Aero Glass UI No More On Windows 8 426
New submitter closer2it writes with news of interface changes in Windows 8. From the article: "Microsoft has revealed that it has made some big changes to its desktop UI for Windows 8, which includes moving away from Aero Glass — the UI first introduced with Vista. According to the company, this means visual changes that include 'flattening surfaces, removing reflections, and scaling back distracting gradients.' Despite all of these changes with the interface, the company doesn't appear to be worried about the issue of 'learnability.' Instead, Microsoft believes that with a little help it won't take long for users to adapt to the new operating system."
Less eye candy (Score:5, Funny)
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At least they scaled back the window borders a tad, I thought the borders were unforgiveably large.
However, the window borders still look pretty gigantic compared to other platforms. At least the Aero look helped mitigate the borders by making them translucent, though that wasn't much of a comfort.
Re:Less eye candy (Score:5, Informative)
There's an option in Windows to adjust the border width (it defaults to 4 but can be lowered all the way to 0).
Appearance -> Window Color -> Advanced appearance settings.. -> Border padding
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There's an option in Windows to adjust the border width (it defaults to 4 but can be lowered all the way to 0).
Appearance -> Window Color -> Advanced appearance settings.. -> Border padding
Control Panel->Appearance and Personalization->Personalization->Window Color and Appearance->Advanced appearance settings.. -> Border Padding Default was 5 on my machine
Microsoft Pledges (Score:5, Funny)
To sell more Macs.
Re:Microsoft Pledges (Score:5, Funny)
To sell more Macs.
FTA: "It won't take users long to adapt to a new operating system.
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Or you could could select "Windows 7 Basic" theme and get what pretty much amounts to the Windows 8 theme. It's what I use all the time on Windows 7. I just think it's alot nicer. It has the best bits of the classic interface with the new features of Aero.
The screenshots of the Windows 8 interface don't seem to have the rounded corners of 7 (Aero or basic) but do seem to have the right-on-the-edge title bar buttons of Aero (that basic omits)
Win8 looks like something between Aero and Basic, I wonder if they'
Re:Less eye candy (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you could could select "Windows 7 Basic" theme and get what pretty much amounts to the Windows 8 theme. It's what I use all the time on Windows 7. I just think it's alot nicer. It has the best bits of the classic interface with the new features of Aero.
You lose Aero Peek. That's one of the few features of Glass I actually care about it, the shiny gradient crap can get lost.
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Re:Less eye candy (Score:4, Informative)
But don't take MY word for it, download the free Win 8 consumer preview yourself. Just fire up a VM and give it a spin if you don't have a spare machine to try it on
I don't have a spare machine to try it on, so I did try to test it in a VM. Turns out, it requires hardware virtualization features which I don't have in my Core Duo laptop, which has otherwise been adequate for my needs for the past several years. Which pretty much negates any chance of me buying Windows 8 for the computer I've been planning, because I can't give it a thorough test run.
Anyone know why the CP requires hardware virtualization, or is it just a quirk of VirtualBox?
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There are other freely-available VMs out there and not all of them require special hardware features.
I've run various versions of VMWare just fine, for instance, on my Pentium-M laptop (which just barely predates your Core Duo machine). But it's not exactly speedy about it (and never was) without hardware support.
If you're really, really interested: See if someone has a pre-made VM with Windows 8 that works with VMWare Player and then just run the thing.
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On Windows, at least, you can just type "appearance" into the start menu search box and go straight to it. Where's that functionality on the command line?
Re: Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you can really say 'most people prefer GUIs'.
You can. And it would be true.
It depends what market segment you're talking about
"most people"
I certainly prefer a command prompt to a GUI when dealing with administrative tasks, it just makes it a lot simpler and more efficient to do that sprawling through menus and options.
Meh, beause reading through a 20 page man page to sort out what option you need on some rarely adjusted setting is better how?
The command line is great for scripting .. to make something easily repeatable, or to apply the same setting to a lot of systems.
To look something up, or make a change on one system, especially a change that isn't something you do daily... the gui is simpler, faster, and less prone to error.
Re: Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, you want *both* - a GUI for being able to set standard options, config etc., and a command-line/config file you can use for setting all those odd little options that only 10 people in the world care about.
Even windows has this, but they call it the registry and it's one heck of a mess.
