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Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

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Re: Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

#181

Post by derrikcurran »

patapong wrote: post #69

One underappreciated thing about Windows 8 is that even if the start menu was ugly and blocked the entire screen, you could press the windows key, immediately start typing, and then press enter to somewhat deterministically pick the top app. This made it feel quite fast. Now on more recent windows editions, I find that I often need to wait for the menu to visually appear before it will accept any keyboard input, and…

> One underappreciated thing about Windows 8 is ... you could press the windows key, immediately start typing, and then press enter to somewhat deterministically pick the top app

I agree this is underappreciated but I believe it started in Vista and has worked pretty much the same way ever since, including in Windows 11. I acknowledge that start menu search in general is more bloated now and thus feels less snappy on slower machines. Still, for me, the specific use case you described has worked great for nearly 20 years even on modest PCs. I wonder why my experience doesn't match yours.

> I also really miss the aero look of windows 7... Eye-candy, sure, but I thought it was pretty, clean and modern looking. I am sad they moved away from it.

Me too! Aero was great. I also miss being able to make the taskbar truly black. It looked really nice coupled with a black wallpaper on an OLED display. Now you have to choose from a preset color palette. The reduced customizability of Windows 11 is frustrating.

Re: Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

#182

Post by sunaookami »

mghackerlady wrote: post #136
sunaookami wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not made in React, only the "recommended" section is made with React Native which compiles to native XAML. No web technologies involved. And yes I will debunk this every time I see it :) .

[flagged]

The language is not the problem.

Re: Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

#183

Post by sunaookami »

kasabali wrote: post #170
sunaookami wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not made in React, only the "recommended" section is made with React Native which compiles to native XAML. No web technologies involved. And yes I will debunk this every time I see it :) .

> And yes I will debunk this every time I see it :) . Being technically correct doesn't make it any less annoying, unfortunately.

Lying to "prove" a point and basing discourse on lies gets us nowhere. Windows start menu is not slow because of React. We should correct common misconception more often.

Re: Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

#184

Post by jpc0 »

sunaookami wrote: post #183
kasabali wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yes I will debunk this every time I see it :) . Being technically correct doesn't make it any less annoying, unfortunately.

Lying to "prove" a point and basing discourse on lies gets us nowhere. Windows start menu is not slow because of React. We should correct common misconception more often.

Could you write us a nice blog post or article with performance metrics to prove this?

You might be correct but at this point your statement is as much a lie as the parent.

Re: Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

#185

Post by compsciphd »

I think Microsoft missed the boat with windows 8 in a manner that could have fundamentally changed computing and significantly undercut the ipad ecosystem.

Apple has bifurcated the ipad and desktop ecosystems (till today), while Microsoft with windows 8s felt that were would be no desktops in the future and everything would be tablet/touch based. Instead of writing mouse/keyboard friendly apps, developers would just write touch friendly apps. This failed.

What Microsoft could have done with windows 8 was create an environment that enabled developers to write apps that worked optimally in both touch and keyboard/mouse environments. Take a windows surface tablet, and place it in a dock, and all your running apps automatically switch to keyboard/mouse friendly mode. detach it from the dock, and all your apps automatically switch to touch friendly mode.

Instead we are still left in a world with a bifurcation. Even most (all?) major web browsers on windows (chrome, edge, firefox) don't do touch friendly that nicely. Some aren't so bad, but no where near as touch friendly as one sees for purpose built touch UIs.

Re: Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

#186

Post by dangus »

the_overseer wrote: post #137
dangus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t given Microsoft a dime since Windows 7. Users who buy a computer have the OS preinstalled. Millions of people never activate it. The product is effectively free. It’s a commercial OS but people can’t get over it. There isn’t a single commercial OS out there that doesn’t try to sell you something at some point. Maybe that is unacceptable to you and I respect you for that. But it’s a commercial OS and always…

Preinstalled OS doesn't mean free OS. You already paid for it when you bought the computer. You shouldn't see ads. Ever.

The software on the computer would cost more if it was ad-free and consumers have made the clear choice that they prefer not to pay for OS updates. We know this because the updates used to cost money. Apple was charging over $100 just for a point release, and they charged hundreds for updates to bundled software like iLife and iWork.

Everyone would love it if the NFL had zero ads but most NFL fans wouldn’t pay $XXX/month to watch the games.

OEMs pay pennies on the dollar for Windows and in some cases $0, the retail license is $200 but you can buy a mini PC for the same cost with a legitimate Windows license.

I dislike ads as much as the next person and use Linux myself for my main machine, but I’m not completely lacking in pragmatism on this subject. Commercial operating systems fund their development through paid services and App Store revenue sharing.

I think the status quo is relatively reasonable and, again, I find the commercialization to be very easy to dismiss and disable.

We are spending more time debating this subject than it took me to disable all forms of advertising in Windows.

Re: Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

#187

Post by derrikcurran »

Something I've always found mildly interesting is the general perception of the Windows 8 start menu changes. Folks often talked about the start menu being "removed" in Windows 8 and "re-added" in 8.1. Thing is though, it was never really removed. It mainly just went full screen and then back to a small menu in the corner. The actual functionality didn't change much. While I didn't like it, I wasn't nearly as bothered as others seemed to be. I was just kind of like, "Oh, it's full screen now. Meh."

Re: Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

#188

Post by juliangoldsmith »

sunaookami wrote: post #83
derleyici wrote: post #5

8 for Windows 11? An OS that includes ads in the Start menu, made with React. I'm not even mentioning right-click, which has basically two views: you open it and see some uselessly chosen tools, and you still need to open the old version (with the old design, breaking design consistency) to access actually useful things. Viva Windows XP!

It's not made in React, only the "recommended" section is made with React Native which compiles to native XAML. No web technologies involved. And yes I will debunk this every time I see it :) .

As someone who as attempted to use React Native for Windows, I can tell you that the "native" XAML doesn't make things any better. If it was using web technologies I wouldn't need to manually modify RNSVG to fix segfaults when an SVG goes offscreen.

Re: Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

#190

Post by tracker1 »

dajtxx wrote: post #157
tracker1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS could/should have just made other XAML/MAUI options a better experience in general over the React Native thing... It might be different if they actually embrace web as a whole and at least gave a consistent UX, more like say WebOS or ChromeOS, but that's not what they're doing here. What MS really needs to do is create a really long checklist of all the UI defained configurations and options, along with a connecte…

It's a nice thought but think of the cost! You do have to wonder what the hell the people in charge of the Windows UI are thinking. They seem to have got it so badly wrong. But so has Apple in macos.

I'm not sure the cost would be significantly worse than all the half-assed abandoned efforts so far... and it would result in the first consistent UX in Windows since Win2k.
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