Lessons in EOL
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Bullshit. I don't even remember using 95. Actually, the first computer I had was XP.
Besides that, there are things which are demonstrably worse in 8:
- Why are the window titles centered? I read right-to-left, your centered title makes me have to subconsciously scan half the screen before I can determine if the window I'm looking at is the one I want.
- Why can't I have dark grey window colors? I mean I can, but then I can't read the fucking titles because they are also dark grey. Windows 7 has white shadow drop from the title to fix this.
- The start screen sucks balls. On real computers (read something that isn't a tablet) it's an absurd waste of space. You cannot find anything in it, which I personally don't bother doing anyway. I just hit he windows key, type shit in and hit Enter. Basically the same way I did it in 7, except now for the few seconds it takes me to do the typing the whole screen is taken over by some bullshit I absolutely do not care about, with the things I do care about, i.e. the search, on the right. Why is it on the right when we read left-to-right I don't know. I look forward to your explanation how anything was improved here over the Start menu in 7.
- The settings are goddamn idiotic. Why is half of it in normal menu and the other in the bullshit fullscreen metro one? Case in point, changing passwords. You cannot do it in the normal control panel. Under user accounts there is no option for it. There is no indication for where it could be. Spoiler warning, it's in the Metro version of user accounts. Before you say it, yes, I know I can search for "password" on the Start screen but:
- Why in the flaming hell are there two menus?!
- At this point I might as well open up a terminal and type in "passwd"...
- Speaking of fullscreen bullshit, why is there fullsceen bullshit? With my screen it's 75% white anyway. Can I get a 75% refund for my monitor since it's 75% useless?
- Hot corners, ugh... First of all, this is just pure bad UI design, there is a reason buttons exist. I seriously cannot fathom how no Start button whatsoever go past the drawing board. Scratch that, I cannot fathom how it got past someone's subconscious bullshit idea filter. Secondly, I work with text all day long so I want to fit as many lines as I can. Therefore since my monitor is widescreen I want to position my taskbar vertically to the side. Guess what, in 8 I can't really do this. I mean I can, but then I get pestered by fucking hot corners ever time I try to use the minimize everything button (incidentally, this button is also invisible...). One the left is the Start screen for which there is a perfectly fine button 1080 pixel above (half-assed implementation much?). On the right there is the Charms bar, an invention that brings me absolutely no benefit. Great. Before you suggest I use Windows + D instead:
- Discoverability, again.
- I'll use whatever the hell I want. Maybe I don't feel like using the keyboard right now?
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...and the list is messed up, @discoursebot?
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@Deadfast - Last Day Without A Discourse Bug: null
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Windows 8 is acceptable, thanks to Win+X and Win+Q.
Hah, two new shortcuts I didn't know about.
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Here's to Windows 10 being more 7 than 8.
In what way, exactly? If you're start screen/menu agnostic, than other than the under-the-hood stuff, the main difference seems to be the flatter UI. Theoretically you'd prefer the underpinnings of 8 and later anyway, what with the supposedly enhanced power management and stuff.
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Why are the window titles centered?
They were centered in Mac Classic, the best GUI ever built ever. That is all the answer required. Now if only they'd move the close box away from the window sizing boxes, as God Himself intended.
Why can't I have dark grey window colors? I mean I can, but then I can't read the fucking titles because they are also dark grey.
That's a feature, not a bug. See, it prevents idiots from complaining that the titles aren't centered-- all you do is set your windows to dark grey and no more centered titles!
You cannot find anything in it, which I personally don't bother doing anyway.
Just type what you want and hit enter. That's so wrong, I don't even know how to enumerate the ways in which it's wrong.
I just hit he windows key, type shit in and hit Enter.
... oh.
So your complaint is you can't find anything, except you can? I guess?
Basically the same way I did it in 7, except now for the few seconds it takes me to do the typing the whole screen is taken over by some bullshit I absolutely do not care about,
I hear looking at it causes cancer, too.
i.e. the search, on the right. Why is it on the right when we read left-to-right I don't know.