That all being said, my view of GUI vs Command Line is that a GUI is best for new users and graphical manipulation of objects. A command line is best once it's been learned and people are trying to get /work/ done . Just look at Autocad for instance: Seems every user who isn't a complete newbie uses the command line in it for a lot of stuff... though you'd be hard pressed to find someone who uses it exclusively.
Re: Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
As a final note both Dave Cutler (the designer of the NT kernel) and of all people Apple showed them the way but MSFT didn't listen and now its too late. Cutler pushed for NT to be kept portable and Apple showed that if you want to change arches you need to have a crossover period where you can run both new and old on the new platform.
There have been a number of other cases where vendors moved the arch underneath their user base. HP-UX comes to mind, the PA->Itanic conversion happened pretty much seamlessly, except for the fact that PA apps ran pretty bad on itanium for about 5 years.
And that is where the problem lies, see they could write an x86 emulator for ARM, and detect the binaries, and make the whole thing seamless. The one huge problem is that when apple moved from 68k to PPC, and then again from PPC to intel, there was a pretty extreme performance advantage on the newer platform to hide the inefficiencies of the emulation layers.
With ARM vs x86 this simply isn't possible there is at a minimum a ~2x to ~20x performance delta between the fastest ARM available and a x86 (atom to intel EE). So even with fat binaries, its going to be a noticeable speed impact for anything that is performance intensive.
All this is sort of moot though, because MS has been pushing .net for the last decade. In theory anything written for .net can run on any platform, the same way java could. Its just a matter of getting the .net layers working. Of course MS doesn't have a good track record of getting it working on new platforms. Look at the delay between the beta release of windows x64 and .net for the platform.
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Aero glass is nonfunctional eye candy. I just turn it off.
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You can turn off border transparency independently.
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I don't see this as less eye candy, but just a change in style. In terms of User Interfaces you have an Uncanny Valley type effect going on. you can only make it seem to life like until people start to react negatively to it. Microsoft with on Vista and Windows 7 probably reached that limit. So in the new UI, they are cutting back and making things more abstract.
But if you pay careful attention in windows 8 you can see a lot of eye candy going on, I had installed the Customer Preview there are a lot of ef
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"Walled garden"...check.
"Linux freedom"...check.
First post...check.
You pass the closed-minded neckbeard test! Congratulations!
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The xbox is also cursed.
Re:Less eye candy (Score:5, Insightful)
heck I have a powerful graphics card and windows 7 is always turning off Aero so that it can run programs gives me basic....this is probably another reason microsoft is getting rid of it....also windows8 is for desktop/mobile/tablet devices and mobile devices definately can't do Aero.
--calmchess
Two points:
1. OS X started the "glossy" look. Aero was a response to Aqua. Now, Apple has seriously "toned down" the glossy effects, jelly-bean buttons, etc. And now look: Microsoft falls right in line. Jus' sayin'...
2. Your second reason is the REAL 800lb elephant in the room. If your high-powered graphics card can't keep up with the inefficiently-coded Aero, there is absolutely no chance that Windows-on-ARM (I forget what they're calling it) will be able to execute Aero; so MS is simply deprecating it, and hiding the fact that it's a dog, by saying "Look at our fresh new look!"
Re:Less eye candy (Score:5, Insightful)
Not exactly. I noticed that look creeping into webcomics and anime long before it was implemented in OS X. Instead of a flat cartoon, you add highlights (especially on the eyes and the hair) and a shadow along one edge to give it a more 3D look. I think the increased use of computers in drawing and animation made it easier for artists to draw over otherwise completed art in order to enhance it.
Not exactly. I noticed that look creeping into 19th century Water Closet signs long before it was implemented in webcomics and anime. Instead of a flat font, you add highlights (especially on the W and the C) and a shadow along the borders to give it a more 3D look. I think the increased use of synthetic dyes made it easier for artists to add darker shades to otherwise limited palettes in order to enhance them.
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Unifying the look between a tablet and desktop is a bad idea because the devices use very different screens and input hardware.
A tablet has a relatively small, but high-dpi screen, the only input by default is the touchscreen which may not even support a stylus and fingers are quite big compared to the pixels on the screen. The result:
1. Icons and text have to be big relative to the screen so the user can see them.
2. Buttons and other active areas have to be big and far apart, so it is possible to accuratel
They got it all wrong (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:They got it all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They got it all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of the GUI is to keep UX designers employed. The year 24-bit color becomes standard, XP's Fisher-price look is "needed" to make that boring and stodgy NT/2K look go away. The year 3d graphics appears on commodity hardware, Aero is "needed" to make that "childish" XP look go away. The year touchscreens come out, Metro is "needed" to make that "distracting" 3D glossy look go away.
