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How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

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Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#121

Post by jeroenhd »

simion314 wrote: post #87
jeroenhd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problems did you run into? If it's dependencies and packages no longer being shipped, you'll have the same issues running those Python programs on Windows and probably the same solutions as well (downloading all the old sources, compiling all the libraries manually). You can still run the x86 ABI on x64 (or any other architecture through qemu) though unlike Windows, most Linux distros don't ship support for it b…

For Windows Qt developers will put the Qt dlls in the application , not statically link. So in general you will probably be able to run an old Qt app on Linux by using Wine. Yeah, the issue is missing dependencies, the 32 bit versions, Linux Gamers complained so there still are some 32 bit packages around but not all of them. Compiling this old apps I assume will hit same issue, this time missing even more packages s…

It's not like Linux doesn't allow you to put the QT .so files next to the binary either, Linux applications generally just expect these files to be available system wide.

> Compiling this old apps I assume will hit same issue, this time missing even more packages since I will need all GTK2 dependencies. I wish there was a nice, slim way to put in a folder all the libraries from a say 16.04 release and tell this app to look there in that folder.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH can be your friend. You'll still have to reconfigure the application for other resources like images, but as far as libraries go it's a pretty useful fix. I've used it before because the default libraries that come with Google's Android emulator just refuse to work on my system. The easiest way is probably to add the variable to your .desktop file or to write a script that sets it and forwards all arguments to the real binary.

> App images would probably be the solution, but who will find all those old projects from source forge that have very few users and rebuild them?

I agree; Flatpak and friends are a great way to keep applications working many years down the line. I expect them to only stay available for newer programs, though.

You can set up a Docker pipeline that will build the application of your choosing and use that to release updates of old programs but in the end you're still going to need someone who will do that for you.

That said, GTK2 is one of those libraries that'll still be packaged with operating systems for a while, it's just the unmaintained dev version that gets left behind. Like with Python 2, nobody wants to maintain that old stuff so it's either up to the devs to update or up to you to come up with ugly hacks to still run the old software (at your own risk, of course).

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#122

Post by INTPenis »

n1vz3r wrote: post #93

As a long-time Linux user with habit of throwing everything into the mix, I got quite used to number of inconsistencies that I have, so I don't think that MS deserves criticism for having them too (although article is not very critical, it just counts the inconsisitencies). I have GTK2/3/4 apps, KDE apps, Qt apps, Electron apps, AND Windows apps running under wine. So the only consistency on my desktop is an inconsis…

You're such a nice person, but Windows is developed by one company while Linux is a mishmash of volunteer software.

Additionally Windows is raking in MONEY for their OS.

So from that perspective, Microsoft have no excuse for the shitty software they make people endure.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#123

Post by petepete »

adql wrote: post #108
wadd1e wrote: post #11

I have a bit of a perfectionistic tendency to 'start over' things over and over and do them again as perfectly as possible; the Windows side of MS feels like a corporate embodiment of this habit. They've done this sort of thing with app installers(setup.exe, click once, appv, msi, msix) and UI frameworks(win32, mfc, wpf, winui 2, winui 3). It's like the teams responsible for their respective product keep starting ove…

Well, if you're UI designer and designed the UIs launched it and all works... what else you're going to do ? Same disease that plagues GNOME, change shit for sake of changing shit, fuck users that got used to the old way, they don't matter, is new way faster ? Who knows, we don't.

It's funny how the huge silent majority get on just fine with GNOME but the vocal few act like the devs have poked them in the eye and called their mother fat.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#124

Post by Macha »

meindnoch wrote: post #31
dochtman wrote: post #4

I would be curious for a similar dissection of modern macOS. My intuitive sense is that it is a little better though there are probably still at least 5 layers of stuff. So to some extent, does doing this better at the scale of a modern user-facing OS provide enough return on investment?

Ummm... macOS (aka OS X) have been using a single UI toolkit (AppKit) since the beginning. (Carbon apps no longer work since Catalina, because Carbon was never updated to 64-bit)

Carbon is gone but now we have Catalyst and SwiftUI

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#125

Post by noisy_boy »

herbst wrote: post #113
n1vz3r wrote: post #93

As a long-time Linux user with habit of throwing everything into the mix, I got quite used to number of inconsistencies that I have, so I don't think that MS deserves criticism for having them too (although article is not very critical, it just counts the inconsisitencies). I have GTK2/3/4 apps, KDE apps, Qt apps, Electron apps, AND Windows apps running under wine. So the only consistency on my desktop is an inconsis…

Linux user here as well. The thing that upsets me with windows in the inconsistency in the OS not the applications. Take Fedora, Manjaro or Ubuntu with any major flavour like Gnome or KDE and you get a very consistent way of how your OS works and responds to common tasks. It's kinda easy for non experienced user to find the right settings with no UI change on a modern Linux Desktop.