You can easily fix this problem by typing Ctrl-Alt-DownArrow if using Intel GPU drivers.
Speaking of fullscreen bullshit, why is there fullsceen bullshit? With my screen it's 75% white anyway. Can I get a 75% refund for my monitor since it's 75% useless?
You'd have to ask the maker of your monitor. I'm sure they'd be happy to discuss that with you in a calm and reasonable fashion while not-at-all calling the nice men with the straight jackets to take you away.
First of all, this is just pure bad UI design, there is a reason buttons exist.
The Amish might disagree!
I seriously cannot fathom how no Start button whatsoever go past the drawing board.
There was no Start button in Mac Classic, the best, greatest etc etc etc.
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I seriously cannot fathom how no Start button whatsoever go past the drawing board.
It's funny how people who never used a windowing OS before Windows 95 never wonder how people worked before there was a start button/menu.
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I think an actual reply of how anything has been improved over Win7 has been lost among all the infamous Blaykersnark ;).
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I think an actual reply of how anything has been improved over Win7 has been lost among all the infamous Blaykersnark
You do know you sound like everyone who hated losing Program Manager when Windows 95 came out, right? And every single person who hated XP because of the gummy new UI? And everyone who hated Vista just because the start menu looked different?
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It's funny how people who never used a windowing OS before Windows 95 never wonder how people worked before there was a start button/menu.
Without giving an example I assume there was some other indication that if you click in that particular area something will happen? Dare I say a button, for example?
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Au contraire. The Amish use buttons all the time. They use them instead of zippers.
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You do know you sound like everyone who hated losing Program Manager when Windows 95 came out, right?
Nope, too busy playing with LEGO at that time I guess?And every single person who hated XP because of the gummy new UI?
Nope. No internet. Besides, you could turn off the gummy new UI.And everyone who hated Vista just because the start menu looked different?
I'm pretty sure different-looking Start menu was the lowest on the list of Vista complaints. Personally I had no problem with it. In fact, I had little problems with Vista as a whole.
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In fact, I had little problems with Vista as a whole.
Me neither, and it still baffles me that nobody liked it while everyone praised Win 7. Maybe because by the time 7 was released people had gotten used to the changes? I can't think of any other explanation, since I never perceived the supposedly huge difference between those two Windows versions.
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Nope, too busy playing with LEGO at that time I guess?
I didn't say you were old enough to be doing it, I'm saying you sound like the ones who were.
Every time--every time--that Microsoft makes UI changes, and I've seen this with every version of Windows since 3.1, not to mention Office, Visual Studio, and so on--people freak the shit out. The vast majority of the complaints devolve to "I don't like that it's different."
That's a valid criticism. Saying "$newversion sucks!!1" because you don't like that it's different is not a valid criticism. A number of the issues people have been complaining about wrt Windows 8 are valid. Some aren't. I really think that a lot of people, if they spent the time to learn the new UI, would come to like it. I ask some of my customers what they think of it, if I see they're using it, and generally they don't hate it. These are regular users, not devs and the like. The latter should ask themselves whether there's actually a problem with the change or if they're just upset that it's different.
There's things I don't like about win 8, but on the whole I prefer it to 7. The start screen, while after use I have decided I like better, isn't really a big deal, because you have so many alternatives, and you know it. If you always use search or pinned items to run your apps, WHO CARES that the menu isn't a menu any more? You're never there! Even if you are, you're not there for more than a few seconds. And if you say you can't find stuff, you're admitting you haven't looked, because guess what? Everything is either in an alphabetical list at the front, or in a set of nested alphabetical lists just like the start menu, just arranged in two dimensions, and they're also easier to hit because the icons are larger, they don't move out from under you if they're at the edge of the menu like happens in 7 and earlier, and they can now be live tiles, conveying useful information instead of just a text label, as well!
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Besides, you could turn off the gummy new UI.
And you were generally stupid if you did so, because the new UI got to use graphics acceleration. Or maybe that was in Vista.
