Vicetrailia
Banned
For work purposes I don't see metro saving me time, effort, or making me more productive, and I don't use the computer at home much. So Metro to me would be better served on a tablet "just cause" honestly.
Windows 8 Release Preview
- Thread starter celebi23
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Yes there is. Bigger start screen = more programs available without additional clicks or searching. You don't have to put programs on desktop. You don't have to put all the programs in either start menu (which height is limited anyway) or on taskbar.
Also, you have more find results available at once with an option to filter them. You can look for applications, options or files. And if you're looking just for files, you can easily filter videos, music, images, documents and other files. And while I complained before that I would love to have an option to search for all type of things at once (still want), after returning to Windows 7 at work I started to appreciate the search function in Windows 8. At work (the system is freshly installed) when I look for a program, very often first few results are folders that share the same name as the program.
No one is forcing you to use it. You can uninstall all of that stuff.
Yes.
But what if you want to select what you're searching for? Currently I'm in the middle of writing my thesis. I have dozens of pdf and text documents that I constantly refer to. The keywords I usually look for also appear in various programming APIs and projects that I'm using. With Windows 8 search function I can not only see all the files at once, but can filter them easily (separating documents from other files), see files' attributes (date, location) and, in case of text files, the context those keywords appear in. The only feature that would be really helpful is sorting.
Can full screen be a hindrance? Yes. But can it also be really helpful? Absolutely. Both modes have their pros and cons, but currently, for me, the fullscreen is much more useful than a thin menu.
StudioTan
Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
darkpaladinmfc
Member
The change will be reflected but you can't change the whole panel to make it match your 'Metro' applications.
There are a couple more blog posts about the start screen. If anyone wonders why the new start screen is the way it is, read these:
Evolving the start menu
Designing the start screen
Reflecting on your comments on the start screen
Designing search for the start screen
Evolving the start menu
Designing the start screen
Reflecting on your comments on the start screen
Designing search for the start screen
Steelyuhas
Member
I never do, but people are always asking how to shut down, so I assume that plenty of people still do it. I have no idea what you would though, especially if you run any Metro apps in Windows 8, because as long as you don't shut down those will remain suspended in memory, and you never have to start them cold.
Metro sucks so much that they need to dedicate a series in their blog to defend it.
well, the default start up is basically a resume from hibernation (which is fine for most people)
In that case every feature in Windows 8, Windows 7, Office, ... must suck. You better stick to Apple products from now on...
Not for me. When my PC is in hibernate mode the power LED is constantly blinking and it's really REALLY annoying at night as I'm using one of those fancy "mod" cases where the LEDs are huge and obnoxious so that means complete shutdowns and cold boots for me everyday. I'm rocking an SSD so boot is extremely fast anyway.
Ok, so let's go with the standard desktop resolution, 1080p. You can easily fit two readable A4 pages filled with text in there. I'm going to assume that getting an A4's worth of relevant results, or half of the screen, is pretty rare. So wouldn't it be better to be able to maximize the start screen if there was a need for it? Having a fullscreen sheet in your face every time you want to open an app that's not pinned to your taskbar is just way too much.
As for the animated tile stuff, that can be done in a smaller space as well. The stardock example posted by Griffin is the way it should have been for the desktop.
re the picture posted earlier on this page:
Might be good on a huge monitor, it's not worth using on a 1366x768 laptop though
I thought something like this would be ideal between the old start menu and the new start screen that I don't really need to take up the entire screen, but it doesn't look or work as well as I'd hoped when shrunk like that. I guess both launchers are not tailored to my admittedly minimal needs.
Might be good on a huge monitor, it's not worth using on a 1366x768 laptop though
Well, At the very least we'll get a font change and a new brand name. That's something
Font change? Are you nuts?
Steelyuhas
Member
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/03/21/scaling-to-different-screens.aspx
I think msv is correct about the standard desktop resolution. The standard laptop resolution is 1366x768.
That would be projected usage, no?
This shows current usage
StudioTan
Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
Steelyuhas
Member
That would be projected usage, no?
This shows current usage
Yeah that's what I was looking for.
Its that way because of tablets and half assery.
A billion blog posts cant defeat logic.
The computing that's going to happen over the next few years isn't compatible with historic Windows.
They'd be fools to tailor the experience for desk jockeys.