I think with Linux, the amount of OS-level GUI screens is much more smaller compared to Windows. The main OS level GUI screen I interact with is the Settings screen and that basically has been a left-side tree showing the content on the right side or a grid that points to the individual sections. That is comparatively a much easier change in terms of UI level changes. Other OS-level screens are usually separate applications e.g. gparted which looks different from the Settings screen in KDE plasma (and totally understandably so, not complaining).

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#126

Post by SpacePortKnight »

My biggest issue with Windows 11 UI is the existence of both the control panel and the settings app.

Often I don't know which setting takes precedence, for example I can create power plans from control panel and also use different power modes from the settings app.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#127

Post by kzrdude »

piyush_soni wrote: post #114
kzrdude wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No cut for files is not bizarre in a macOS world of course, just from your expectations.

No, it's not from "just my expectations". I can understand that things work differently in different OSs, and having the same expectations from it won't be correct. There are also many on the internet who defend this design choice of giving no 'Cut' option for files saying "it is more natural/intuitive this way for how humans think", well, then you should not give 'Cut/Paste' even in your built-in Text Editor just to…

I'm no impartial judge for these things, but the expectations are learned and I don't know how we can judge this objectively. I think the choice of what to do with the return key is pretty arbitrary.

For a declaration of my own bias, as a kid I was put in front of macs, so it impressed me during important years (8-15 years old). I don't use any macs nowadays. I use file-cutting-enabled linux systems.

With this background I don't see that opening files or folders with the return key as intuitive at all, I don't see the connection. It's not a bad idea, just an arbitrary choice like others. Command+O I can understand too, O is for Open and on the mac they decided to introduce (i.e. invent and teach the user) a universal action open that works the same for files and programs (no separate open vs execute). That's a positive example of consistency, at least.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#128

Post by kk_cz »

jabbany wrote: post #54
mihaaly wrote: post #3

I am still looking forward for the option to ungroup task bar buttons, preferably with titles. Again! Something that was there before, worked, and was useful. But some designer decided we don't need that, to the bin with it!

This! So much this! What's the point of having a taskbar that only groups by app...This has been one of the major pain points of me using Mac OS and it is immensely sad that Windows 11 has also taken this approach. At least some Linux DEs still let me keep my app windows ungrouped...

this works: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#129

Post by kevingadd »

alentred wrote: post #30

To be fair, I think some examples, and specifically those from 95/NT and then 3.1 times, are too far-fetched. I agree that consistency is important, but it doesn't mean that every screen needs to be redesigned altogether. For instance, I don't think that examples of Screen Saver Settings or File Properties are relevant, as long as their styling is in line with the rest of the OS. One thing that surprises me a lot, th…

If you're using win32, it will automatically update most of its widgets to match new styling - but if your application is old enough it won't happen automatically since it would have broken things. You have to opt in by having styling turned on (this is really easy to do).

See https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/620045/Custom-Controls-... (I can't remember where the documentation for this is on MSDN, but I'm sure it's somewhere).

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#130

Post by sz4kerto »

phpisthebest wrote: post #107
simion314 wrote: post #15

I would prefer for feature to exist and work and don't care if the buttons look the same. I am super salty because I tried to run some old 32 bits qt4 and gtk2 python apps on latest Kubuntu LTS (I am 100% only Linux for years )and I just wasted hours without any satisfaction, at least on Windows 10 year old programs will still work most of the time(probably some old games could fail but might be a driver issue and no…

isnt that was flatpak and snapimg are suppose to solve, making linux apps more like windows apps in that all dependence are included with the app distribution not dependent on system wide installation? which is ironic since more and more apps on windows require various system wide dependencies like dotnet, c++ resitibutables etc, More than a few apps I have tried to install recently on windows would not just run beca…

Which might bite us in the future. I just had an issue with a Snap app that hung in some scenarios when it used OpenGL. In the end it turned out that the Snap app packaged an outdated version of Mesa (graphics driver) which didn't handle my GPU properly.
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