over your system, without renouncing to the comfort of a point-and-click interface.

Miscellaneous informations

OneFinger is created by Maurizio Colucci (email: seguso.forever@tin.it).

OneFinger is free software, licensed under the GPL.

OneFinger works under GNU/Linux.

OneFinger is a version for power users of the program Logical Desktop, by the same author.

OneFinger is written entirely as a python script, so it is very easy to run.

OneFinger is dedicated to Richard Wagner, the greatest artist of all times.