Same sorta deal with Firefox - a few years ago, a browser with lots of options and user control was a good thing. Now it's "distracting" and even the status bar and the name of the communications protocol in the title bar needs to go away to make it "clean".
It's not UX design, it's fashion design. Bunch of artistes wanking away on Photoshop trying to out-trendify each other. It's an utter waste of computing resources, and I'm sick of it.
They're getting it RIGHT (Score:2)
It's not UX design, it's fashion design. Bunch of artistes wanking away on Photoshop trying to out-trendify each other. It's an utter waste of computing resources, and I'm sick of it.
Yet I constantly see people ruing how so many things are clunky and unusable because they're "designed by engineers." The fact is that Microsoft isn't trying to capture the command line guru market, they're trying to capture the 99.9% of everyone else market. So if you're sick of companies and organizations using professional designers who specialize in making UIs more U-friendly and pretty, that's too damn bad and you've got a really hard life ahead of you.
But hey, there are always still command-line ins
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After your first sentence, you're absolutely right. UI designers have unlearned the difference between can and should.
If I hadn't already commented, I'd mod you up for your use of "Fisher Price".
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UX design is fashion design. It sure as heck isn't ergonomics or HCI.
It's like an architect knows how big doors need to be and where they should go. An interior designer tells you what colour to paint them. Actually, that's harsh - on interior designers. UX twerps can't even choose colours properly.
I wonder if you're onto something there. What looks good on a static mock up projected
Re:They got it all wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
If I could buy a car today with no features, minimal upholstery, nothing more than a chassis, powertrain, and seat... available in flat black paint... I'd buy one so fast your head would spin.
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Put your money where your mouth is... http://www.arielmotor.co.uk/ [arielmotor.co.uk]
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In fact part (certainly not all) of the reason I switched to motorbikes as my only private transport was precisely because car stopped being about transport and started being fashion statements.
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Aerodynamics. A model T with a modern engine would lack adherence and potentially lift off at higher speeds. Beyond safety, aerodynamics also improve fuel efficiency, which is why these designs continue to be tweaked. There is obviously room for esthetics, but the main motivation for today's car designs are aerodynamics..
Re:They got it all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
And Microsoft are not changing for cosmetic reasons, but because the environment for computers is changing. We're entering the post PC period. Metro is there because they need a UI that work well with touch. And windows (small w) don't. (e.g. People already think that the resizing border on Aero is big at 4 pixels. To be a size to hit reliably with touch, it'd have to be 40+ pixels.)
Having created a new UI, they are then have the problem that the old monolithic apps don't work with it, and so they need to have the old windows UI still available to support all those 1st and 3rd party apps. Trouble is the visual jarring between the two UIs is terrible. So they need to wind down the visual effects on the old UI to make it less of a clash with Metro.
The reasons are solid, and they're not frivolous.
(And I say this as someone who doesn't like Microsoft. I switched to Mac 10 years ago.)
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Thats a bad example, Model T ford had a steering wheel, pedals in the foot well etc.
In other words, the UI for modern cars is almost unchanged since the Model T while it's the constant UI changes in OSs that people are complaining about here.
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Re:They got it all wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Re:They got it all wrong (Score:4, Funny)
Re:They got it all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
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You only work with trivial software if you have formulated that opinion from your software experience. Intuition is not even remotely a universally-shared notion. This is why there are manuals and why training exists.
Re:They got it all wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
You only work with trivial software if you have formulated that opinion from your software experience.
You mean like an OS GUI? That's the whole point. The OS GUI should just get out of the way so that you can run your programs. It should be intuitive and maybe aesthetically pleasing. Changing a GUI, creating a pointless learning curve, and very likely making things less intuitive just because it sells more copies of the new version is the wrong way to do things.
Linux has the right idea when it comes to GUIs. You can just choose whatever style you like best. You can have a dock if you want or a taskbar or multiple taskbars in various locations. You can change nearly everything about the GUI. Since everyone has different taste the best solution is customization, and that's precisely what Microsoft does not allow.
