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Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

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Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#52
post #7
post #2

Am i the only one who does not like "touch" on a desktop/laptop. It is not the revolutionary input method that makes everything magical. I want to think in boxes (desktops) not a fluid streams of desktop space. We need something else for the desktop.

It is even less appropriate on a server OS - I have no idea what they were thinking making Windows Server 2012 use the same touch oriented start menu replacement nightmare.... [Having to use a demo VM that has 2012 installed at the moment and I'm finding it incredibly annoying].

I imagine what they were thinking is "maybe people shouldn't be logging on to individual servers in order to manage them."

I manage a number of 2012 VMs, and actually log onto them via RDP very rarely.

You should use RSAT on a workstation, or perhaps Powershell and Enter-PSSession (alias: etsn) in order to manage your machines. If you're a masochist you could even use winrs.exe from inside cmd.exe.

I can't think of much you can do with those two tools that you can't do otherwise, unless it involves [random third-party software]. Even with third party software, I don't see a reason people should be logging on to servers often enough that the start screen should be an appreciable problem -- especially since the start screen is likely to have an immediately obvious and clickable 100px*100px "tile" to get to the software you need to.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#54
post #16

I like it. I think the 2+ decades old idea of resizable and draggable windows is becoming a nuisance. With 5+ windows overlaying each others, the desktop becomes a chaotic mess. People who say they need to be able to have multiple windows on screen should really be having multiple monitors if they don't already. Because even with high-res monitors, most productivity applications (IDEs,Excel,etc) are unusable anyway w…

While I personally tend use applications fully maximized, I do have a need to open two (or more) applications side-by-side from time to time. I do not like a multiple monitor setup because I find it very distracting having a second monitor on my peripheral vision. I do agree that overlaying windows can become a mess. How about an eclipse style (or gimp 2.8 style) interface, which doesn't allow you to have overlapping windows? I don't think I've ever needed to have windows overlap on purpose. If anything, I'm usually wasting time trying to align them to maximize the usable screen space.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#55
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been using 8 for about a year and have no problem with the start screen without a touch interface - the workflow is pretty much identical to 7: Press the Windows key and type part of the name of what you want, with the bonus that it's significantly faster at giving results. If you do end up having to select something in the menu, you now have more space to see what's available and modifying the layout to match your u…

> Been using 8 for about a year and have no problem with the start screen without a touch interface - the workflow is pretty much identical to 7: Press the Windows key and type part of the name of what you want, with the bonus that it's significantly faster at giving results. A full-screen menu appearing on top of whatever I am working on completely breaks my flow. It's immensely distracting to me. As a result, I lit…

I find Gnome 3 suffers the same issue. When I'm searching I know what I'm looking for 99% of the time, it's just a glorified accelerator combo, I don't need a full screen full of distractions.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#56
post #40
post #2

Am i the only one who does not like "touch" on a desktop/laptop. It is not the revolutionary input method that makes everything magical. I want to think in boxes (desktops) not a fluid streams of desktop space. We need something else for the desktop.

Touch really lends itself to interfacing with objects. Using a mouse, in particular is a little bit foreign to our natural instincts.

Exactly this kind of pseudoscientific reasoning is behind the bad UI decisions in Win 8 and Gnome 3.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#57
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manual window management on Windows can be awful. With decent window managers one can hold keys (alt in my case) and then drag or resize windows easily by dragging the mouse. They snap. And you can have more key combos for things like snap to left/right, maximise, minimise, always in front, etc. Ever since getting used to this (in XFCE), using windows in Windows feels incredibly annoying and infuriating.

Windows 7 onwards has keyboard shortcuts - WinKey + cursors moves the windows to snap to half of the screen (top, bottom, left, right) and learn the Alt-Space-then X to maximise and Alt-Space then R to restore. If you happy using the mouse, Windows snap to the edges of the screen. There is also a utility you can get for shortcuts very similar to the Mac OSX ShiftIt tool but I can't remember the name of it!

I like the Ubuntu version where Alt-Space-X does maximize and restore (depending on current state). One shortcut less to learn.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#58
post #9

"Manual window management is awful. Windows 8 ditched windows in favor of fullscreen apps. Traditional desktop window paradigms are powerful but obsolete." Just NO NO AND NO, I can't be the only one who hates the new Windows interface, I want to be able to place my windows where I want them not be forced to use full screen for everything, or rely on some automated way to place them, I know better than the OS how and…

I wholeheartedly agree with you. This "reinvent the classical desktop" trend really annoys me. Traditional desktop environments like Win 95 up to 7 or Gnome 2 are imho closest to the ideal, they have many many years of evolution behind them.

Mistakes that are being made:

1) Thinking that touch is superior to mouse, that touch is the future. That's simply untrue, mouse is quicker and more productive.

2) Focusing on first-time users too much, forgetting experienced users. Example - animations - nice at first, but get annoying quickly.

3) Trying to unify the tablet and the desktop interface. The optimal interface for tablets and for desktops are different.

For me the ideal desktop environment would be:

- take the classical desktop concept

- do a design update (Gnome 2 or Win 7 aren't especially pretty, the design looks outdated)

- add some nice features without changing the whole concept, e.g. some tiling support, useful keyboard shortcuts etc.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#59
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed! Thankfully there is something else. Ubuntu baby!

Unity is no better IMO. It feels like another counter-intuitive and ultimately awkward (for me) interface. Which is why I'm right now on Linux Mint which ironically has the most "Windows 7-like" post-Win7 UI.

Pretty much, it's another example of the "reinvent the desktop" trend, that is horribly misguided.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#60
post #4

Manual window management is awful. Windows 8 ditched windows in favor of fullscreen apps. Traditional desktop window paradigms are powerful but obsolete. In any multi-monitor situation living without manual window management is awful. What they need to do is to offer a choice instead of forcing users down a specific path.

Fullscreen apps are especially fun on 27" 4k displays!
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