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Metro

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Re: Metro

#21

Post by beloch »

From the article:

"you can’t give iOS apps even the option to run continuously in the background without sacrificing battery life and foreground app performance. But that’s how Microsoft has positioned Metro for tablets — a modern touch interface that carries the full CPU and RAM consumption of Windows as we know it. That have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too attitude is what I didn’t get with Microsoft’s positioning Metro as its answer to the iPad."

This is wrong. From Anandtech: (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4771/microsoft-build-windows-8...)

"discarded applications will continue to stay open as a background application, having all of their memory pages intact but unable to schedule CPU time so long as they’re a background application. They’ll remain in this state until the OS decides to evict them, at which point they need to be able to gracefully shut down and resume when the user re-launches the application. Internally Microsoft calls this freezing and rehydrating an application."

Metro's approach sounds very similar to that of iOS and Android. Presumably this behavior will be adjustable so that background processes can be allowed on desktops without mobile power constraints. This is actually a really smart way to do things. Make how the OS handles background apps a setting rather than hard-coded architecture. e.g. If you're out and about using your tablet background apps get quashed so that you get decent battery life. When you go home and plug it into a dock you can leave a torrent downloading in the background while you browse the web or play games. Best of both worlds.

Re: Metro

#22

Post by roadnottaken »

xpaulbettsx wrote: post #11
Steko wrote: post #2

Contra-Gruber I'm betting ARM Windows 8 devices will have some mode that looks and feels just like Windows desktop. It may not be the default and it may be a dumbed down version of it but I can't imagine them shipping without it.

I believe it's already confirmed that Win8 ARM devices will indeed be Metro-only - no legacy Desktop whatsoever.

technoslut's comment/link (above) would disagree.

Re: Metro

#23

Post by jrockway »

brianwillis wrote: post #5

Thinking about it, isn’t window an odd word choice for what we call movable, stackable, resizeable content regions in a user interface? Other than being rectangular they’re not like real-world windows at all. I can remember my high school computer studies teacher explaining they're called windows because they're split into panes. Microsoft Windows versions 1 and 2 didn't actually have stackable overlapping windows (y…

This makes a lot of sense. Emacs calls the OS-level-thing-to-draw-on a "frame", and then you have non-overlapping "windows" inside the frame.

Re: Metro

#24

Post by bane »

nextparadigms wrote: post #19

This is why Metro will make or break Windows. This is where the line is drawn in the sand. Since ARM is the future together with touch based devices, Microsoft will have to move over to ARM. The problem is they are very vulnerable on ARM, because they have no apps there, and wanting millions of apps on a tablet was kind of the whole reason you'd want Windows on a tablet. But it won't work, because those apps won't be…

Depending on how good a job they did moving their applications over to CLR languages, it wouldn't be that hard to port to ARM....in theory.

Re: Metro

#25

Post by skeletonjelly »

brianwillis wrote: post #5

Thinking about it, isn’t window an odd word choice for what we call movable, stackable, resizeable content regions in a user interface? Other than being rectangular they’re not like real-world windows at all. I can remember my high school computer studies teacher explaining they're called windows because they're split into panes. Microsoft Windows versions 1 and 2 didn't actually have stackable overlapping windows (y…

So similar to tiling window managers you'd find on GNU/Linux I guess.

Re: Metro

#26

Post by ethank »

eddiegroves wrote: post #12
ethank wrote: post #8

Metro to me, and I hate to say it, reminds me of MS Bob, and frankly of the original Windows 3.1 except where in that case it was a layer on DOS, this seems like a gloss on Windows 7. I hope for the sake of innovation I'm wrong, but it is frankly more bizarre than Launchpad (and that's saying something). Let me show: https://skitch.com/ethank/f3drj/windows-8-x64-preview then https://skitch.com/ethank/f3drc/windows-8-…

"like a gloss on Windows 7" - From what I've read[1] so far this is not the case. The APIs that 'Metro style' apps use are built deep into Windows. In fact it seems more like the opposite - legacy Windows is treated more like another app that you can switch to, if you're on x86/x64 machine. [1] http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-devel...

I'm speaking from the beta. The act of going between a "traditional" looking UI and Metro and what is available in each is very disjointed.

Re: Metro

#27

Post by dpark »

indrax wrote: post #13

>You can ask Mac apps to behave like iOS apps, which is what Lion’s Automatic Termination feature does, but it has to be opt-in. Virtualization could enable you to run a legacy app, stop its processing instantly, bring up a new app, and save the 'background app' state to storage when it's convenient. This seems to be where they are heading. I don't know how it would translate to ARM tablets, but intel wants in on tab…

The OS can stop any process at any time and resume it later. There's no need for virtualization here.

Re: Metro

#28

Post by ashr »

toddmorey wrote: post #20

I think metro is very minimal and very clean. But it's also... cold. A bit too austere. The goal for an interface isn't to impress--it's to connect. Somehow, I've never felt a sense of connection with the Metro interfaces. It feels like design borrowed from the annual report of a faceless international corporation. All design; no personality. I like simple and clean. And I like minimalism. But I also think you have t…

As compared to what? A traditional desktop like interface with application icons scattered over the background? As in... iOS?

One would think that the live tiles with continuously updated information show more "connection" with the user.

Re: Metro

#29

Post by angusgr »

glhaynes wrote: post #6
brianwillis wrote: post #5

Thinking about it, isn’t window an odd word choice for what we call movable, stackable, resizeable content regions in a user interface? Other than being rectangular they’re not like real-world windows at all. I can remember my high school computer studies teacher explaining they're called windows because they're split into panes. Microsoft Windows versions 1 and 2 didn't actually have stackable overlapping windows (y…

Good point - though I believe they were called windows on previous GUI systems. EDIT: Though now that I think about it and, IIRC, Xerox's stuff didn't have overlapping windows either. Apple's Lisa and Mac did. I think Englebart's demo had windows but I'm not sure if they overlapped.

FWIW the Xerox Alto (1979) called them windows, even though you're right that they didn't overlap like the Mac/Lisa ones did. http://history-computer.com/Library/AltoUsersHandbook.pdf

EDIT: The Alto could run SmallTalk as one of its environments, though, and its windows overlapped as of SmallTalk-72 or -76 http://www.esug.org/data/HistoricalDocuments/SmalltalkHistor...

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