231–240 of 335 posts
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Wow! There really are programs which plug into dialogs in this way? Well, that's a new level of compatibility hell. Thanks for the answer.
Look at Autohotkey for a starter down the rabbit hole of "we don't need APIs, we have a GUI!" and the fallout of people desperately working around it.
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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).
Asking the obvious question: why aren't the UIs in newer Windows versions not "just" different themes over Win32 widgets? Instead the UI theme seems to be tied to UI frameworks which seem to be created and discarded annually at Microsoft, so each time some genius decides to overhaul the UI, a completely new sediment layer is created instead of letting some UI designers tinker with a theme editor. I don't get it. Func…
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've been a Windows user since Windows 3.11. I suggest another explanation: Microsoft has been a monopoly in desktop OSs for 40 years, and it shows.
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…
It's bizarre that to do some basic audio or networking configuration I have to wander through 2-3 generations of UI.
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So decouple them. Microsoft has annual revenue of $143 billion . Their flagship product should not be a neglected mess.
Thrre are literally people with scripts that click around the UI every hour to achieve something in a factory. The motto of windows is write once, run forever. I think there is a certain beauty to that
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>The reason why Windows is full of UI inconsistencies is (largely) ...completely unjustifiable? Come on, why does this mean we need 5 different sound dialogues to do 5 different things? That's ridiculous on every level. It used to all be in one place anyway, so it's not even like it needs to be spread out in the first place. Make the old dialogues inaccessible, hide them, and create a new one which does all of those…
Or they could just stop screwing with it? Every windows update makes the strips a function from the control panel and ads something not quite as good to the settings app. After the last update the settings app even has ads for 'bing rewards points' in it. Which appear to be impossible to remove. I need to look harder at getting one of the commercial versions of windows that only gets security updates, but no feature…
I get it, all practical evidence seems to be that they're completely incompetent and this is impossible and any attempts to clean it up will inexplicably make it worse, but the fact that's the state of affairs at a two trillion dollar company is absolutely ridiculous.
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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).
> 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 You state that as fact, but I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share. It’s not just the way things look, but uniformly communicate a single experience. Microsoft used to be very integrated and had…
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> I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share. I'm having a hard time believing that. While some Mac users who are used to a more integrated user experience might be deterred, I'm not sure that the os's ui esthetics really affect windows adoption. My feeling is that most people who use Windows do so because they're either (a) told to use it or (b) they choose to use it because it…
Windows user from 3.1 to Win 7 here. Once I saw the MacOS experience in 2012, I never looked back. an engineer might say the juice isn't worth the squeeze, but to a consumer, and a power user, the swath of UI and UX inconsistencies is what keeps me away from Windows.
For the cost of the average computer running MacOS, one could buy a TV, a console, a desktop Windows computer, and a laptop. Or whatever it may be. ($1500 on an iMac could be $400 console, $500 TV, $500 computer. Or whatever your break down is. For the lower middle class and working class, trying to 'gear up' their family and make their kids happy and be happy with their home, this is real math they have to do).
While it is true that for those who are wealthy or who can justify the cost, the experience is very nice and justifiable, the cold hard facts of living in the western world is that most people would need to spend irresponsibly to use MacOS regularly.
It is what it is but it's no surprise that the cheapest mass market OS has 90% market share, and anyone who thinks that "UX" is the reason instead of cost doesn't understand the industry fundamentally.
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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).
Asking the obvious question: why aren't the UIs in newer Windows versions not "just" different themes over Win32 widgets? Instead the UI theme seems to be tied to UI frameworks which seem to be created and discarded annually at Microsoft, so each time some genius decides to overhaul the UI, a completely new sediment layer is created instead of letting some UI designers tinker with a theme editor. I don't get it. Func…
The newer stuff sits on top of DirectX.
The latest UI framework (XAML/WinUI) sits on top of a better rendering architecture (compositor) that itself wraps DirectX tech.
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 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).
I'm always very skeptical of refusal to handle the past because of the promise that the same won't reiterate in the future. What could also happen is that 5 years from now, you or another dev justifies refusal to handle inconsistencies developed "temporarily" and or accidentally in the meantime with exactly the same reasoning.
A more direct and simple observation is that if nobody is working on converging / cleaning up stuff, they don't converge and aren't cleaned up.
As for the amount of backward compat already provided by Windows, it is good but not great anyway. Try to play old games, install/use old VS with a few patches, install/old Matlab, use old devices, etc... Hell even try to continue to use your semi-recent devices across new build of windows, like 20H2 breaking USB-C on my XPS 15 9560 (but now I'm ranting so I'll stop :D )