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Me neither, and it still baffles me that nobody liked it while everyone praised Win 7. Maybe because by the time 7 was released people had gotten used to the changes? I
See that other thread with the extended quote from a Microsoft dev: it boiled down to "insufficient driver support at release" and "vista basic" (that is, a low-end version of aero intended for use on computers that didn't really have enough horsepower for it (iirc, this mainly meant "integrated Intel graphics") so it ran like shit). From what I read afterwards, Microsoft let vendors (which from context seems to mean "Intel") bully it into providing a version of Windows for low-end computers, and then took the blame when those computers sucked.
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Theoretically you'd prefer the underpinnings of 8 and later anyway,
Yah, that all seems fine, but you'll never take my desktop away!
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Speaking of fullscreen bullshit, why is there fullsceen bullshit? With my screen it's 75% white anyway. Can I get a 75% refund for my monitor since it's 75% useless?
I particularly enjoyed reading this sentence.
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Me neither, and it still baffles me that nobody liked it while everyone praised Win 7. Maybe because by the time 7 was released people had gotten used to the changes? I can't think of any other explanation, since I never perceived the supposedly huge difference between those two Windows versions.
I think the top reasons were stability and performance.
Stability was mostly caused by crap drivers which got solved over time.
Performance was mostly down to Vista being OEM'd onto stuff that had absolutely no chance of running it, topping it off with the "Vista Ready" sticker.
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used a windowing OS before Windows 95
Program Manager or FUCK IT ALL, BITCHES!
I, uh, believe that was the argument of the day...
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And you were generally stupid if you did so, because the new UI got to use graphics acceleration. Or maybe that was in Vista.
Yeah, I believe that was Vista+.
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If you always use search or pinned items to run your apps, WHO CARES that the menu isn't a menu any more?
Exactly. There was a huge outcry when GNOME 3 replaced the application menu as well. So as soon as I upgraded to GNOME 3, I installed a shell extension which brought the old menu back. To my own surprise, I've never used the menu in the past 3 years. OK, maybe once or twice, but most of the time I click on a pinned app in the overview or just type the first few letters of the name and hit enter.
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I particularly enjoyed reading this sentence.
I am disappointed you did not 75% enjoy it instead ;).
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I think the top reasons were stability and performance.
Stability was mostly caused by crap drivers which got solved over time.
Performance was mostly down to Vista being OEM'd onto stuff that had absolutely no chance of running it, topping it off with the "Vista Ready" sticker.
OK, I get that. But that doesn't explain why a lot of people who should know better blamed the OS for those problems instead of the hardware manufacturers.
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Yah, that all seems fine, but you'll never take my desktop away!
I'm typing this on my 8.1 desktop right now. Windows RT is dead, or so I hear, so nobody's going to be trying to do that in the near future.
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I particularly enjoyed reading this sentence.
I have to admit, the use case of modern UI apps on large, modern monitors wasn't very well thought out. Nearly nothing is useful on 1920x1080 (or obviously, larger, or even some smaller sizes).
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Performance was mostly down to Vista being OEM'd onto stuff that had absolutely no chance of running it, topping it off with the "Vista Ready" sticker.
Yeah: basically Vista Basic was something that never should have happened, and if it didn't, resistance to it probably would have been quite a bit smaller.
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Program Manager or FUCK IT ALL, BITCHES!
Program Manager sucked, it's just nobody had come up with anything better. That was made obvious by how quickly all the X window managers copied the Start Menu.
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Yeah, I believe that was Vista+.
Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure that turning off Aero netted you nothing performance-wise. People would have been better served by disabling some of the individual functionality like smooth scrolling, in the Advanced system control panel.
Worse, doing that created a legacy of fail: I know people who even in 7 turn off the new UI so they look like they're using Windows 95, and they do lose graphics acceleration.
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1920x1080
My Surface has 2160x1440 and modern UI apps seem pretty useful to me on that device.
Filed under: Physical size != screen resolution
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OK, I get that. But that doesn't explain why a lot of people who should know better blamed the OS for those problems instead of the hardware manufacturers.