I haven't personally used Windows 8 at all so I'll reserve complete judgement until I do, but I've seen a few videos of it in action.
tbh I'm a little bit horrified. A lot of this stuff seems like huge steps back for a Desktop pc. I said aloud 'are they fucking serious?' when I saw a save file dialog box take up the whole screen. It honestly looks more like some avant-garde niche Linux distribution than the next tentpole Microsoft OS release.
However, It does look great for tablets. I'm actually a fan of the Windows Phone and I think that UI is a breath of fresh air on phones / tablets, but PC's are a completely different beast... PC's are still used in work / office environments and stuff.
tbh I'm a little bit horrified. A lot of this stuff seems like huge steps back for a Desktop pc. I said aloud 'are they fucking serious?' when I saw a save file dialog box take up the whole screen. It honestly looks more like some avant-garde niche Linux distribution than the next tentpole Microsoft OS release.
However, It does look great for tablets. I'm actually a fan of the Windows Phone and I think that UI is a breath of fresh air on phones / tablets, but PC's are a completely different beast... PC's are still used in work / office environments and stuff.
StudioTan
Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
You sure showed him. Pulling things out of your ass beats actual metrics and facts every time!
Based on your comments you were likely watching people use Metro apps. While there are some useful ones on the desktop most of the time you'll be in the desktop environment which is essentially the same as always but with many improvements. While using a desktop PC the thing you will likely most use Metro for is as a program launcher to replace the old Start menu.
Zombie James
Banned
Metro (or whatever it ends up being called) is a tablet UI. Why they're force-feeding it to people on desktops is anyone's guess, but there'll be plenty of debate about that as people get their hands on the RTM release.
Touch will never take off on desktops or most laptops. Its less intuitive and more cumbersome then mouse and keyboard.
It works on phones and tablets because they have limited size and are portable.
The two should remain seperate. But they are not in windows 8 for one reason, leverage.
And metrics dont prove crap all. If you prefer metro on desktop, if you prefer a full page start menu to a small one on huge screen real estate, then you are wrong. Full stop. I glance at the time on my desktop from time to time. Its small and out of the way. It doesnt take up a whole screen, and when I touch it I dont lose all my screen real estate to a prancing attention whore trying to cram other services down my throat. And that is what its all about. Xbox music, Video, games. They want the ecosystem, they want people tied to them like people are tied to apple products. Difference is, Apple understands that desktop, laptop and its mobile products are different beasts. Its like wanting a donkey and a horse for different reasons, and settling on a mule. Windows 8 is a mule, and like most mules, hopefully it cant breed.
I dont need my desktop experience covered in a slathering of half assed tablet ui.
The fact that they need to convince so many people, have so many blog posts, tell you when you install windows 'THIS IS HOW IT WORKS ITS MORE INTUITIVE THOUGH TRUST US'.
The start screen is no replacement for the start bar. The fact that the start bar wasnt being used doesnt excuse simply lumping the tablet one onto desktop, unless you want to because you got shit to sell to people. They know a hell of a lot of people dont change their 'home' and still use ie because the yare default. Now 'videos' 'music' 'games' are default on the metro start screen and take you to microsoft services.
Thats the metric that counts boys and girls, because they know people are going to flock to them because if they are too lazy to install a decent browser or change their homescreen, then they are going to be too lazy to figure out their being sucked into an ecosystem thats been half assed onto them.
Tablets have a market, but its not the same market as laptops and desktops. Touch isnt the holy grail.
And im not a hateroader for no reason. I could go on about Ubuntu and Gnome 3 changes that are shit balls too. The race for usability is idiocy when they are sacraficing it 9 times out of 10 for something that 'looks more usable'.
And I loved Vista, and bought it asap, same with windows 7. I dont hate 8 because I hate microsoft. (Well I do hate what they tried to do to pc gaming but whatever, and gfwl, and xbox but...) but I genuniely feel its 'half assed', its a confused mess, its shit balls burger brains. And ive used it on tablet for months, and I used it on a laptop for awhile too. Both felt half assed. (I bought a windows 7 tablet just to try out windows 8!) Because the desktop stuff on tablet feels wrong, its not made for touch at all, and the touch stuff on desktop feels wrong, because its not made for desktop at all. 2 half asses dont make a whole ass in this case.
