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| Windows 8's desktop mode: Microsoft's 'Classic' |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-03-06 23:27:08 |
| As you may have seen, David's been taking care of OSNews for a few days because I'm quite busy with work. Still, there's one thing I'd like to talk about: the desktop mode in Windows 8. I wish I could've added this to the first impressions article, but I only arrived at this conclusion yesterday: desktop mode in Windows 8 is Microsoft's equivalent of Mac OS X's Classic mode. |
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| RE[4]: Metro |
| By orestes on 2012-03-07 04:40:02 |
|
You miss the part where I don't give a rats ass what "the market" uses. People switching to a variant of Linux or not ranks somewhere between what Kobe Bryant ate for breakfast and Rush Limbaugh's opinion on... well anything really on the don't-care-0-meter. That's because it has *zero* effect on me whatsoever. What is interesting is why people go out of their way to defend the status quo. |
 - Score: 7 |
| RE[2]: Bleh |
| By l3v1 on 2012-03-07 06:57:17 |
|
> It will be great for 24" and smaller screens. Smaller? Maybe. 24? No, it isn't. It's quite annoying. Everything fullscreen on 1900x1200 is crazy and proper multitasking (I'm talking user, not OS - the latter is in itself another level of pain for metro apps) is a pain. Yet, most of those "people" everyone is talking about will probably go along with it, and happily. They always do. |
| - Score: 3 |
| Actually Windows 7 had the xpmode :) |
| By gbtw on 2012-03-07 07:47:21 |
|
Thom, it was Windows 7 that had the XP mode for backwards compatibility. But in terms of user impact you are right. :) |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Metro |
| By Morgan on 2012-03-07 08:14:46 |
|
I don't exactly agree with you on this, but I modded you back up as there was nothing wrong with what you said. There does seem to be some serious Windows/Metro hate in this thread though. I really don't like Metro on the desktop just yet. It's cool and flashy and familiar thanks to my phone and game console, but even on my relatively high resolution screen it feels like I'm on a kid's computer. The fonts, chrome and buttons are way too big. It actually looks clean and nice, but it's just too jumbo sized to be even close to efficient for me. It does suit the laptop just fine in other ways though; the speed increase alone was worth some broken stuff that I don't use anyway (i.e. Flash Player is broken in Metro IE but fine in Classic IE; I use Firefox and hate Flash so it's a non issue for me). I really hope I'm not the only one who sees it this way, and that Microsoft takes note and attempts some realistic scaling for hi-res displays. And I do hope you're right, that we end up with some great programmers who will write (or port) great software to Metro the right way. I have a feeling Windows 8 will never be my first choice on the desktop, but I could see a Windows 8 tablet in my future, sometime next year. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE[5]: Metro |
| By testman on 2012-03-07 08:14:50 |
|
> You miss the part where I don't give a rats ass what "the market" uses. Must be pretty important if you're taking the time to write about how much you don't care! > People are sheep who go with whatever's installed on their drive when they buy their computer. Always have been, always will be. How's the view from your ivory tower? |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Not Classic |
| By Morgan on 2012-03-07 08:22:41 |
|
> It's also probable that Windows 8's Desktop gets a Metro theme by Release Candidate stage. The clues are already there with the squared corners on windows, the flatter (but still 3D) chrome, and the tweaked transitions. Pretty soon 3D window borders and shadows will fall to the wayside and we'll have what looks like Metacity from Gnome 2 with the Simplebox or Agata themes, if not a pure Openbox look (only brighter and bluer). |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[6]: Metro |
| By orestes on 2012-03-07 08:49:56 |
|
No more or less important than anything else that's been said on these posts. I do have a certain... aversion to being misconstrued as a *nix fanboy though. As for ivory towers, leave them to the Eloi. I'm quite comfy in my cave with the rest of the morlocks. |
| - Score: 4 |
| Metro is not the new world |
| By jbauer on 2012-03-07 09:05:51 |
|
> Heck, it's not entirely clear how large, complex applications are going to work in Metro (Office, Photoshop, and so on). The answer is simple: they won't. MS is only pushing Metro in Widows 8 to ensure than when the new tablets with Win8 are out, the applications are there, and users (at least those who buy a new PC with Windows 8 preinstalled) know how to use it and are comfortable with it. That's it. This is no revolution, no paradigm shift. It's just a rather desperate attempt, loyal desktop users be damned, to take advantage of their dominance on the desktop in order to catch up in the mobile space. When (if) the whole scheme crashes and burns, wait until Windows 9 puts things right again and leave Metro where it belongs: on mobile devices. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Metro + tiling window manager could work |
| By JohnJJ on 2012-03-07 09:25:51 |
|
99% of the time a have the windows I'm currently using arranged in tiles, so I have actually wished that Windows had a dedicated tiling mode for a long time. With Win7 I use the snap-to feature all the time and before that used various tools to the same effect. For complex applications like Visual Studio I like my tool windows docked inside the main window and only on rare occasions do I undock a tool window and have it float free. I hate it when application force free floating tool windows on you, like for instance Paint.Net does (awesome application by the way, except the tool windows). Lightroom also have a nice approach to keeping a lot of complex tools docked inside the main window. However, if there was a nice clean way for me to have my visual studio tool windows docked on my secondary monitor at something like 25%-33%, witout them overlapping any other window on that monitor that would be great. I could of course do it by resizing windows to line up etc. but I find that very tedious and so I usually keep them docked inside the main window. A solution where I could allocate a tile for my tool windows and dock them as I pleased in there would be very welcome. The point I am trying to make in my ramblings is this: I want a tiling window manager in Windows. Also if done correctly it could solve floaty tool window hell and make window placement possible with touch, since it it could just snap the window to the tile you dragged it to. So maybe the question is: Is there a nice tiling solution for win7 today? Sorry for the rambling, I'm really bad at making a short concise point. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[2]: Metro |
| By Gone fishing on 2012-03-07 09:25:56 |
|
Things change, During the Vista débâcle we saw the rise of Apple, Windows 7 allowed MS to recover somewhat, during this time Linux has grown slowly on the Desktop. However, it has made in roads in other areas and Desktop Linux has slowly improved. If some of Canonicals plans come together we will see Ubuntu take off in various new areas, and this may well renew interest in the Desktop. One problem with Desktop Linux has been the willingness of a big player to take the plunge this may change. Edit I do hate mouse taps on laptop tracker pads - forgot to turn it off on this new install of 12.04 Edited 2012-03-07 09:42 UTC |
| - Score: 3 |
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