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Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

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21–30 of 98 posts

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#21
post #12
post #3

"Manual window management is awful. Windows 8 ditched windows in favor of fullscreen apps." Wrong. Manual windows management is just what a professional needs. The window manager will never know what is the best position and size for your programming editor/environment. It will never know where is the best position and size for your preferred debug window. And how to place and size your browser windows for API docume…

Manual window management on Windows can be awful. With decent window managers one can hold keys (alt in my case) and then drag or resize windows easily by dragging the mouse. They snap. And you can have more key combos for things like snap to left/right, maximise, minimise, always in front, etc. Ever since getting used to this (in XFCE), using windows in Windows feels incredibly annoying and infuriating.

Yes, you're right. It can be awful in Windows. But on the other hand, when I place my windows to their correct locations (on Fluxbox or Win7), it might take weeks or months before I have to relocate them again.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#22
post #16

I like it. I think the 2+ decades old idea of resizable and draggable windows is becoming a nuisance. With 5+ windows overlaying each others, the desktop becomes a chaotic mess. People who say they need to be able to have multiple windows on screen should really be having multiple monitors if they don't already. Because even with high-res monitors, most productivity applications (IDEs,Excel,etc) are unusable anyway w…

I disagree, first of all I already have multiple monitors, and while my IDE is maximized on my main monitor, the secondary monitor has multiple windows with documentation, file manager and logs, or other stuff depending on what I am working on.

About the drag&drop I have a problem with that, supose the application supports more than one place to drop with different functionality, how do you solve that?

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#24
post #16

I like it. I think the 2+ decades old idea of resizable and draggable windows is becoming a nuisance. With 5+ windows overlaying each others, the desktop becomes a chaotic mess. People who say they need to be able to have multiple windows on screen should really be having multiple monitors if they don't already. Because even with high-res monitors, most productivity applications (IDEs,Excel,etc) are unusable anyway w…

What if you have a laptop? I often have some crappy tv show over on the right hand side of my screen with the code editor taking up the other 3 quarters. Or two notepads in semi different places to be able to type text from one to the other with different formatting (eg eg brainstorm notes into DB query).

Not going to give those options up

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#25
post #16

I like it. I think the 2+ decades old idea of resizable and draggable windows is becoming a nuisance. With 5+ windows overlaying each others, the desktop becomes a chaotic mess. People who say they need to be able to have multiple windows on screen should really be having multiple monitors if they don't already. Because even with high-res monitors, most productivity applications (IDEs,Excel,etc) are unusable anyway w…

Resizable and draggable windows lets you arrange items on the screen very similar to the way that you have items on a desk. It works - it isn't broken or out of date. When writing in a notebook on my physical desk, I do not want my notebook to be the size of my desk. I might be taking notes from a book. If my notebook was the size of the desk, how can I read my book? I can't.

Overlaying windows is brilliant. It isn't a problem to press Alt-Tab or use the taskbar. Personally, the grouped buttons on the taskbar is a nuisance as you need to click on it (XP) or hover over it and wait for a popup (7+) rather than just seeing loads of window buttons.

I have multiple hires screens but this doesn't suddenly mean I want one fullscreen window on each screen. That effectively reduces the windowing system to only displaying two items at a time. My physical desk has more - why should the computer suddenly be limited to only a couple of items?

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#26
post #7
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].

Been using 8 for about a year and have no problem with the start screen without a touch interface - the workflow is pretty much identical to 7: Press the Windows key and type part of the name of what you want, with the bonus that it's significantly faster at giving results.

If you do end up having to select something in the menu, you now have more space to see what's available and modifying the layout to match your usage is a lot more accessible.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#27
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…

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

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#28
post #16

I like it. I think the 2+ decades old idea of resizable and draggable windows is becoming a nuisance. With 5+ windows overlaying each others, the desktop becomes a chaotic mess. People who say they need to be able to have multiple windows on screen should really be having multiple monitors if they don't already. Because even with high-res monitors, most productivity applications (IDEs,Excel,etc) are unusable anyway w…

Have you tried other window managers besides explorer.exe? There is more to window management than the old Windows™ routine of resizing and dragging windows by pointing device.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#29
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…

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

Well not really if you want to use Metro apps.

Re: Unnoficial design concept for Windows 9

#30
post #6

It's optimistic to think VLC will be available for Windows 9. It's still not out for Windows 8.

My Windows 8 laptop next to me is playing a video using VLC.

What you meant to say was that VLC does not exist for the MetroUI (I forget what that POS is called these days).

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