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Metisse [1] is an X-based window system designed with two goals in mind. First, it should make it easy for HCI researchers to design and implement innovative window management techniques Second, it should conform to existing standards and be robust and efficient enough to be used on a daily basis, making it a suitable platform for the evaluation of the proposed techniques.
Metisse is not focused on a particular kind of interaction (e.g. 3D) and should not be seen as a new desktop proposal. It is rather a tool for creating new types of desktop environments.
Metisse was used, for example, to implement the User Interface Façades system, a system that allows to adapt, reconfigure, and re-combine existing graphical interfaces through direct manipulation techniques. It was used by Mekensleep to integrate GTK+ interfaces into the OpenGL-based Pok3D game. It is also being integrated into Mandriva Linux Spring 2007, the forthcoming version of Mandriva Linux.
These videos and screenshots will give you a better idea of what the system can do.
2007-01-26: We've been recently working with Mandriva people to bring Metisse to a broader audience. As a result, Metisse will be part of Mandriva Spring 2007 and is already available as a Live CD based on Mandriva 2007.0 and GNOME. More information, including download links, is available from Mandriva's Metisse page.
2007-01-26: Metisse 0.4.0-rc4 has been released, together with núcleo 0.6. This release includes the new copy/paste interaction techniques that will be presented at CHI 2007.
2006-12-17: This page illustrates our latest work with Metisse, which will be presented at the next CHI conference in April 2007 [2].
Old news are archived for historical purpose...
Metisse is being developed by O. Chapuis & N. Roussel, two members of the In Situ team (LRI - Univ. Paris-Sud & CNRS, INRIA). It runs on Linux and Apple OS X and is freely available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
This document will tell you how to get the source code and compile it. This one will tell you how to run the Metisse server and compositor. This one will tell you how to use the compositor (e.g. how to make a screenshot) and configure it.
Questions, comments and suggestions should be sent to the mailing-list.
See this document for a complete list of Metisse-related papers.
[Google]This work has been partially supported by the French ACI Masses de données (Micromégas project, 2003-2006).