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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

#161

Post by clmul »

jchw wrote: post #152
clmul wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm also not a lawyer, I can indeed see it being prudent to not go looking at code you're not legally allowed to use related to what you're working on right now (I wouldn't do that). But I can't believe looking at any other code in general would "taint" you in some way.

And yes, clean room design is a bit more extreme in that regard (which is probably something companies/individuals do if they expect a high risk of litigation, as it probably makes it a lot easier to prove that there is no copyright infringement, and certainly not willful infringement)

So, the requirement for Wine and ReactOS mentioned in the other comments is probably not unreasonable.

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

#162

Post by sp332 »

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)…

Yeah but 7-zip's UI is small enough to be just about unusable on my 4k monitor. Sometimes drag-and-drop is broken and sometimes windows don't resize right. Maybe if they had used a good UI library instead of rolling their own stuff, they would have to spend less time chasing a bunch of little bugs and the users wouldn't have to deal with them either.

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

#163

Post by anticensor »

Narishma wrote: post #159
asymptotically2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They do not. It is a honour code.

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

#164

Post by vbezhenar »

userbinator wrote: post #150
vbezhenar wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately those APIs seems to be kind of obsolete nowadays. All the nice things are with UWP. I think that WinAPI is not even hardware accelerated. That's a pity, but what can we expect, when Microsoft themselves botched WinAPI in their own products long ago. Windows could be so better with their old Windows 2000 style, without all those design jumps around.

Microsoft itself doesn't think so highly of UWP now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19883351

Oh, thanks, that's nice to know, I missed that. I always liked WinAPI style and I hope that it'll reborn.

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

#165

Post by curt15 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #123
badsectoracula wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are rare compared to every other desktop/laptop computer, they still have touchpads and really why would you smear your screen with your sweaty fingers when you can avoid that?

I was saying the same thing but once you have one it's actually quite nice from time to time.

That is really an indictment of the sorry state of PC trackpads. When I use my partner's MacBook with its pixel-perfect, glass trackpad, I never feel wanting a touchscreen.

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

#166

Post by stallmanite »

saagarjha wrote: post #63
kumarharsh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there is no gradient on the title bar. That's just the background showing through due to transparency (Acrylic in UWP/Fluent design lingo).

Does Windows not remove translucency when taking screenshots, as macOS does?

Dumb question: Why is this behavior desired? If I take a screenshot I want an exact record of what is currently displayed. I don’t presume to be a normal user but am super curious about the “other side”.

I’ve run into a related behavior on iOS where I really dig some color palette while viewing in inverse colors and want to take a screenshot to capture it. The screenshot is “helpfully” stored as not-inverted color thereby stymying my efforts.

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

#167

Post by saagarjha »

stallmanite wrote: post #166
saagarjha wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Windows not remove translucency when taking screenshots, as macOS does?

Dumb question: Why is this behavior desired? If I take a screenshot I want an exact record of what is currently displayed. I don’t presume to be a normal user but am super curious about the “other side”. I’ve run into a related behavior on iOS where I really dig some color palette while viewing in inverse colors and want to take a screenshot to capture it. The screenshot is “helpfully” stored as not-inverted color th…

It prevents the generation of consistent screenshots and looks somewhat unprofessional. It's the same reason why product marketing shots don't have clutter on the desktop or a bunch of random applications running in the background.

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

#168

Post by hiram112 »

contextfree wrote: post #155
maxxxxx wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 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...

Isn't UWP dead now, or am I confusing that with another alphabetized Windows dev framework that was recently shelved?

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

#169

Post by userbinator »

jcelerier wrote: post #72
eps wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

55 MB is an absolute fuckton. For a native app of Windows Explorer kind that doesn't pack massive resources, 5-10 Megs is a reasonable size. Heck, you are forgetting than something like 3D Studio MAX originially fit on a set of floppies and I can assure you it could do FAR more than "the Gallery app" whatever the heck that poor thing is.

on the other hand, just the splash screen image for whatever $modern app can be more than the space available a floppy since you need it normal size, @2x, @3x, it's in 32-bit RGBA instead of 256 color...

The fact that it needs a splash screen in the first place is because it takes too long to start because of bloat, so in a way it's a negative feedback cycle.

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

#170

Post by contextfree »

hiram112 wrote: post #168
contextfree wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Isn't UWP dead now, or am I confusing that with another alphabetized Windows dev framework that was recently shelved?

Everyone seems to have their own definitions of what is or isn't "dead" or what is or isn't UWP, but as far as Windows native development is concerned, they are still producing new versions of WinUI with new features and new versions of Windows are still adding new WinRT APIs. https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/blob/master/d...
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