4 ms·

For me that picture indicates all manner of problems. The main window does not follow the Windows user guidelines, which is bad enough in Windows 10 already. Fo

For me that picture indicates all manner of problems. The main window does not follow the Windows user guidelines, which is bad enough in Windows 10 already. For decades double-clicking on the top left corner of a window means that you want to close it - it was explicitly mentioned in the 3.11 manual. With 7 (or was it Vista?) they removed the icon from Explorer for no obvious reason, but kept the functionality there - you could still doubleclick the invisible icon and it'd do what you expect. With early Windows 10, the Settings app didn't even have a title bar so there was no clear demarcation from the window grey to the titlebar grey - how would I know that the grey bar at the top was the way I moved the window but the grey bit beneath the grey bit at the top DIDN'T move the window?? With current Windows 10, the Settings app finally has a title bar that has a colour like all other applications. But the paradigm we learned 20+ years ago (double click top left to close the window) and the ability to get the window menu HAS GONE. I can still press Ctrl-space and get the window menu but the ability to get the window menu from a Metro app or a metro-style app using the mouse has completely gone. So now I have to learn another method of interacting with the basic building block of the system - windows. When each window behaves differently according to the "metro or not" measuring stick, this does not make for a great user experience. And this is me coming from using Windows since the 90s. How do you think new users and my mum is going to get on?? What's the point of having window guidelines if Microsoft themselves don't even follow them?? So although the screenshot is aesthetically pleasing, I remain very concerned about the direction usability is taking on the platform.

romanovcode 10y ago
Yeah, I totally agree but it must be really hard to implement new guidlines for a monster (super large) company like MS. They are moving slowly, but IMO to the right direction.
talmand 10y ago
I don't know, when Apple decides to change things to go against the established norms they call it being courageous. Somehow, I'm not bothered about ignoring learned paradigms from so many years ago. For example, my 12 year old daughter could care less how you learned windows management 24 years ago. She's learned to Windows as it is today.
- 72deluxe 10y ago
  Just picking up an odd expression you use - are you American by chance? I notice this expression in films and interviews and online and it's wrong: "I could care less". This expression implies that you currently have a high level of care about a subject, and that you have a range or distance to travel until you reach rock-bottom/zero regarding your level of care for the item. In fact, if you were to care 80% or 100% about an item, the expression would still be true: eg. "I could care less about my health" which would mean I care GREATLY about my health and therefore have range to drop my level of care from its current position. The expression that everyone should use is "I couldn't care less", or "I could NOT care less". This implies that you are at 0% of your care about an item, thereby having an inability to move below your current level of care. It is already at rock bottom. It cannot get any less. It cannot go any lower. Subsequently, I am assuming that you meant that your daughter COULD NOT care less about how I learned window management. i.e., she wouldn't care in the slightest. I had to ask because I am hearing this expression more and more and it's incredibly irritating because it is wrong. I never hear any native speakers here in the UK saying it, but judging how manners of speech drift over here I imagine it is only a matter of time before I hear people saying it, much the same way I now hear the word "like" sprinkled into sentences needlessly. When I hear this expression over here I think I'll suffer an apoplexy and drop down dead. EDIT: By the way, I don't think Apple's changes have been courageous. I find that they stuck their head in the sand for too long and finally did sensible things. For example, on Snow Leopard and prior, you COULD NOT resize the window from any corner but the bottom right. This was officially STUPID. Thankfully they realised how stupid this was and enabled the ability to resize a window from any edge. Only took them 30 years. Also in recent versions they have been making a big fuss about the ability to go full screen with applications. Windows have always been resizable, so the ability to get a window fullscreen and not see the menubar is not really a big feature. Nor is the ability to run two fullscreen apps side by side - surely we have been able to put windows side by side since the 1980s? Just because the menubar has gone does not make it a feature. This is not courageous, it is dumb. They have also made regressions. For example, now when you want to use Mission Control you must move to the top of the screen to see the desktops. Hang on - just tried it again and now it works again. Hurray! Their new filesystem is still significantly behind NTFS for features. Sad to believe we're all still hobbling along on HFS+ with byte swapping for big endian to little endian metadata every read/write of metadata. I am not saying that Apple does things any better with software development, but the feel across the OS is generally consistent. This is not the case on Windows 10, eg. how do you find out which build version you are on? Press Windows key + Break to see system properties.... oh it's not in there. I suppose I need to run the Settings app > System > About to display a duplicate window. How do I join a domain? I could use the Settings app and it'll mention joining a school. I could also use the duplicate domain settings from Advanced System Properties and join there, but there's no mention of the word "school". Why do the two sets of windows look different? Why is there even two sets of windows? What the heck is going on? So now I have Control Panel, the Settings app, Microsoft Management Console and its snap-ins. They all do the same thing. Are the teams not talking to each other at Microsoft? Is nobody at the helm? For extra fun, look at shell32.dll and see how many icon styles are inside that thing. That's not even an architectural change - that's just pictures in a single DLL, owned and controlled 100% exclusively by Microsoft. All of the icons are from different eras. If they can't get even little pictures to be consistent and uniform, I do not hold much hope of uniform system behaviour. So you can see the cobbled-together nature that Windows 10 exudes, despite a fantastic opportunity to make the entire system coherent again. And I say this as a C++ developer on Windows as my day job.
BatFastard 10y ago
In fairness, while double clicking the upper left icon did work, it was non standard and redundant.