2 complete seperate uis that change depending on wheter its tablet or desktop? Would that have been wrong? No.
Its all about 'beating apple' they saw apple and its ios and osx and thought 'they will merge them sooooon!' so they tried to one up them. And fell flat on their face.
None of this means anything because you're deliberating ignoring everyone else's opinion and the articles they're linking to to support their claims to blather.
You're basically trolling at this point.
I think Metro is Microsoft's solution to addressing the fact that, to be competitive in the future of computing technology, they need a unified UI. No longer is it acceptable to have disparate interfaces for all of your services and products. Unified UIs are the future. It's inevitable, and to think otherwise is to live in a world where typewriters are still the standard and the internet is still a fad.
Funny thing is that Microsoft has always known this. They've tried UI unification multiple times throughout their history. The problem was they tried it with their traditional desktop interface which, as was learned, is completely unintuitive for anything other than PC environments.
Hey, if my mechanic comes in with a spread sheet on why abc is better, but then I take it for a drive and feel like abc have been half assed and am suddenly driving in a car that is covered with advertisements for their services. Im not going to listen to the mechanic, and might make up my own mind, through using the thing on a tablet and laptop, for months.
Fast boot up time doesnt excuse half assery. And its a shame, because there are things to like about what they did under the hood, shame they decided to go for a hot pink paint job with a joystick instead of steering wheel. And sure, I could read an encyclopedia on the advantages of a joystick to a steering wheel. But I know what feels better and makes more sense.
Fast boot up time doesnt excuse half assery. And its a shame, because there are things to like about what they did under the hood, shame they decided to go for a hot pink paint job with a joystick instead of steering wheel. And sure, I could read an encyclopedia on the advantages of a joystick to a steering wheel. But I know what feels better and makes more sense.
Steelyuhas
Member
A few things
Intel has said that they are shipping over 40 Windows 8 ultrabooks prior to the end of the year with multi-touch displays on them.
Bold #2: The Start screen is completely customizable, if you don't want Xbox video, music, an games apps on the start screen remove them, hell uninstall them from your computer. And if you don't want to use the start screen, just pin stuff on your taskbar.
Bold #3: Apple is doing the same thing that MS is doing, they're just doing it slowly, with some features in each update. Make no mistake though, Apple is also bringing phone/tablet and desktop OS's closer together.
Not much to say here other than MS disagrees. They see the future of computing being mostly tablets/hybrid devices, and even ones that are not will support touch input anyways.
Intel has said that they are shipping over 40 Windows 8 ultrabooks prior to the end of the year with multi-touch displays on them.
Bold #1: How's that opinion? I think the start screen is superior to the Start Menu because it allows me to put more applications on it, it's much more customizable than the menu was, and in the case of Metro Apps, I get information from an application without opening it.
Bold #2: The Start screen is completely customizable, if you don't want Xbox video, music, an games apps on the start screen remove them, hell uninstall them from your computer. And if you don't want to use the start screen, just pin stuff on your taskbar.
Bold #3: Apple is doing the same thing that MS is doing, they're just doing it slowly, with some features in each update. Make no mistake though, Apple is also bringing phone/tablet and desktop OS's closer together.
Not much to say here other than MS disagrees. They see the future of computing being mostly tablets/hybrid devices, and even ones that are not will support touch input anyways.
Lets put it this way.
Xbox live is great for consoles, apparently. People love it and dont mind paying it.
GFWL came out and was the same for pc. It didnt work. At all. Because pc and console are two different things. Very different things.
And guess what? Tablets are very different to pcs too. Touch is different to mouse kb just like game pads are different to mouse kb.
So what do you do? Treat them the same? Or... cater to each individually? I know what I would do!
Xbox live is great for consoles, apparently. People love it and dont mind paying it.
GFWL came out and was the same for pc. It didnt work. At all. Because pc and console are two different things. Very different things.
And guess what? Tablets are very different to pcs too. Touch is different to mouse kb just like game pads are different to mouse kb.
So what do you do? Treat them the same? Or... cater to each individually? I know what I would do!
But you're not giving any good examples for why Metro (or all things) is the sole reason that Windows 8 is overall a half-assed OS. And when people point you to articles detailing the reasons behind the changes and user statistics your responses have generally been "Na na-na boo boo the UI is half-assed!"
