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Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

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Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#151

Post by userbinator »

melenaos wrote: post #55
userbinator wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting early is good, but I think he may have gotten sucked into the UWP hype: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19873198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19883351 If the author is reading this, here's some advice for you: I encourage you to start learning pure Win32 and enjoy the benefits of extreme compatibility (you can create a single .exe that works on anything starting from Windows 95 , depending on th…

Developing on the windows API is an unproductive way of creating apps, especially for the beginner developer. It's much better to invest their time on learning programming rather how to possition a button and where to listen for click messages. This is especially true today that the ui standars envolve in such fast pace.

Developing on the windows API is an unproductive way of creating apps, especially for the beginner developer.

I highly disagree, especially since things like the very useful http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/ exist.

It's much better to invest their time on learning programming rather how to possition a button and where to listen for click messages.

Ironically, MS's own "get started with UWP" tutorial involves nearly no code, but lots of messing around with a GUI (without really understanding what's happening and why):

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/get-started/cre...

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#152

Post by jchw »

clmul wrote: post #137
jchw wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not expect this to be such a controversial point, but I am referring to the fact that even having seen the source code would make me a legal risk to employers and open source projects. Whether this is ridiculous or not is not my point, it’s the reality I live in.

Here's the thing though: suppose you have worked for some previous employer, and seen their proprietary codebase. By your logic, you'll never be able to work on anything else or for any other employer without being a legal risk to them. I do not think the chances of me implementing something so similar to something I have read before such that it would constitute copyright infringement are very high. I usually can't…

The code I see from my employer is indeed a risk to my employer later on, but at least I'm seeing this code legally.

Whether or not this makes any sense, I don't know. I'm also not a lawyer, but I believe this principal is important for clean-room reverse engineering as well.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#153

Post by chx »

ploxiln wrote: post #24
kumarharsh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just talking about 'explorer.exe' being 5 mb? You're discounting the numerous DLLs which the explorer uses, or even other shared resources which are used system-wide. And 55 MB for a native app is paltry. Even the 'Google' app on Android is 285 MB, the Gallery app of OnePlus is 70 MB.

Your standards are unfortunately warped by modern trends. Almost all popular apps are hugely bloated because the developers just don't care, the focus is on UI re-design and feature churn and the illusion of ease of development. Some counter examples (compressed installer size for convenience): 7-zip for 64-bit windows: 1.4 MiB Winamp 5.8: 7.8 MiB mpc-hc: 13.5 MiB (open source media player with many built-in codecs)…

And then there's https://www.nirsoft.net/ full of useful utilities measured in tens of kilobytes... it's insane. The largest 64 bit exe is 249 232 bytes.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#154

Post by breakingcups »

Doubl wrote: post #33
wvenable wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you might be missing is some complex technical reason why the mouse control panel cannot be easily migrated. For example, a lot of drivers integrate their own tabs into the mouse control panel for features. The slow migration from control panel to settings is actually, in my opinion, one of the better ways Microsoft has done software development. We aren't waiting 5 years for them to migrate 20 years of settings…

I don't get people's enthusiasm for the settings app, I find control panel the faster way of achieving almost everything. Settings is slow and sometimes you circuitously end up where control panel world have sent you directly, e.g. when you want to change network adapter settings.

My biggest gripe about the new settings app is not being able to have more than one window open at the same time.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#155

Post by contextfree »

maxxxxx wrote: post #124
sebazzz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bit-by-bit migration of control panel to settings is iterative if not anything else. Else you'd need to wait years for them to migrate all things. Still, I don't believe everything is eligible for migration. Take the network adapter TCP/IP settings, I don't a migration happening for that. I don't think UWP is suitable for such information density. And in my opinion the UWP panel is less discoverable.

" I don't think UWP is suitable for such information density. " This may be true but it doesn't speak well for UWP.

The most recent release of WinUI/UWP makes it easier to create high-density UI with a new Compact sizing option for the stock controls:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/design/style/sp...

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#156

Post by justwalt »

Doubl wrote: post #33
wvenable wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you might be missing is some complex technical reason why the mouse control panel cannot be easily migrated. For example, a lot of drivers integrate their own tabs into the mouse control panel for features. The slow migration from control panel to settings is actually, in my opinion, one of the better ways Microsoft has done software development. We aren't waiting 5 years for them to migrate 20 years of settings…

I don't get people's enthusiasm for the settings app, I find control panel the faster way of achieving almost everything. Settings is slow and sometimes you circuitously end up where control panel world have sent you directly, e.g. when you want to change network adapter settings.

It’s a classic case of ease of use without experience vs speed with experience. Unfortunately, the former is the one that seems to win out with the masses.

Maybe there’s some sort of hybrid approach with keybindings for the power users and the blocky menu for more casual access.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#157

Post by userbinator »

jchw wrote: post #130
pawjs wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taint yourself with illegal source code? What does that even mean?

I did not expect this to be such a controversial point, but I am referring to the fact that even having seen the source code would make me a legal risk to employers and open source projects. Whether this is ridiculous or not is not my point, it’s the reality I live in.

There is a classic phrase to keep in mind with things like this: "don't ask, don't tell".

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#158

Post by bob1029 »

userbinator wrote: post #8

It's funny to see the gradient in the title bar, contrasting with the bland borderless-sea-of-whiteness of the rest of the UI. > FilesUwp.Package_0.5.0.0_x64.zip 54.4 MB Nearly 55MB, compressed , for something that attempts to mimic some of the functionality of the regular explorer.exe, is quite frankly ridiculous. I don't have a system to check right now, but I believe even latest Windows 10 has an explorer.exe http…

I would like to take this opportunity to recommend that everyone who is into C#/.NET Core and high-performance Windows UX development take a look at the following: https://github.com/prasannavl/WinApi

I was able to get a workable demo app going in just a few minutes using their Win32 approach. Seems very promising to me for purposes of building native-levels of performance into windows apps using managed C#. The performance statistics published on the repository seem fantastical, but I can believe it now that I've played around with a few of their demos.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#159

Post by Narishma »

asymptotically2 wrote: post #91
pawjs wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taint yourself with illegal source code? What does that even mean?

Wine doesn't allow contributions from people that have seen the Windows source code[0]. I'm not sure of other projects with similar restrictions though. [0]: https://wiki.winehq.org/Developer_FAQ#Who_can.27t_contribute...

How do they know if someone has seen the source code or not?

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#160

Post by sp332 »

oblio wrote: post #134
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My fear with all this is we will end up where we started. The same settings but with extra whitespace so you can nominally use it on a tablet. Microsoft have never been able to show the restraint that Apple have when it comes to this stuff.

The new stuff is high DPI aware plus I'm pretty sure is even VR ready. Microsoft most assuredly has a plan.

You would get less room between elements if you disabled DPI awareness.
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