It's not just the UI that's inconsistent, it's that the different UI layers can actually present contradictory information.
State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
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Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
#42This issue is way overblown here on HN. In day-to-day usage, I have rarely been annoyed by these "inconsistencies". The best example to illustrate this article is: Installing a driver with the Windows XP layer. That's probably something that will only happen to people installing very old hardware with drivers from over 10 years ago. I consider that a backward compatibility win: It is great that it even works in Windo…
I concur.
Until reading this article I didn't know Fluent Design, Metro and Windows 8 Win32 were supposed to be separate design languages; I'm still not convinced, and in any case I can only see those with the sharpest of eyes noticing any differences here.
Calling out things like MMC, winver and screensaver settings as relics from Windows 95 also seems like a huge stretch to me. Even though their layout has remained the same (which is a good thing; they do their job well), their design language is quite clearly different from their Windows 95 counterparts.
Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
#43I honestly don't envy Microsoft. On one hand, you have the people who don't want Microsoft to break backwards compatibility. They want Microsoft to retain the ability to run programs written a quarter of a century[1] ago. This is why all this legacy stuff sticks around in Windows. Then, you have those who want Microsoft to radically reinvent Windows, either by embracing WinUI 3 fully (what most people mean when they…
> They want Microsoft to retain the ability to run programs written a quarter of a decade ago. Enterprises expect to run programs developed a quarter century ago... if a quarter decade was all that was required, MS could have abandoned a lot more cruft.
Blergh, was trying to decide between "two decades" and "quarter of a century" and my brain went with both!
Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
#44I honestly don't envy Microsoft. On one hand, you have the people who don't want Microsoft to break backwards compatibility. They want Microsoft to retain the ability to run programs written a quarter of a century[1] ago. This is why all this legacy stuff sticks around in Windows. Then, you have those who want Microsoft to radically reinvent Windows, either by embracing WinUI 3 fully (what most people mean when they…
What about me? I don't care about backwards compatibility - but I don't want "UWP" because it's impossible to make great apps following the guidelines.
> something even newer
;) Sadly I think this is the group Microsoft is least likely to attempt to cater towards.
Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
#45Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not on Windows (and I deal with a SaaS at MSFT). I am a FreeBSD committer and help maintain FreeBSD's GNOME packages and (very recently) the graphics drivers. The reason why Windows is full of UI inconsistencies is (largely) because of one thing: backwards compatibility. While backwards compatibility has it's perks, it also means having lots of old code in Windows that can't be to…
I work on the core OS.
This is the answer. Now it could be done to maintain backwards compat and have everything completely up to date, but the juice is not worth the squeeze and there are more important things to focus on (such as making the OS work/build in such a way that there won’t be inconsistencies in the future).
Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
#46Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not on Windows (and I deal with a SaaS at MSFT). I am a FreeBSD committer and help maintain FreeBSD's GNOME packages and (very recently) the graphics drivers. The reason why Windows is full of UI inconsistencies is (largely) because of one thing: backwards compatibility. While backwards compatibility has it's perks, it also means having lots of old code in Windows that can't be to…
I understand the backwards compatibility case for APIs, but not for OS dialogs. Is there a compatibility reason why the folder properties dialog is crufty (unresizable, etc)? I always just assumed there was no engineering appetite or business case to work on it.
Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
#47The only consistency issue that really has bothered me is the constant mauling of the control panel. Windows 95 basically got it right, and every major release they just hide things further and further. And now the competing "Settings" thing is just an embarrassment. So now we have two competing ways of configuring the system, except the new one sucks and is incomplete, and the old one is kinda unmaintained.
TBH I don't really see how the Settings app is an embarrassment at this point in time. This was definitely true in Windows 8 and early Windows 10 versions, but with the leaps and bounds it's made since, I feel like 'settings app suxx' is a meme that has overstayed its welcome.
Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
#48Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not on Windows (and I deal with a SaaS at MSFT). I am a FreeBSD committer and help maintain FreeBSD's GNOME packages and (very recently) the graphics drivers. The reason why Windows is full of UI inconsistencies is (largely) because of one thing: backwards compatibility. While backwards compatibility has it's perks, it also means having lots of old code in Windows that can't be to…
I don't know if Apple deserves to be in that list, UI-wise at least.
Yes, they do break backwards compatibility in many many other ways, but you could put a technical layperson who is used to Mac OS 9 and put them on macOS 11.4 (for those unfamiliar, Apple's OS has been at 10.x for about 20 years) and they would still reasonably be able to find their way around.
One element especially (the global menu bar) is why I got my parents to switch to macOS. They had to learn where 'print' or 'edit' or 'save' was once, and now they can find it for any program, and it'll probably still be in that place in 20 years time.
Its also why I think it's sad that Gnome abandoned the global menu bar. It's an amazing concept that if stuck with makes computers so much easier to use for a large contingent of people.
Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
#49The only consistency issue that really has bothered me is the constant mauling of the control panel. Windows 95 basically got it right, and every major release they just hide things further and further. And now the competing "Settings" thing is just an embarrassment. So now we have two competing ways of configuring the system, except the new one sucks and is incomplete, and the old one is kinda unmaintained.
I agree and am actually surprised that several years in there is still a bunch of stuff that is not configurable in the new Settings screen. I am obviously speaking without extensive knowledge of the underlying internals but surely it can't be that difficult to wrap some settings in a new UI if you dedicate a team to it?
I actually spent 15 minutes the other day trying to remove an additional keyboard layout that somehow found itself on my machine. I had to give up as I could not find the option in the new Settings screen and it seemed to have disappeared (or moved?) from the usual place in the Control Panel...
Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?
#50I have so many irritants in the experience of using windows professionally, that I’m not going to waste time discussing it.
I will leave you with one observation though.
For any given text box in Windows, I have found that CTRL-A may or may not Select All.