Your mind is clearly made up. You're not even trying to discuss it or see anyone else's point of view. So what's the point?
StudioTan
Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
And? Theyve been putting touch into desktops for ages, these all in ones. Didnt work then, wont work on laptops either. And metro wont change that. Because the laptop has an advantage to tablets. Size, power, track pad and keyboard. You dont hold the screen of a laptop. Its less intuitive and 'productive' to switch between the two for no real reason. Even gaming wise, touch will suck on laptops, because the form factor doesnt accomodate touch, just like it doesnt on desktops.
Laptops often come with ethernet ports. Does that mean you use it over wifi? Only if you have no choice. Because one has obvious advantages to a mobile form factor. Just like most people use ethernet on their desktops, again, different advantages to different machines. And that difference doesnt go away when a new form factor comes into play. Tablet doesnt change desktop.
I've used touch on a laptop and it's pretty great as long as the software is designed for it. With a laptop you're already stuck pretty close to the screen, not really a stretch to poke at a link. I prefer it to a touchpad.
The big drag on Windows 8 for me is the Metro apps. We'll see if RTM improves on the Consumer Preview, but tying the marketplaces to the apps and forcing suspending multitasking on dedicated desktops makes them useless for me. Music should be a no brainer because the Zune software was great but Music is totally sluggish and really poorly designed.
The big drag on Windows 8 for me is the Metro apps. We'll see if RTM improves on the Consumer Preview, but tying the marketplaces to the apps and forcing suspending multitasking on dedicated desktops makes them useless for me. Music should be a no brainer because the Zune software was great but Music is totally sluggish and really poorly designed.
User responses and statistics from companies trying to sell me a product dont mean shit all. Its like reading the blurb on the cover of a game and thinking 'well it must be true!'. No. Its not. Its called marketting, its called selling you a product.
Ive explained why metro is shit.
1. Huge ass icons. Why? I dont need them on a desktop like I dont need small ass ones on my mobile.
2. Clutter. Metro start is the definition of that on desktops.
3. More steps to get to old options, shut down, folders, even desktop.
4. My old windows doesnt start up with the start menu taking up the whole screen, with useless info I get from my browser anyway.
5. Half assery. Tablet wise, navigating the old desktop is a pain, there are so many un touch friendly elements, even in the new office. It makes no sense to push this shit on a tablet without making it touch friendly. A ribbon here or there doesnt cut it.
Desktop wise, I now have to press 'desktop' to enter desktop. I have to move the mouse to corners to do shit, which is completely unnatural on the desktop environment. To search I have to take up the whole screen, to look for a program I have to take up the whole screen. And when you have huge ass screens, that doesnt make for a better experience.
How many people 'auto hide' the taskbar? See, even on apple products ive noticed that on desktops they dont, they keep it there, because you have the real estate, on laptops they dont, they hide it, because screen size is limited. Why? Because there is a fundamental difference between different products. Charm bar? Multi tasking? Now I need to put the mouse at the bottom, the top, the side. None of that is better, all it does is make a huge admission. We half assed our tablet ui onto desktop!
And me? I like my asses full thank you.
Ive explained why metro is shit.
1. Huge ass icons. Why? I dont need them on a desktop like I dont need small ass ones on my mobile.
2. Clutter. Metro start is the definition of that on desktops.
3. More steps to get to old options, shut down, folders, even desktop.
4. My old windows doesnt start up with the start menu taking up the whole screen, with useless info I get from my browser anyway.
5. Half assery. Tablet wise, navigating the old desktop is a pain, there are so many un touch friendly elements, even in the new office. It makes no sense to push this shit on a tablet without making it touch friendly. A ribbon here or there doesnt cut it.
Desktop wise, I now have to press 'desktop' to enter desktop. I have to move the mouse to corners to do shit, which is completely unnatural on the desktop environment. To search I have to take up the whole screen, to look for a program I have to take up the whole screen. And when you have huge ass screens, that doesnt make for a better experience.
How many people 'auto hide' the taskbar? See, even on apple products ive noticed that on desktops they dont, they keep it there, because you have the real estate, on laptops they dont, they hide it, because screen size is limited. Why? Because there is a fundamental difference between different products. Charm bar? Multi tasking? Now I need to put the mouse at the bottom, the top, the side. None of that is better, all it does is make a huge admission. We half assed our tablet ui onto desktop!
