I’ve stumbled upon the concept of zooming user interfaces (ZUI). Here are two great examples that show the potential of it. I thought some of you might find this interesting. The first one is “Table Lens” from 1994 that allows users to “zoom-out” to see patterns in large tabular datasets. video: paper: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/948449.948460 The second example is a zoomable calendar called “Date Lens” that allows seamlessly browsing a calendar at different timescales. video: paper: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2004/03/tochidatelens.pdf I’m wondering why this pattern is not more prevalent in today’s software. I’m not aware of any popular software that supports this kind of interaction mode.

Jef Raskin sure loved the idea of ZUIs (Humane Interface ch.6), but I don't know that the core idea, that our spatial awareness would carry over into a 2D window, was ever really proven out. It hadn't yet been when he first wrote about them, at least.

This is the real ZUI: (From another thread: https://futureofcoding.slack.com/archives/C5T9GPWFL/p1588677125006200)

@Paul Sonnentag These are both gorgous, thanks for the links.

These are awesome, thanks! I know someone in my twitter feed is using this for code navigation but I can't find it and it's forever lost in the feed now.

Zooming is used a fair amount nowadays. You see it in the Atom editor, with the shrunken form of the document on the right. It is used extensively in Fancade, which because it is based on a Isometric projection of 3D space, is quite natural. All graphic design products use zooming constantly. The reason you don't see it used that much in programming is that once you zoom text below 6 pt it is illegible, and therefore useless. Seeing the shape of code does not inform you in any way as to the function of the code. Unlike a bitmap which can be sampled to 1/16th of its pixels and still be quite legible, code basically turns to mush when shrunken. Looking at a blobby bunch of wires may be sexy at first glance, but without comprehension it is mere graphical artifice with no substance or actual productive value. I don't find the Atom shrunken text form on the right is much better than a scrollbar. Zooming does preserve context better than jumping, and i think we will see more of it, but don't pin your hopes on a UI trick going to advance programming significantly.

@Edward de Jong / Beads Project What about semantic zooming?

ZUI is one of the key aspects of the UI for the upcoming iPad app Muse https://museapp.com/

https://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/ has a zoomable UI

Maybe a bit late to the party but there is also Finder replacement app for mac https://www.raskinformac.com/