Windows Explorer Through the Years • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#181

Post by efreak » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 10:12 AM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #170

open-source-ux wrote: post #10

"Windows 98 was famously controversial, at least in nerd circles, for the integration of Internet Explorer into Explorer itself" How interesting to see attitudes change. Today, using a web browser and HTML/CSS/JavasScript to write your app (whether as a SaaS app or a desktop app using Electron) is one of the most popular options for creating apps. In fact, Microsoft explored this space many years ago too. Remember Mi…

IE even supported HTA ("Hyper-Text Application") a file format that absolutely was a direct precursor to both Electron and modern day PWAs.

HTA is still supported. So is WSH using either vbscript or jscript (unfortunately, powershell has replaced WSH for new functionally, rather than supporting both. Afaik there's no way to manage hyper-v or other newer features from WSH)

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#182

Post by efreak » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 10:16 AM UTC

signal11 wrote: post #27

This article would be even better if it showed the evolution of Mac OS's Finder through the years. The two undoubtedly influenced each other (possibly with one side being influenced more than the other). For instance, I believe the 'duality' of Explorer views (one without tree views, one with) was a response to the success of the Mac Finder -- it was intended to present a simple UI for managing files. The "Explore" m…

Right-clicking was a thing in windows 3.x.

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#183

Post by WorldMaker » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

efreak wrote: post #179

WorldMaker wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too bad Templates got flooded with junk back in the Windows 95 days and so people stopped using and Developers stopped creating Templates. OS/2's heartier version of Templates, I recall being extremely useful. Windows' Templates seem derelict and forgotten ruins of the ancients in Windows today.

Isn't a template just an empty document/file/archive stored in a specific folder somewhere? That doesn't require and special technical knowledge or anything, just save an empty file there. I have a dozen or so software shortcuts (notepad++, cmd, etc) in the SendTo folder, which works similarly.

The issue is that it is a small tragedy of the commons. The more apps put templates in the Templates folder the longer that context menu gets and the harder it is use. Context menus have never been a great place for lists of options that might grow unbounded over time. In the early years of Windows 9x you could directly watch that: almost every application installed a Template because it was a new thing to do and Windows encouraged it, then users started complaining they had too many items in that menu and it was too slow and they stopped using it (or never bothered learning it in the first place), then all of the applications stopped installing templates.

(The SendTo folder had a similar wave of too many then too few applications installing to it. I feel like every application that really made sense on the context menu seem to have moved to direct context menu entries in the main context menu rather than SendTo.)

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#184

Post by WorldMaker » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

efreak wrote: post #181

WorldMaker wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IE even supported HTA ("Hyper-Text Application") a file format that absolutely was a direct precursor to both Electron and modern day PWAs.

HTA is still supported. So is WSH using either vbscript or jscript (unfortunately, powershell has replaced WSH for new functionally, rather than supporting both. Afaik there's no way to manage hyper-v or other newer features from WSH)

Still supported? In zombie mode, at best.

WSH is considered a liability by so many admins these days and all the top search hits are on disabling it. I cannot imagine preferring WSH to PowerShell today; everything about PowerShell is a much better experience (including the simple fact that its security model is better and it is nothing near as much of a 0-day worm/virus vector.)

HTA only works with the classic IE Trident engine which is woefully out of date with web platform technologies in 2020. Anyone still working with HTA that hasn't been allowed to migrate to Electron (or PWA) has my sympathies. I do not envy whatever terrible political decisions have led to that.

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#185

Post by efreak » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 7:50 AM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #184

efreak wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTA is still supported. So is WSH using either vbscript or jscript (unfortunately, powershell has replaced WSH for new functionally, rather than supporting both. Afaik there's no way to manage hyper-v or other newer features from WSH)

Still supported? In zombie mode, at best. WSH is considered a liability by so many admins these days and all the top search hits are on disabling it. I cannot imagine preferring WSH to PowerShell today; everything about PowerShell is a much better experience (including the simple fact that its security model is better and it is nothing near as much of a 0-day worm/virus vector.) HTA only works with the classic IE Tri…

HTA works perfectly fine as a launcher for legacy software. I wouldn't touch it for more complicated functionality, but a while back, I wrote an HTA splash screen/launcher for some old software that had been updated. At the time, the alternative was to either place the software on the startup menu, or to put desktop shortcuts (this software is intended to be used on a dedicated computer; it's not intended to be online or used otherwise). The HTA runs at login, displays the software name, the company's name and address, and allows opening a couple software packages and help documents with alt text. To me, this is a perfectly acceptable use of HTA, and at the same time, one of the worst possible uses I can imagine for Electron. HTA simplifies maintenance by a non-developer (edit paths and names in the source file depending on the to-be-installed software)

For more complicated automation and interaction, powershell is absolutely more powerful and useful than WSH. However, powershell takes at least 5 seconds to load (usually longer), the window can't be hidden, and it generally works in a different manner. I want to run software in the background. The software does not support it. I do not want to use scheduled tasks, I want to run it on demand (on boot, and from the desktop). I don't want my grandmother calling me up because a black window flashed on her screen, scrolled a bunch of text, then disappeared. I don't want Quassel Core's window bugging me when I'm using my desktop on the occasions I decide to run it. I've got a vbscript that looks for the currently enabled screensaver and launches it, so if it's been changed to a photo album or marquee, the appropriate one starts (the alternative being to make shortcuts to individual scr files).

Windows has no other built-in way to run some simple logic without running a visible command prompt that might confuse, annoy. To me, vbscript allows me to put a simple conditional in front of a shortcut, without perceptively taking longer to run said software and without requiring it to be visible. HTA allows a simple launcher/task chooser. Neither uses much resources.