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Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

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Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#71

Post by sesqu »

Freaky wrote: post #68
arethuza wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

It's funny how many times I've read the same reply to criticisms of Windows 8: "Despite appearances, you can still do X".

I wonder how many options will go the way of the shutdown button in Windows 9 - that is, moved entirely.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#72

Post by sixothree »

arethuza wrote: post #7
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.

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].

Start8 is $5.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#73

Post by gizzlon »

Freaky wrote: post #39
gizzlon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, but that's not how I use 7. I click the "pinned" icon in the taskbar. (It's not as fast as a keyboard short-cut, but it's good enough.)

So then what's the problem? That works exactly as it did before. And the first ten do have keyboard shortcuts - Win-0 to Win-9.

oh, ok.. I thought you had to go through the "start screen" for some applications.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#74

Post by ygra »

skriticos2 wrote: post #57
72deluxe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, that'd be Win+↑ for maximize and Win+↓ for restore/minimize on Windows (contrary to what your parent writes, there is no built-in shortcut of making a window take up the top half of a screen).

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#75

Post by Karunamon »

ngcazz wrote: post #29
k-mcgrady wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you just use the normal desktop interface? It's still there.

Well not really if you want to use Metro apps.

I have yet to find a single Metro app that's both superior (or even equal to) to an equivalent desktop app, and that justifies having to deal with the start screen and it's dismal multitasking.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#76

Post by lnteveryday »

RivieraKid wrote: post #58
LoneWolf wrote: 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 fi…

I think tiling would greatly improve the usability. If windows had tiling and something like dmenu I would be much happier. The start screen sucks, especially if you have a lot of applications that you commonly use. It's impractical to look for a application in the tiles. I know that you can go to the start screen and start typing in the name of the program (sort of like dmenu), but why should you have to go to a pointless screen to do so.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#77

Post by Swinx43 »

kbart wrote: post #48
Swinx43 wrote: post #5

Although this is a much better looking concept than what is currently available in Windows 8 I still do not understand how it solves anything for people who actually need to do development on these machines. I would hate to have to do development in an IDE such as Visual Studio or Eclipse while being restricted to this sort of interface. Trying to force a tablet interface on a desktop machine is simply not acceptable…

Reminds me of http://www.datamation.com/news/tech-comics-windows-8-1.html I'm starting to get feeling, that Microsoft consciously abandons PC as a workstation with a fully functional OS model and moving towards dumb browser-only tablet-like terminal. And I bet that some cloud based, .NET like IDE for Windows developers is on their plans. ..and I'm sooo happy that I can do all my development work on Linux machine.

That sounds extremely likely if you look at the way they are going. I completely agree that I have never looked back since I started using Linux instead. If I truly need a Windows machine I will spin up a virtual machine.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#80

Post by jonnydark »

RivieraKid wrote: post #58
LoneWolf wrote: 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 fi…

I am reminded of the Henry Ford quote "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

The design idioms seen in Gnome 2 and Windows 7 are essentially highly refined versions of what existed on the Apple II OS. Personal computers and what we use them for have come a long way since then and it makes sense to redesign the UI to reflect this. Often this means getting your hands dirty and trying new things. Also - first time users are going to be around for longer than experienced users ;)

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