And me? I like my asses full thank you.
Thank you random person on the Internet for telling me how to use my PC and what is more useful to me. I was so wrong thinking that that a fullscreen search results is so much more useful to me (see my previous posts).
Yeah, they want you to use the xbox music, video and games and that's why you can easily uninstall it and never use it again... Those services/apps are relevant only on tablets, because currently there's no replacement (I doubt it will stay that way, though). On desktop there's no reason not to install other applications, because both Video and Music apps suck ass: they are slow, unreliable and lack many features that are a norm nowadays. Video app can't even play mp4 or mkv files.
Yes, of course, because backing up the UI decisions with actual data and arguments is much less convincing than simply shouting "you are wrong! it's tablet UI! they have an agenda! it's all about forcing you to use their ecosystem!".
I've been using Windows 8 as my main system for over 5 months now. Everyday I have to switch to either XP or Windows 7 at work, so I can compare day-to-day usage of the system with previous ones. You can say all you want how wrong I am, but I like the changes. Are they half assed? Yes, the clash between two UIs is bad. But the idea behind the changes is good IMO.
How come people always say 'Its two different uis!' or 'if you are using metro on desktop you are doing it wrong' then 'Oh but the data backs it all up! we are right, this is the future, hybrids, get used to half assed crap because you using that toilet with one cheek from now on!'?
Again, microsoft telling me why a microsoft product is better is like listening to Sony on the advantages of Move over Kinect and wiiiiii.
Also, why are you quoting me if you deliberately dont read? or understand the context? I told you why its all default, and there. And its not because its easy to change.
Again, microsoft telling me why a microsoft product is better is like listening to Sony on the advantages of Move over Kinect and wiiiiii.
Also, why are you quoting me if you deliberately dont read? or understand the context? I told you why its all default, and there. And its not because its easy to change.
I never said it was the same. Its worse.
Call me crazy, but most people have their browsers on all the time. And browsers are the source of most info, email, weather. The minimal info you get from metro isnt helpful at all. They are actually less informative then android widgets. And for no reason. If you are using desktop, that crap is pointless. If you are using a tablet, most of that info is delivered in much better fashion in the browser.
And if you are using desktop, most of that info is pointless, when I press 'start' and want to launch a I program, do I need to know my high scores in solitaire? the header of an email from one email box? A picture of a photo from my photo album? Aparently so because the start screen is so much better now they keep telling me.
See when you hit 'start' you know what you want, and you go for it asap. Now start is a shopping mall, where everything is stuck in the morass of useless information, ugly ui, terrible icons, sorry TILES, and much less, well, practical. And thats what I want from my ui, practical.
See, people tell me that the apple menu, ie a universal menu' is the best thing ever. Thats why ubuntu has it now. But I think its balls. They tell me about studies and graphs and uability experts. But shit is shit if it smells like shit to you.
What is pointless is having to reach for your smartphone at every time a notification sound, and start is only a shopping mail if you want it to be, I have the store unpinned, and only have pinned the thing that are relevant to me, mail, contacts, messages, news, a twitter app that pinned to the right side gives me all the information I need wwithout eating all the resources that desktop apps were consuming, all the programs that I use daily
StudioTan
Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
Try using some of that logic you talked about. MS doesn't need to lie to sell you an OS, they already have that sector tied down. Actual statistics are not the same as opinion blurbs on the back of a box.
Because they're easy and faster to access than twirling down a list of folders and muscle memory allows you to launch your program very quickly. The size allows for less accuracy which makes it faster and for less dexterous mouse users it makes it easier to click them.
It's less cluttered than the Start menu.
It's far less steps to old options (left click bottom left corner of scree), same number of steps, same number of steps, 1 extra click.
It takes much longer to go gather the information in your web browser than to to simply take a glance at all the information in one place. You need to do better than this.
The ribbon makes it much easier to do stuff like file management. On a tablet you'll spend a lot of time in the Metro environment which works great for touch.
No you don't, you simply click the tile of the program you want to launch and you're in the desktop and your program runs. What is the first thing you do when you're sitting on the desktop?
Your criticisms are pretty half-assed considering many of them are simply factually incorrect.
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