Because, bless their hearts, people are fairly stupid in some ways, and also kinda stubborn. Why do you think Microsoft always objects to certain changes by saying "people will think Windows is broken?" It's because they know it's true!
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My Surface has 2160x1440 and modern UI apps seem pretty useful to me on that device.
Ok, fine, but your screen's small and your DPI's higher, and I think Windows displays stuff differently, more in line with the physical size fo the screen, doesn't it? I've got a 23" monitor, and full-screen IE looks pretty stupid even when I'm not using Discurse.
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Every time--every time--that Microsoft makes UI changes, and I've seen this with every version of Windows since 3.1, not to mention Office, Visual Studio, and so on--people freak the shit out. The vast majority of the complaints devolve to "I don't like that it's different."
That's mostly because some of the latest UI changes just seem to be changing shit for the sake of it.Personally I dislike the ribbon but that's mostly because it hasn't really solved anything for me. I am far from an avid user so my usual use case was to just look through everything until I find it. With the ribbon I do the same but now I also have to switch between the tabs.
Visual Studio changes were just outright shit. They just took the existing interface and adjusted the colors to match the current "flat" standard that is trendy. You still have the gazillion buttons and menus except now you cannot tell them apart because they look the same. I'm glad they at least put some color back into the button icons because the tech preview was just ridiculous. There is this blog post from a person who claims to have had a part in the redesign. He says he was inspired by the dash of his Audi. Unfortunately his Audi has about 100 times less buttons than VS and even so, the dash has colors.
The start screen, while after use I have decided I like better, isn't really a big deal, because you have so many alternatives, and you know it.
If you are referring to Classic Shell and such should we really rely on third party applications for stuff like this?If you always use search or pinned items to run your apps, WHO CARES that the menu isn't a menu any more? You're never there! Even if you are, you're not there for more than a few seconds.
Even so I find the context switch annoying. Basically my point is in 7 you could do the same thing minus that, hence I don't see an improvement.And if you say you can't find stuff, you're admitting you haven't looked
I have looked, in the same place the setting has been in XP. Now if the whole user account settings were moved and no longer where they used to be, fine. But right now it's in the same place, except for some inexplicable reason the password option is no longer there with no indication where it has gone.
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I am disappointed you did not 75% enjoy it instead
Due to discorounding, I even gave you 100% of a like!
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Ok, fine, but your screen's small and your DPI's higher, and I think Windows displays stuff differently, more in line with the physical size fo the screen, doesn't it?
Of course. Also, I use 150% scaling. I was just being pedantic, like everyone else around here. ;) (That's obligatory on this forum, isn't it?)
I've got a 23" monitor, and full-screen IE looks pretty stupid even when I'm not using Discurse.
Glad I'm not using Windows on my desktop computer, then. GNOME 3 and its default apps look fine on a 24'' screen.
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That's mostly because some of the latest UI changes just seem to be changing shit for the sake of it.
No. If you've been following what I've been saying, people do this regardless of the change: they just don't like change. Do you remember the Mojave Experiment? While it's true some of the changes are minor or seem useless, people will complain just as much about major ones that would otherwise increase productivity.
For example, people I know who spend all day in Office loved the Ribbon, even though lots of people bitched, because of the whole "easy to find the most commonly used things." Yes, obviously that means the people who had their pet tools made harder to find are going to be upset, but they didn't complain more than the people who just complained because 2007 didn't look like 2003.
That's why I argue with people who just say they hate 8 (for example), because a lot of times, they haven't learned it well enough to even see whether it's better or not! As I said before, I hated the screen when it came out, too. But then I found out how to use it, and discovered that in a lot of ways, it really is better. Notice I'm not saying in all the ways. The split of some functionality out of the Control Panel into PC Settings is stupid. It should have been all or nothing. But what functionality is in PC Settings isn't actually all that bad.
Personally I dislike the ribbon but that's mostly because it hasn't really solved anything for me. I am far from an avid user so my usual use case was to just look through everything until I find it. With the ribbon I do the same but now I also have to switch between the tabs.
