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Visual Studio 2012 RC Available Now

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Re: Visual Studio 2012 RC Available Now

#21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it strange that they've moved to all-caps for menu titles (FILE, EDIT, VIEW...), especially considering Microsoft's recent uses of good typography. All-caps is a tradeoff where you take away the identifiable shape of a word to make it draw more attention. You could argue that menu titles would be the absolute worst place to use all-caps.

The ALL CAPS MENU TITLES are supposedly "more Metro-like", even though many Metro screenshots are all-lowercase and the Metro motto is "content before chrome." I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't made their menu titles disappear until you move the mouse near them (like Mac OS X's X-+ window buttons). That sounds like the "hide the UI so it looks good but is less usable" style Microsoft likes.

I installed the beta, which had all-caps in some of the headers. Initially I was annoyed that Microsoft has to spend so much time on changing the look of every edition of visual studio, but when I ran it, I actually liked the grey colour and the ALL CAPS.

Re: Visual Studio 2012 RC Available Now

#24
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it strange that they've moved to all-caps for menu titles (FILE, EDIT, VIEW...), especially considering Microsoft's recent uses of good typography. All-caps is a tradeoff where you take away the identifiable shape of a word to make it draw more attention. You could argue that menu titles would be the absolute worst place to use all-caps.

The ALL CAPS MENU TITLES are supposedly "more Metro-like", even though many Metro screenshots are all-lowercase and the Metro motto is "content before chrome." I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't made their menu titles disappear until you move the mouse near them (like Mac OS X's X-+ window buttons). That sounds like the "hide the UI so it looks good but is less usable" style Microsoft likes.

Microsoft is merely following Apple's shitty lead on that.

Microsoft is finding new ways to hinder usage all over the place. The "+" symbols in Explorer that used to tell you which folders had contents are missing now. Oh, unless you happen to roll the cursor into the left pane; then they suddenly appear.

WTF.

Re: Visual Studio 2012 RC Available Now

#25
post #12

Why is it so hard to keep some of the "theming" technology in the product and give us a checkbox to renable the old, usable and beautiful design? I think I'll pass on this version. Heck, even VS2008 has everything I need right now.

You'll miss out on some C++11 features. That might be a good thing though, we've already run into a vector bug in VS2010 because of it.

Re: Visual Studio 2012 RC Available Now

#26
post #18
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A click away is this comparison with the beta: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/05/08/visu...

I find it strange that they've moved to all-caps for menu titles (FILE, EDIT, VIEW...), especially considering Microsoft's recent uses of good typography. All-caps is a tradeoff where you take away the identifiable shape of a word to make it draw more attention. You could argue that menu titles would be the absolute worst place to use all-caps.

Could you explain further how caps "take[s] away the identifiable shape of a word"?

Is [FILE] really considered less identifiable than [file] somehow?

Re: Visual Studio 2012 RC Available Now

#27
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it strange that they've moved to all-caps for menu titles (FILE, EDIT, VIEW...), especially considering Microsoft's recent uses of good typography. All-caps is a tradeoff where you take away the identifiable shape of a word to make it draw more attention. You could argue that menu titles would be the absolute worst place to use all-caps.

Could you explain further how caps "take[s] away the identifiable shape of a word"? Is [FILE] really considered less identifiable than [file] somehow?

http://uxmovement.com/content/all-caps-hard-for-users-to-rea...

Re: Visual Studio 2012 RC Available Now

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like this is shaping up to be the "Maddox Visual Studio, the best Visual Studio on the internet". Capital letters, black backgrounds, now we just need insulting error messages full of manliness.

I might be OK with the ALL CAPS menu titles if I understood the rationale behind them. Has this been discussed officially anywhere? Because if not, I can't get beyond the nagging idea that MS is playing some kind of joke that I don't get, and that's a distraction that I don't need.

The best explanation I can come up with is that there's a ton of pressure for Metro this and Metro that. Partners at Microsoft must be upset Apple's market cap is twice Microsoft's, and well, they're gonna fix that no matter what.

ALL CAPS is a highly visible thing they can backpedal on; it's supposed to be sacrificed. Then they can say "See, 95% of the comments were about the menus, and we changed it, so now we're all good!" Deflects from more serious criticism, as this comment demonstrates.

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