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No, a GUI is a more expressive way of displaying information and allowing the user to interact with the application. Discoverability is only one of the benefits of a GUI, one that I think is overplayed. Any serious piece of GUI software has a learning curve, and that's a-okay with me, as I'm not using the GUI because it's easy, I'm using it because it's effective.
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Re:They got it all wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking of learning curve, myself who is an expert user (not a grandma), had to google
1. How to shut it off
2. How to use tabs in IE 10 Metro
3. How to change a setting not in the desktop control panel.
For 3, I had to pretend I was going to log off and then from there change the setting listed for something totally unrelated. I am a slashdotter and an advanced user. To me that is FAIL with a capital F.
My father is 65 and there is no way in hell he could use this! His Ipad has visible tabs and it did take him awhile to figure out how to shut it off but it was logical as a button similar to most appliances. He figured it fairly easily. Windows 8 is more of a phone UI than even a tablet, yet MS wants this on a desktop?
I figured it might have saving grace ifyou stick to the desktop but now MS wants to turn this into Vista Basic in order to make Metro look better and take away AERO preview and peak. Holy crap.
That was the final for me. I wont ever use it. I left Linux because of Unity and Gnome shell and now this. I am dumbfounded and now do not know what to do. I will stay with Windows 7 and become like those annoying XP loyalists but with Windows 7. Lets hope the future is brighter and it is a shitty thing to do for Windows users who wont know what hit them when they need a new computer in the next several years.
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No, your available options are actually NOT displayed in front of you. In GUI software there are deep hierarchical menus, keyboard commands, drag-and-drop, hybrid input-output widgets, additional actions for different mouse buttons and the mouse wheel... It's not some simple box full of buttons you can click, emulating an ancient computer operator panel. The GUI is neither simple nor intuitive: it just IS. Like the CLI.
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1) A GUI can have a CLI, so it can do all the things a CLI can AND more. If it doesn't it is due to crappy GUI designers.
2) Try playing Counterstrike or Starcraft using a CLI - in theory it is possible, but a GUI would still be superior for many things (see 1) also ).
The real problem is most of the current batch of GUI designers suck (or their bosses do). There is no reason why doing things with a GUI should be slower an
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Nope, the windows key shows the metro screen, at least by default in the current preview.
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Who the FUCK stares at their wallpaper and does nothing with their PC for hours on end?
A plain desktop just requires more keystrokes/mouse clicks.
"Anyone knows how long gorillas live?"
Depends on how much government protection they get.
Absent that, they'd all be bush meat and I don't mean Rosie O'Donnell.
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It never fails. No matter how idiotic Microsoft makes their GUI there are always going to be Microsoft fanboys who love everything and anything they do. It's probably one of the reasons that Microsoft doesn't particularly care about their stupid decisions. They know the masses will love whatever changes they make "once they get used to it".
IMO opinion Linux has the best GUI choices. LXDE, Enlightenment, KDE, and and even Gnome are superior to Windows 2000 and XP. XP/2000 is superior to Vista/7. Windows 7 is
Re:They got it all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The only people complaining about shutdown being under the start menu are the kind of people who get their panties in a twist over "less" vs "fewer" and things like that: pedants. The start menu is clear the place to make things happen, as it includes programs, configuration options, file browsing options, etc. It makes sense that you go there to make your computer do things, including shutting it down. I never had to think twice about it. Not even my computer illiterate family found it confusing.
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The vistart addon for Windows 8 will fix that. It still allows access to Metro as well. http://lee-soft.com/vistart/ [lee-soft.com].
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The start button seems to be missing
I have that problem in unity also...
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No Start button?!?!? Then how on Earth are we supposed to shut down the OS?
Relearn an OS? (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead, Microsoft believes that with a little help it won't take long for users to adapt to the new operating system.
I finally agree with Microsoft on this one. They are correct, with only a little help it won't take long for users to adapt to a new OS such as MacOSX or Linux! Glad they finally are admitting it.
The only reason anyone stuck with Windows was the backwards compatibility and all the software available and that people have already invested in. Seems they are working pretty hard to remove as much of that as they can from Win8, which lowers the reasons to use it from 1 to 0 for a large number of people.
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This.
Windows 7 is killing the platform for me. Yes, I can see how there are various improvements.. which is good, but this price to pay for them is terrible.
