Mezzo (desktop environment)


Mezzo is the desktop environment created by Ryan Quinn. Added to Symphony OS, it follows Jason Spisak's Laws of Interface Design and poses a new way of presenting data to the user. Mezzo uses FVWM as the window manager.
Mezzo disposes of standard concepts like "The desktop is a folder" and nested menu systems and instead presents all needed information directly to the user via the main desktop and four desk targets for tasks and files related to System, Programs, Files, and Trash. This tries to simplify the desktop.
Originally only available for Symphony OS, some earlier versions of Mezzo were available as a.deb package for other Debian-based distributions such as Ubuntu. The design of Mezzo has also influenced other projects, particularly the Kuartet Desktop, which is built upon KDE using SuperKaramba and Python for the rendering of a similarly designed GUI.