This is an idea that I've had for years (going back during the Windows XP days and speculation on the Windows Vista features).

Still Current OS UIs

Limited to Desktops

The User Interfaces of Operating Systems today are still limited on the amount of desktops you have. This can be extended either by buying a new monitor, or virtual solutions such as created new workspaces (windows) or spaces (osx).

Issues with This

The issue with this is that it is still hard on my mind to arrange information in a meaningful way. Expose tries and solves this in OSX and is the best solution I've found so far - but it is a workaround and not a fix for cluttered window management. I should be able to know exactly where all my windows are in my mind (not just the forefront one) and not have to bother about grouping similar windows in another space that I will need to remember and switch too and scan for my window. It just doesn't work the way my mind works.

Care for an Upgrade?

Background on Sea Dragon

This idea I have been dreaming of for years really hit it when Microsoft came out with SeaDragon - my first thought was YAY! My idea will finally happen - but they wanted to use it for things such as 3D Earth applications - awesome, but not this! Pretty much Sea Dragon allows you to draw multiple zoom-levels of interface/imagery at once, and smoothly integrate them together in a smooth-zooming experience with all the caching etc handled for you.

How Infinite Zooming Will Help

Your screen will be split into X quadrants.

Alright so let's start with our traditional desktop, everything is exactly the same as it should be - a ton of windows stacked on each other. Now we decide to hold control as we scroll the mouse in, just like OSX it should zoom in making the contents of each window bigger. We shall zoom out so everything is the same size again. This time we will hold control, and resize a window by clicking the lower right corner of the widow and dragging it to about 1/2 the size (all while holding control) - this time rather than the contents of the window adjusting for the resize, it appears as if the window just got smaller - as if it's farther away. We move this window to the bottom right - let's say that window was our code editor. Now let's perform the same procedure on our file browser. We also have iTunes open, lets perform this action again but move it to the bottom left. And let's have our web browser take up the entire top of the screen. Now I can zoom into the

Okay, so let's say zoom level one is the most zoomed-out zoom level and your default level. At this level everything is exactly the same as your traditional UI. Now when we hold control and scroll-in the screen will zoom in just as how it does

Conclusion

What do you guys think? For myself I can't wait til this happens - would be willing to work on this undertaking too as a UI Designer and Creative Lead. Licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia (CC BY-SA 3.0) and Copyright Benjamin Arthur Lupton 2011.