So far as I can tell, Windows 7 is just XP with some extra features and some bug fixes. Pity that they still haven't bought out Teracopy. It is extremely annoying for some things which are now crippled. I can't imagine putting up with this in Windows 8. The only reason I persist is because it is easier, on this machine, to leave W7 installed. Linux Mint
Re:Relearn an OS? (Score:4, Informative)
The biggest improvement in Windows 7 (or rather Vista) is the sudo-like interface for running things that require elevated permissions. It is much better than the su-like interface in Windows XP which doesn't always work, or having to log out and log in as administrator.
Re:Relearn an OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
sudo-like interface for running things that require elevated permissions
The reason for UAC was not to recreate sudo. UAC is, and was, exceptionally intrusive for one purpose only: to create negative feedback to developers who insisted on using Admin permission for everything. Even some games required Admin access under XP, for example.
Microsoft had finally given consumers a multi-user OS in XP and developers were insisting on defeating the benefits of multi-user, making limited user accounts especially painful.
Thus UAC. If your program was bringing up UAC for every stupid thing, then you were doing it wrong.
Now, most programs need to bring up Admin privs for installation and that's the last you see of UAC if you are not doing admin-specific tasks.
It annoyed the piss out of end users when UAC first showed up and everyone in the press misunderstood its purpose. UAC was considered a black mark against Vista. But you have to ask, how else was Microsoft going to force developers into obeying the practices everyone else did on other multi-user OSes?
I am a Unix and Linux guy, but I have to give credit to Microsoft for doing it right for once.
--
BMO
Re:Relearn an OS? (Score:4, Insightful)
I realise that. That wasn't my point though. In XP, if I am logged in as a restricted user and want to do something that requires elevated permissions, such as install some software or do something in the Control Panel that isn't an everyday task, I can either right click on the icon, chose "run as a different user" and hope for the best; or completely log out of Windows, log back in as administrator, perform my administration task, log back out again, and log back in as my restricted user account.
In Windows 7 (and Vista), if I want to perform an administration task that requires elevated permissions, I get the UAC prompt, type in my password, and do what I want to do, exactly the same as I do with sudo in OSX or Linux.
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If you'd bothered reading *anything* about Windows 8, you'd have noticed that they have a dramatically improved file copy/move dialog, in many ways superior to TeraCopy. But hey, keep on whining.
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Windows classic interface? (Score:2)
Windows 8 might be worth using if it had the Windows classic interface with the Windows 2000 look, the Metro abomination is a shovel digging the grave of Win 8. Like Ubuntu dumping Gnome 2.32.2 and adopting Unity in 11.04. You just drive users away. I just installed Windows 7 in a Virtualbox instance and the Windows classic interface is the only one I can stand.
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Re:Windows classic interface? (Score:5, Insightful)
You underestimate the resilience of the masses to abuse. The sheep won't leave their pasture no matter how much they are beat and sheared...
Yes, but do bear in mind that "that pasture" they want to stay in can extend to *specific* versions of Windows. The great mass of Windows XP users didn't jump to Windows Vista when MS would have liked them to (admittedly that was because Vista was shite) and it was only some time after the launch of Windows 7 that they started to seriously move away, around 10 years after XP first came out.
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Except they won't. They'll just go to a tech support person who WILL work with them. The ones who refuse to adapt will have gradually less clients, until finally they either realize that their steadfast stubbornness is not economically viable and so change, or crash and burn.
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Not news (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't even news for nerds. Nerds have already been using the Developer and Consumer Previews and await the first beta, like me.
Flattening of window widgets is not news. It's not even a story.
And a link to the MSDN blog that discusses the entire history of Windows from 1.0 to 8 to justify the shenanigans in 8? Come the hell on. The Windows "defenders" here already do that in the comments. I can't even imagine the flood of grievances filed with the MWSU.
The story is Metro. The story is how maddening Metro is going to be to the vast majority of desktop users when you can't turn it off. The story is about how Microsoft thinks they've found the holy grail of a "one interface for all devices" when it's self-delusion, again. The story is how you and I and every other nerd on the planet is going to have to answer dumb questions about Metro just to be polite. Repeatedly. Until Windows 9.
--
BMO
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At least Microsoft is just not copying Mac. I have to give them credit for that.
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Which is a shame, really, because outside of Metro Windows 8 has a few nifty additions that I wouldn't mind having.
