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Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

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Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#61

Post by TeddyLondon »

Freaky wrote: post #26
arethuza wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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].

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…

Totally agree, I have been using 8 / 8.1 since it's release and really don't miss the start menu, I am forced to use xp quite often and cannot stand it, the amount of times I bring up the start menu up and type to bring up an app and the start menu just does nothing just makes me cry.

I have seen some people put the windows 7 style start menu on win 8 - it just doesn't make sense to me, the world moves on, things change, learn to adapt and life is so much sweeter!

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#62

Post by RivieraKid »

PaulJoslin wrote: post #10

Am I right in thinking with this design you can only have one app as a point of focus at a time? So assuming I'm doing development, I can't be in my IDE, with a browser open on a particular stack overflow question, while having the app I'm debugging open in front of it all and some other app also in view showing diagnostics? Instead, I'd have to flick back and forth between the apps like a headless chicken? [Edit] Ac…

All of the new desktop environments I know of (Win 8, Gnome 3, Unity) are steps backwards. The classical desktop concept (taskbar + floating windows) has tens of years of evolution behind it. If there was a better concept, it would have been invented before.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#63

Post by alkonaut »

Manual window management isn't the perfect UI paradigm for anyone, regardless of input method. Being able to overlap by a few pixels isn't necessary for me.

A simple way to see where window management should have gone is to look how it has changed within applications, where the resistance to change is lower. 15 years ago it was all MDI applications, where the idea that a doc has a window . Soon people realized that noone really needs to overlap their word documents windows, or move their photoshop tool dialog by 3 pixels, so more modern applications used docking managers to snap and tile their workspace together to use as much of the available area as possible.

As usual in the demos and mockups of both Win8 and this concept, the applications demonstrated happen to be simple communication apps, media players and so on. I'd like to see Photoshop, Visual Studio, AutoCad etc. that actually have a large workspace with several confgurable areas. I don't think it would be horrible to lose the movable windows, but I'd want something as powerful in return: Windows should manage the desktop the way a good desktop application manages its different areas.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#64

Post by Maascamp »

RivieraKid wrote: post #62
PaulJoslin wrote: post #10

Am I right in thinking with this design you can only have one app as a point of focus at a time? So assuming I'm doing development, I can't be in my IDE, with a browser open on a particular stack overflow question, while having the app I'm debugging open in front of it all and some other app also in view showing diagnostics? Instead, I'd have to flick back and forth between the apps like a headless chicken? [Edit] Ac…

All of the new desktop environments I know of (Win 8, Gnome 3, Unity) are steps backwards. The classical desktop concept (taskbar + floating windows) has tens of years of evolution behind it. If there was a better concept, it would have been invented before.

I'm sorry, but that's just a terrible way of thinking about things. If we assume things that have been around for a while have reached their apex by virtue of them having been around for a while we'd never make any progress.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#65

Post by Freaky »

gabemart wrote: post #41
Freaky wrote: 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 tend not to be launching much stuff when I'm working - editors, browsers, VMs etc are already open. Plus I have three monitors, and tend to have it opening on the smallest so it doesn't get in the way.

I do think Microsoft should have made it optional - it's obvious this is what people wanted, and it's not like it would have cost them much in development/support. Still, at least there's now a huge bunch of third party software to replace/augment it, most with far greater configurability than the original Start menu.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#66

Post by freehunter »

spdy wrote: 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.

You seriously come to HN asking if you're the only one who doesn't like Windows 8's interface? I know this isn't your first post, so you're basically just posting a popular opinion phrased as a question in an attempt to reap karma.

Welcome to 2011. Your complaints are now fresh and new again.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#67

Post by RivieraKid »

Maascamp wrote: post #64
RivieraKid wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the new desktop environments I know of (Win 8, Gnome 3, Unity) are steps backwards. The classical desktop concept (taskbar + floating windows) has tens of years of evolution behind it. If there was a better concept, it would have been invented before.

I'm sorry, but that's just a terrible way of thinking about things. If we assume things that have been around for a while have reached their apex by virtue of them having been around for a while we'd never make any progress.

But it's usually true. Inventions are usually enabled by changes of the surrounding environment.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#68

Post by Freaky »

arethuza wrote: post #32
Freaky wrote: 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…

"you now have more space to see what's available" Actually, you don't - on the server I am using there is an (otherwise excellent) Microsoft product installed that prefixes all of it's menu items with the same name so all you see is a number of items with the same logo and "Really long product name...." and to find out which one is which you have to hover the mouse over them, which rather defeats the purpose of the w…

So rename them like you would if you would in any previous version. %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu, rename to heart's content. Or right click the tile, Open file location and rename.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#69

Post by anonymous »

jpswade wrote: post #40
spdy wrote: 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.

And where in the entire body of everyday natural instinctively useful objects, are things that respond to and are manipulated by caressing them precisely with just the tips of your fingers? Well, sex obviously, but having sex with a large square piece of glass isn't at all enjoyable.

Kind of explains the popularity of thinkpads' nipple mouse, though.

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