You're probably not the use case, then. I do the same thing, but it doesn't bother me, because it's not a big deal. Like I said, I have a friend who's in Word and Excel all day and he loves the ribbon. I asked him because sometimes he's a bit curmudgeonly and doesn't like change, but he surprised me with his answer. I suspect you'll find that--generally speaking--the more people use Office the more they like the Ribbon.
Visual Studio changes were just outright shit. They just took the existing interface and adjusted the colors to match the current "flat" standard that is trendy. You still have the gazillion buttons and menus except now you cannot tell them apart because they look the same.
I tend to agree but I don't use VS enough to be really fluent in the UI. While I will not argue with you about flattening the UI, it doesn't bother me at all. I completely disagree about the buttons, though. I have no problems with distinguishing the ones I use.
If you are referring to Classic Shell
No. I've never used it, or the classic start menu app or whatever it's called. I think I saw screenshots of Classic Shell when it came out and didn't care. I meant that you have alternatives in the way you can do things. If the tiles really bother you that much you can--like you have been able to since Vista--to use the generally excellent Start search to run things, and you can rearrange the start menu to put the things you want to use on the left, and you can pin to the desktop and taskbar. Nearly everyone I know does this extensively and always has. People are really freaking out about the start screen, and it's really, really, overblown.
Serously. Spend some time with it, with an open mind. Delete icons you don't care about. Learn how it arranges the tiles. Put your most commonly used tiles to the left. Find a few live tiles. it's a lot better than you think! Again, I'm not trying to tell you it's an unalloyed good.
Even so I find the context switch annoying. Basically my point is in 7 you could do the same thing minus that, hence I don't see an improvement.
Yeah, I already agreed, at least to the extent that the fact that it takes a second or two to switch is annoying. I have a feeling that Microsoft probably tested a non-delayed transition and probably discovered it confuses users even more. If you can touch type, though, you can probably use start search, which still works the same as in 7, without even looking at the screen or keyboard, in which case it doesn't really matter.
I have looked, in the same place the setting has been in XP. Now if the whole user account settings were moved and no longer where they used to be, fine. But right now it's in the same place, except for some inexplicable reason the password option is no longer there with no indication where it has gone.
Ah, well, now we're getting somewhere. I thought you meant you had trouble finding things on the screen. I would understand that because MS didn't do a good job of introducing the new functionality. But if you mean "pieces of control panel aren't where they used to be" I'm with you, except that they do this with EVERY version of Windows. You ALWAYS have to re-learn where half a dozen control panels have moved to, or how they have rearranged the controls in a dialog, and so on. 8 is NO different in that regard. So I'll acknowledge the specific complaint but reiterate that it's not a new thing that that happens.
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Glad I'm not using Windows on my desktop computer, then. GNOME 3 and its default apps look fine on a 24'' screen.
Well, put this in context. I bet if you fire up your browser of choice in Linux and maximize it and come to this site, it looks like shit because half the screen is wasted. That's what I meant. It should be easier or something to use two half-screen Modern apps. Maybe the problem is that I haven't seen enough of them that have more than bare-bones functionality. Actually a good counterexample is the Weather app. It's got a ton of stuff if you scroll right. I think if people see more things like that they'd like the modern UI style better. Another example: you can't really set up your monitor to be, say, half desktop, and half a modern app, because--at least for me--most of the desktop apps I use want to be wider than half of 1920 pixels wide. I don't know what the solution is--if there's even a "the" solution--but I can imagine that there could be a way it could work better.
Come out with, say, Terraria or Civ 5 or Word as a modern-style app, and I bet adoption and satisfaction would go up.
I think my company's product could benefit from being a Modern app because it's one of those domain-specific things that has a crapton of stuff going on in the UI, and it could scale like the Weather app.
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But anyone has yet to give me any reason to switch from 7 to 8/8.1. There is no reason to switch. Yes, there are advancements. It may be a small percentage faster here or there. But no compelling reason for me to make the switch.
