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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?

#271

Post by vladvasiliu »

Jochim wrote: post #173
vladvasiliu wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-resizable dialogs are one of the top reasons why I cannot stand Windows and find it a huge pain to work with as a non-regular user. Now, while I can understand the sibling's point about third-party overlays [0] which may break when the windows suddenly become resizable, what I find absolutely infuriating is that even what seem like recent features still inherit this stupid behavior. The thing that I'm reminded of…

>[0] Not sure what those are. Do random third-parties "augment" system dialogs by drawing random stuff on top of them? I find that thought horrendous. The common example would be Dell/Synaptics adding their own tabs to the old Mouse system dialog. I think the idea was quite sensible. Keeping the configuration in one place while supporting whatever features the manufacturers might have added e.g. touch pad gestures. T…

> I think the idea was quite sensible. Keeping the configuration in one place while supporting whatever features the manufacturers might have added e.g. touch pad gestures.

I agree, but I thought that there was some sort of extension functionality, along the lines of "this is a mouse configuration panel, register it to [something] so that it's added to the mouse settings".

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

#272

Post by BuckRogers »

bruce343434 wrote: post #209
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Most people use it because most people use it. It's what's compatible and widespread, and comfortable and known. It's the reason that people send docx files.

I send PDFs, but always generated from docx files. I did the Open/Libre Office thing for about 15 years and if you do a lot of work in these you’ll find that MS Office is simply superior. You can still use a mostly compatible version of odt with it. There’s just too many handy things about MSO that I’ve learned it’s worth paying for. One example is opening PDFs with Word and having it do a surprisingly good job at converting it to a Word doc. Very handy stuff.

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

#273

Post by BuckRogers »

molasses wrote: post #197
bennysomething wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it because it supports any bit of hardware thrown at it, with little fuss. I tried to go all Linux many times, gave up, I just wanted something that works.

It doesn't always work. I have two machines, one that has issues with a north bridge, which initially prevented shutdown and prohibits, suspend and hibernate. And another where the Bluetooth dies until reboot on an Intel wireless card. Another machine wouldn't upgrade due to a wireless card, that took about three days of troubleshooting. My Linux boxes glitch too. I rarely have stuff that just works.

Hardware vs software issues right there.

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

#274

Post by oblio »

TheSmiddy wrote: post #137
Closi wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good point - I wonder if the actual user really sees an old-looking GUI screen as worse than an arcane terminal configuration.

an arcane terminal configuration at least opens up the possibility of 3rd party settings GUI's to "unlock the hidden potential of your operating system" for the user who wants to tinker but with the safety rails still attached.

Most of the Windows stuff can be automated via WMI.

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

#275

Post by pier25 »

andi999 wrote: post #115
azinman2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What market share is left there to gain? Ok 17% Mac OS, maybe 5% would switch to Windows?

Maybe is not about gaining but stop losing users to MacOS and Chrome os.

And one day Google will release desktop Fuchsia.

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

#277

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

emsy wrote: post #248
meowkit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The juice is absolutely worth the squeeze. Everybody and their grandmas think Windows is a mess, yet theres no real alternative for most people, so there’s no real incentive for MS to make it better (or for a start, stop making it worse with telemetry, forced restarts and adware).

> yet theres no real alternative for most people

I just don't buy that. Everyone I've ever persuaded to buy a Mac or iOS device comes to prefer it to Windows in a couple of weeks, and I stop needing to fix something for them every other month.

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

#278

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

azinman2 wrote: post #106
meowkit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share.

Big companies just love to jack around with Windows, and do things like prevent users from changing their desktop backgrounds (in the name of "security," of course), and Microsoft has always bent over backwards to give them the ability to do any stupid thing some corporate IT drone can think of, so they continue to be loved my companies around the globe.

There's a _fundamental_ difference in the way that Microsoft and Apple have approached making an operating system. One treats it like a layer of software in an entire stack that someone else owns and controls, and the other makes PERSONAL devices. And it shows.

And, of course, the Microsoft-slobbering trade press can't imagine a scenario where they don't try to prove that YOU should be running Windows because the numbers -- inflated by the Fortune 1000 -- says it's what "everyone" is running. Meanwhile, more than half the people I know now run NOT-Windows for their personal computing.

Let's break out the corporate purchases from sales data, and then let's talk about actual, personal market share, and whether better UI/UX would help Microsoft in a heads-up battle against macOS or ChromeOS.

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

#279

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #246
criley2 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the price of the absolute cheapest MacOS running computer (Mac Mini, with a monitor) one can get basically 2 entire Windows computers. 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 worki…

> the cold hard facts of living in the western world is that most people would need to spend irresponsibly to use MacOS regularly. A $900 MacBook Air would probably have lasted far longer and needed less time troubleshooting than a $500 computer made with subpar components. The amortized costs are far lower with Apple products (or other products using higher quality components) compared to buying the cheapest devices…

> A $900 MacBook Air would probably have lasted far longer and needed less time troubleshooting than a $500 computer made with subpar components.

I've never seen a more-true statement on this site. Years ago, my wife was using a $500 Acer laptop, which was a cheap plastic POS, which broke after a couple of years. I bit the bullet, and bought a pre-owned Air for $900. She is still using it, 11 years later. I used to have to fix something on her Windows computer every other week. Now I hardly ever have to help her with anything.

A year later, I bought another $900, used Air for my daughter. She is still using that, 10 years later. I bought a new MBP, and gave my son my 7-year-old version. I expect him to get many more years out of it.

People who have never owned a MacBook expect that they "wear out" like a $500 laptop, but they just don't. They cost much less over the long run. It's like hiking boots. You can buy cheap ones every year, or bite the bullet, and pay 3 times more, and have a pair that lasts for 10 years.

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

#280

Post by agumonkey »

PaulHoule wrote: post #229
agumonkey wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That bill has never been passed it seems, in the mainstream that is. I've been wondering how to design a system that would focus more on this aspect. Opportunities here.

Look at how you get correct progress bars for free with Hadoop. If it is that easy to do for a huge distributed cluster with 100+ machines imagine how easy it could be to do on a small scale. What if web browsers told the user outright which third party services were responsible for the world wide wait? One pet peeve of mine is the CDN distributed JavaScript in which people download 20 files of which they only need 2…

there was a contravariant scheme where web became chromeless, everything was ultra cute, flat and abstracted away while the web became more and more sophisticated (js loading, cdn, reactive/components) too

back in the days you had more information about the technical details of browsing (and prior to that, some browser exposed GC/ram use as a toolbar button)

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