Nah, we'll just bypass it (Score:5, Interesting)
If they keep Metro as The One UI to Rule Them All, as it seems they wish to, my strategy at work will be twofold:
1) Don't roll out Windows 8. 7 has support until 2020, there's plenty of time. We'll stay on 7, and we'll make sure to let the MS rep know why.
2) In cases where we need/want 8 get a UI mod to make 8 look like 7. Someone will have what we need, probably Stardock. They already have a start button restorer (http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/) and given that UI customization is their big market, I imagine they'll develop a suite of tools that'll make 8 act like 7 to whatever degree you desire.
So that's my plan. If people want to use Metro they'll be allowed, of course, but I'm not going to be doing any hand holding on it. Anyone who says "I don't like this can I have the old way back," will be accommodated.
I just think it is funny that MS doesn't seem to realize they are going to create another XP, meaning an OS that people don't want to move off of. XP wasn't all their fault, it was just the first real solid version of Windows most people had used (the first NT based OS for home users), Vista had teething problems initially due to very lazy-ass driver development from many manufacturers, and there was a big smear campaign against it (to the point I'll see people at work say that Vista sucks and they like 7... working on a Vista machine, they don't even know what it is, they just know it is bad, so they think they are on 7).
Well this time they'll do it again with 7, but it'll be all their fault. They have a good OS that people were happy with the upgrade to. If they release one that people don't like, they'll get stuck in the mentality of "7 is the only good OS, I won't upgrade."
That's the part I'm going to be annoyed about. Not 8, but in 2018 when 9 or 10 is the thing and it is a good OS, trying to convince people that yes, there is a new good one and you need to move to it before support expires.
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2) In cases where we need/want 8 get a UI mod to make 8 look like 7. Someone will have what we need, probably Stardock. They already have a start button restorer (http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/) and given that UI customization is their big market
Start8 is better than nothing, but it brings up a minimized Metro-ish screen taking up a quarter of your desktop. IMO, Classic Shell is a much better solution and actually restores a real start menu: http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Stop fiddling with the GUI (Score:5, Insightful)
The windows OS was largely similar from Windows 3.1 to Vista. Stop toying with it. I think it's find to have these as optional or even the default GUI if people really want it. But some of us have been using the windows GUI for ages and it's frankly not appreciated when things are moved around.
We know where all the buttons and features are supposed to be guys. There is no other place you can put them that will be better.
Every new version of windows is like some guy randomly coming into your kitchen and reorganizing everything only to leave a little message behind saying "I fixed your kitchen, you're welcome.".... Well great... I can't find the maynanese... my spice rack is completely out of order... and there are about a hundred things that i have to patiently remove from whatever stupid location they were put and put them back where I want them.
What? I can't move it there because you outright removed cabinets and installed totally different appliances? I had that experience in Windows 7 where they took away the ability to sort folders manually. Happily I found a registry hack that added the feature back into the system.
This is obnoxious Microsoft. And beyond that, we've lost compatibilty with most of the old dos apps in the 64 bit version of windows. There's no good reason for that since dos was already being emulated. You can't tell me that you can't emulate a 16 bit environment in a 64 bit environment when there are a dozen dos emulators on the market that will do just that. Of course, most of them are designed for games and so don't work with networked printers or any of the other fun stuff that we've been counting on for YEARS.
Seriously Microsoft. You're killing it. Your selling point forever has been standards and backward compatibility.
I can over look a lot of nonsense if you just give me an updated version of the same thing. I don't use windows to be wowed by the GUI graphics. I use windows because that's how I launch the programs and manage the files that I ACTUALLY care about. Changing everything around randomly is not helpful. Stop doing it. At the very least, at least provide some buried Classic mode somewhere in the system.
I'm tired of New Coke Windows. No one stick with you because you're innovative. We stick with you because you're consistent.
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in Windows 7 where they took away the ability to sort folders manually
Ummm, what? What exactly are you describing by sorting folders manually? I've never had any problem with Explorer sorting the contents of a directory based off of any attribute the files may have. And what do you mean by manually? Computers are phenomenal at sorting, why would you not have the computer do the sorting?
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It'd be great to have the subfolders organized "Photos, My Pics, DL, Wallpaper" but I'm stuck with "DL, My Pics, Photos, Wallpaper"
That is a sad defintion of the word great.