A new UI that changes a bunch of shit? Sounds like Discourse to me... Live tiles? I don't care, just sounds like some Weatherbug BS to me. Also, giving me a Start screen that is chocked full of shit I have to delete or Uninstaller just feels like...bloatware. Like how all OEM machines come with Norton. I will add stuff I need.
The entire experience is just off-putting to me. If I (and a lot of other users) have to delete, remove and turn off a bunch of stuff to be happy with it...it is a failure. My first install of 8.1, from a VL ISO, concluded with me right-clicking and uninstaling a ton of stuff. I should not have to do that unless it is a bare bones machine purchased at Best Buy subsidized by bloatware.
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But anyone has yet to give me any reason to switch from 7 to 8/8.1.
Well, shit, if you've got a Sandy Bridge CPU, there's no compelling reason to upgrade to an Ivy Bridge, either, right? If you were still on XP until EOL for some reason, then you should move to 8. If you like being cutting edge, go from 7 to 8. I keep saying this, and I'll admit I don't have a laptop so I can't measure it, but one of the big things MS kept talking about was power management on laptops. If you can get an extra 10-20%[1] of battery life, I'd call that a good reason, wouldn't you? Theoretically 8 needs less memory than 7. That means a borderline computer might actually run better on 8, which might be a good reason, depending on other contexts.
I convinced the people at work to upgrade my computer because I knew our customers were going to be buying new computers and they were going to ask if our product was compatible with Windows 8, because they always ask that.
[1] asspull numbers. I don't remember what the claims were.
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Live tiles? I don't care, just sounds like some Weatherbug BS to me.
I dunno. Do you like having things like an unread mail count on your phone? Maybe some people like the news app's showing headlines on that tile, I dunno. I can imagine domain-specific uses, too, that admittedly might not be actually possible, but how about an LOB app that gave you some kind of status indicator? Maybe "last night's DB backup status is good/bad" ? I have a friend that modified such a script to send him a text message; maybe that'd be useful as a tile too. I dunno, I'm spitballing here, I'll admit. Uh...how about some kind of update of your status in some kind of game?
Also, giving me a Start screen that is chocked full of shit I have to delete or Uninstaller just feels like...bloatware.
yeah, I've acknowledged that. At least on the Start menu, all that shit was buried under Accessories. BTW as I mentioned up thread, the returned Start menu in 10 just puts them all on All Programs, so you have to scroll down to get to your installed apps, which detracts from the usefulness of the menu.
The entire experience is just off-putting to me. If I (and a lot of other users) have to delete, remove and turn off a bunch of stuff to be happy with it...it is a failure.
Yeah, that's a weak point. Put it in context, though: it's not too different from what you'll go through pinning a bunch of icons. to the desktop and taskbar.
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[1] asspull numbers. I don't remember what the claims were.
Unlike some others around here, I don't expect 18 peer-reviewed studies for every statement. ;)
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Unlike some others around here, I don't expect 18 peer-reviewed studies for every statement
wot? me?
imma just a <pretend> fox. how many peers do you expect me to find on the human interwebs?
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Put it in context, though: it's not too different from what you'll go through pinning a bunch of icons. to the desktop and taskbar.
There's a fundamental difference between being able to make a system do the things you'd like it to, and being required to stop a system doing all the things you'd rather it didn't.
Blinky flashy shit gives me hives. Live tiles: DO NOT WANT.
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imma just a fox. how many peers do you expect me to find on the human interwebs?
There is no one else like you...it is part of your charm. :)
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Live tiles: DO NOT WANT.
Fine. Do you have an iPhone? How do you feel about it doing the same thing with unread email counts?
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thanks!
also, does WIN+S work on windows 7? i use it all the time in win8.
WIN+S "pai" Enter => BAM! lust launched Paint.net
WIN+S "partial document name" enter => BAM! i just opened up that document in the default program
i could go on for days.
best feature of windows*. i rarely ever even go to the start menu anymore. or to windows explorer to find files (unless i forgot their name because it's been a while or i chose a poor name in the first place)
*: Maybe
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Uhmmm, just hit the Windows key and it searches. No need for the other key in Win7.
AlternateTab - GNOME Shell Extensions
