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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?

#51

Post by flyingchipmann »

jorvi wrote: post #48
neelc wrote: post #36

Disclaimer: 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 g…

The worst part about the new gnome not only we don't have the global menu bar, the default top bar is basically a waste of space with barely any useful content in it.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#52

Post by johnwalkr »

jorvi wrote: post #48
neelc wrote: post #36

Disclaimer: 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 g…

I like the global bar and also its underrated, consistent command search function. I think it was probably abandoned by gnome because every application also has a top row of icons in each window now.

My perfect OS would have a global menu bar and enforce that all commands can be issued by searching and all ribbons/icon bars can be turned off.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#53

Post by johnwalkr »

curiousmindz wrote: post #14

This 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…

The worst offender is network settings. After years of at least weekly needing to change some setting for a virtual adapter, VPN etc, I find myself stumbling trying to get to the right screen.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#54

Post by Someone »

ridiculous_fish wrote: post #46
neelc wrote: post #36

Disclaimer: 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.

If any program tweaks a dialog, say by floating a title-barless window with a new control on top of some empty space (possibly after slightly resizing the window or a control in the window to make space), you can’t resize any window control, can’t change tab order, can’t add controls, can’t change background color, etc.

Detecting whether that is being done is challenging. Typical workaround is that, if any callback is registered with a dialoog, to keep things ‘as is’.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#55

Post by aasasd »

siproprio wrote: post #23
dstaley wrote: post #8

I 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.

Sounds like you might want to look into MacOS. Or at least might've wanted before Big Sur, dunno about now.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#56

Post by logbiscuitswave »

cookiengineer wrote: post #30
causality0 wrote: post #17

I don't think Microsoft has been truly interested in improving the Windows experience in a long time. I mean, surely if they cared about us you'd be able to right-click on any Notification icon and hit "always show icon and notifications" without having to open two menus to get to that option. It's been a pain in my ass for twenty years.

Can we also talk about inconsistencies when it comes to notifications on Windows 10, too, please? I mean, every app does whatever it wants. An update popup here, a warning there. Some blocking window with full attention here, some imutable "you got a message" there. Anti-virus systray icons even render webpages as popups, that contain even more notifications inside them. Windows is the worst OS I've ever used in rega…

Like you I am also continually frustrated at how Windows apps are always trying to demand my attention. In Windows 10 I have the Notification Center set to “alarms only” which helps with a lot of the spam, but not all. There are still plenty of programs that bypass this and pop their own kinds of balloons and notifications.

Then there’s programs that flash the taskbar when they want attention. Teams in particular is super aggressive about flashing the taskbar when it wants something - even when Do Not Disturb is turned on - and I have essentially all notification features turned off.

For years I’ve looked for some sort of OS setting like a magic registry value to turn taskbar flashing off completely but have come up empty. (There’s a few reg hacks out there that purport to reduce the frequency but none that turn it off entirely. And not all applications honor those registry settings … like blasted Teams.)

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#57

Post by code_duck »

neelc wrote: post #36

Disclaimer: 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…

Backwards compatibility would be the most likely explanation for why the settings panel has interfaces from the last five operating systems versions. Considering how flaky Windows settings have been historically, and how complex it must be (in part due to the 40 years of backwards compatibility) it surely wasn’t practical to completely rewrite those components.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#58

Post by Stratoscope »

aasasd wrote: post #31
dstaley wrote: post #8

I 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…

> retain the ability to run programs written a quarter of a decade ago I think I've seen computers with more uninterrupted uptime than that, even if servers. Or at least approaching this figure. Perhaps you meant ‘quarter of a millennium’ or something like that.

I know Enterprise customers require extreme backward compatibility, but it must be a fairly small number who are still running legacy code written in 1771.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#59

Post by code_duck »

curiousmindz wrote: post #14

This 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…

It’s very nice that you can install and all the driver, but what does that have to do with the control panel being a chaotic mess of layers from the past 25 years?

I find this article rather informative as someone who hasn’t used windows in 10 years. Now that it’s all laid out there, I can clearly see that various layers of the control panel are using the visual style of Vista, 2000, and so forth.

I suppose Microsoft has technical reasons for not making the some of the most important user-facing parts of their flagship product consistent in terms of interface, but it’s quite a stretch to say that the consistency shown here is anything other than abysmal. No wonder my parents find this incredibly confusing.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#60

Post by overgard »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #47
overgard wrote: post #29

The 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.

I don't sit around configuring my machine so I can't really say if it's gotten better, but I know the past 5 years have taught me too look anywhere but there. There's never been a good reason to have two different overlapping configuration apps.
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