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How does someone make a "rearranging the kitchen" comparison with no mention of "menus"?
First they completely get rid of menus in Office programs, then hide the menus in Internet Explorer, then make it impossible to put menus above the toolbars, then they get rid of menus throughout the operating system.
Windows 9 (Score:5, Funny)
Based on recent trends in IE and Win UI design, Microsoft's announced plans, and their track record doing things just a little differently from Apple, I expect the default UI for Windows 9 to be just a blank bluish-grey screen with a lighter logo in the middle, and functions will be brought on screen and selected by gesturing in front of it in a dialect of American Sign Language. (Passwords will be entered by hiding one hand behind the other and finger-spelling.)
Re: (Score:2)
gesturing in front of it
In whatever case, there will be rude gesticulation.
--
BMO
Nice job guys... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
You clearly haven't used a Mac in several years. For at least the past three versions of OS X there's no ugly brushed aluminum anymore, and the stoplights (which were indeed ugly) are now all grey. In fact the entire UI is now almost completely greyscale (which is not necessarily ideal for usability, but it's not ugly anyway) and completely unobtrusive. And once I got used to Finder, I hate having to browse files on other computers - for me, Finder is far superior (of course I was coming from Linux where fi
Re:Nice job guys... (Score:4, Interesting)
"at least twice as much" is a bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?
Sure, you can buy an i7 PC a bit cheaper than the cheapest i7 equipped Mac, but the case will be louder, more flimsy, probably more gaudy. and won't have bluetooth and wifi integrated out of the box. Is it cheaper? Yes, depending on your perspective. Add in a good case, good keyboard and mouse, WiFi, equivalent interfaces (DisplayPort/Mini-DisplayPort/HDMI) then you've surpassed the price of the Mac.
Notebooks: Yes, you can get cheaper notebooks, but they will be flimsy pieces of crap than a Macbook, with a higher failure rate. My notebook (a 17" Dell Precision Mobile Workstation) with a full desktop chipset, Core 2 Quad Extreme, WUXGA+ (1920x1200) display with RGB-LED backlighting covering the full Adobe color gamut, internal RAID support (dual hard drives - newer ones support THREE hard drives!), and a THREE-button trackpointer AND touchpad, is actually more solidly built than my Macbook Pro (which I also have but never use; it's a Core Duo) but costs far more. I've dropped it from a 4' high ledge onto a tiled concrete floor with the screen open, and it never stopped running and the screen and everything else is fine. Very solid, but definitely cheap, either. I could buy a much cheaper PC notebook, but it will not have the fast desktop chipset, won't have an NVIDIA Quadro video card, won't have DisplayPort, and will have fewer USB ports than I have, and likely won't have ESATA and definitely won't have multiple hard drive bays. So, will it (a cheap notebook) save money? It depends on your needs.
I needed desktop/workstation performance on the go and that's what I have. You can't even get a desktop chipset in an Apple notebook. The great thing about PCs is there is a huge expanse of options ranging from ultra-cheap notebooks with integrated graphics and mobile chipsets, but flimsy cases. Decent notebooks with mobile chipsets but will last longer. Mobile chipsets in solid cases (equivalent to the Macbook Pro) but will have a low failure rate of only 2%-4%, and then you have the true mobile Desktop/Workstation offerings from Dell and Lenovo that are built like tanks, include desktop chipsets and workstation graphics cards and multiple hard drive support, and are priced accordingly. And, that selection works. The ironic thing is the more expensive notebooks (Latitude, Precision, Thinkpad, Toughbook) are cheaper for some people who are on the go a lot and work in both professional and industrial environments; the notebooks can take a real beating, and if you do break something, every individual part can be ordered, be it a screen hinge, a bezel, motherboard, hard drive sled/tray/bracket, or the entire chassis. The cheaper notebooks are disposable. Macbook Pro? Built like a tank but still has the retarded one-button mouse (yes yes I know about the "virtual" second button, but try using middle-button functionality in X in Linux!!), and when you do need a part, good luck ordering it, You have to deal with the "not"-genius bar who will only want to sell you on a new Macbook, or you need to go to feeBay or to a few other sites that offer the parts. Oh, and you can't get a Macbook with a desktop chipset.
Why is the desktop chipset a big deal? Faster throughput, better performance, and yes, there is a tradeoff of battery life, but IMHO it is worth it. Even with an outdated CPU and video card, my notebook still feels plenty fast, especially since I upgraded it with "hybrid" hard drives.
Conclusion: comparing apples to apples (no pun intended), a Macintosh notebook, iMac or Mac Mini is not really more expensive than the equivalent PC. The Mac Pro is a different story, though - but honestly if you go with something like a Supermicro workstation (which will have far faster throughput and more PCI-E x16 slots) it will be MUCH louder, unless you buy just the board and install your EATX board into a third-party chassis.
Re: (Score:3)
Are you on crack? The cheapest Mac with an i7 is a $899 Mini. Not only can you get a pretty damn nice PC fo
Apple redefined the "modern" look (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone was happily moving along in a world where more gradients, more gloss, or more 3D was the way of the future. Then Apple changed all that by going retro. They still used gradients and gloss, but in a more subtle way. Their icons were 2D, flat, iconic rather than 3D and realistic. This changed more than just GUIs: slideshows, packaging, advertisements, and trade show posters are changing too.
Microsoft is just following the trend. This will be consistent with the look and feel of Metro, and Visual Studio 2012.
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That would be an indication that Apple is now leading the industry, and Microsoft is just a follower.....
balmer's plan to run microsft into the ground (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Microsoft has never understood, or even cared about, the consumer. Microsoft's target has always been the CIO or IT Manager. It's corporate deployments of Office and Windows that keep Microsoft afloat, not anything that a consumer buys.
Thank god (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It won't take long for users to adapt to the OS... (Score:2)
Already ahead of you on that one M$. I've been ramping up my Ubuntu usage ever since details of Win 8 started appearing.
Contrast is a good thing (Score:2)
Some contrast goes a long way.
If Win95 was good enough for Jesus and the bible.. (Score:2)
Everything old is new again... (Score:2)
This looks like Windows 3.11 with extra stuff inside the windows. Terrible. I honestly have no idea anymore if MS has any sort of plan or vision, it just seems like they have lost the plot. I can't see migrating my users to even just the upcoming Office version with the overly drastic UI changes that make support a nightmare, Windows 8 manages to take those same concerns and make them even worse. Companies have been so consistently resistant to upgrade with each successive release of the OS with many still
Because what do those silly users know anyway...? (Score:3)
On the Microsoft blogs, the vast majority of users, by *far* have asked for the Start button to remain as is. Guess what Microsoft is going to do?
Microsoft, because you *needed* more unthinking, unaware, 20-something arrogance in your life. Daily.
Thank goodness for Linux and Wine, that's all I have to say. The Zorin distribution of Ubuntu particularly.
Re: (Score:2)
If they want 'classic' (Score:2)
That sounds good on paper, but it takes resources to develop the 'classic' interface.
Now, while i don't agree with changes for the sake of change, they did make the decision to go in another direction and there really isn't a need to keep spending money on legacy.
Legacy support is part of Microsoft's problem that has held them back. But to be fair, if you leave existing platforms in the dust every time you come out with new product, you wont have customers for long.. I am still surprised that Apple pulled i
Re: (Score:2)
Asking questions for which there is no right answer and where many people have no clue which option is best for them is just confusing. It's better to pick a default behaviour and provide the means for those determined enough to change it to something else.
Re:Less and less interested in windows 8 (Score:4, Interesting)
Are the extremely functional UI's that have evolved for the last 30 years that broken?
Yes! They are! But the theme change in Windows 8 isn't meant to address that, it's meant to address the glaring style differences between the desktop and Metro—Metro is meant to address how broken the desktop UI is. Is it a success? Hard to say, but I'll bet it's a wash, and it's undermined by retaining the desktop.
I hope geeks will come to realize that just because they use and know WIMP doesn't mean that's the correct or even best interface approach, and it doesn't mean it's the best for every use case. We also need to realize that we're not the target audience of efforts like Metro, and whereas that audience will likely greatly benefit from losing the complexities of windows and menu bars, we geeks will thrive by adapting, and adopting power tools, as we always do.
I doubt Windows 8 is for me, and I think there's a lot wrong with the approach, but I think the upset over Metro is extremely misplaced and greatly misses the point. WIMP just doesn't serve most users well, and it's an ugly elitist demand that those users adapt to the complex UIs we happen to be familiar with so that we might not be faced with the choice of a new UI approach.