romanovcode 10y ago

Yeah, I totally agree but it must be really hard to implement new guidlines for a monster (super large) company like MS. They are moving slowly, but IMO to the right direction.

talmand 10y ago

I don't know, when Apple decides to change things to go against the established norms they call it being courageous. Somehow, I'm not bothered about ignoring learned paradigms from so many years ago. For example, my 12 year old daughter could care less how you learned windows management 24 years ago. She's learned to Windows as it is today.

72deluxe 10y ago
Just picking up an odd expression you use - are you American by chance? I notice this expression in films and interviews and online and it's wrong: "I could care less". This expression implies that you currently have a high level of care about a subject, and that you have a range or distance to travel until you reach rock-bottom/zero regarding your level of care for the item. In fact, if you were to care 80% or 100% about an item, the expression would still be true: eg. "I could care less about my health" which would mean I care GREATLY about my health and therefore have range to drop my level of care from its current position. The expression that everyone should use is "I couldn't care less", or "I could NOT care less". This implies that you are at 0% of your care about an item, thereby having an inability to move below your current level of care. It is already at rock bottom. It cannot get any less. It cannot go any lower. Subsequently, I am assuming that you meant that your daughter COULD NOT care less about how I learned window management. i.e., she wouldn't care in the slightest. I had to ask because I am hearing this expression more and more and it's incredibly irritating because it is wrong. I never hear any native speakers here in the UK saying it, but judging how manners of speech drift over here I imagine it is only a matter of time before I hear people saying it, much the same way I now hear the word "like" sprinkled into sentences needlessly. When I hear this expression over here I think I'll suffer an apoplexy and drop down dead. EDIT: By the way, I don't think Apple's changes have been courageous. I find that they stuck their head in the sand for too long and finally did sensible things. For example, on Snow Leopard and prior, you COULD NOT resize the window from any corner but the bottom right. This was officially STUPID. Thankfully they realised how stupid this was and enabled the ability to resize a window from any edge. Only took them 30 years. Also in recent versions they have been making a big fuss about the ability to go full screen with applications. Windows have always been resizable, so the ability to get a window fullscreen and not see the menubar is not really a big feature. Nor is the ability to run two fullscreen apps side by side - surely we have been able to put windows side by side since the 1980s? Just because the menubar has gone does not make it a feature. This is not courageous, it is dumb. They have also made regressions. For example, now when you want to use Mission Control you must move to the top of the screen to see the desktops. Hang on - just tried it again and now it works again. Hurray! Their new filesystem is still significantly behind NTFS for features. Sad to believe we're all still hobbling along on HFS+ with byte swapping for big endian to little endian metadata every read/write of metadata. I am not saying that Apple does things any better with software development, but the feel across the OS is generally consistent. This is not the case on Windows 10, eg. how do you find out which build version you are on? Press Windows key + Break to see system properties.... oh it's not in there. I suppose I need to run the Settings app > System > About to display a duplicate window. How do I join a domain? I could use the Settings app and it'll mention joining a school. I could also use the duplicate domain settings from Advanced System Properties and join there, but there's no mention of the word "school". Why do the two sets of windows look different? Why is there even two sets of windows? What the heck is going on? So now I have Control Panel, the Settings app, Microsoft Management Console and its snap-ins. They all do the same thing. Are the teams not talking to each other at Microsoft? Is nobody at the helm? For extra fun, look at shell32.dll and see how many icon styles are inside that thing. That's not even an architectural change - that's just pictures in a single DLL, owned and controlled 100% exclusively by Microsoft. All of the icons are from different eras. If they can't get even little pictures to be consistent and uniform, I do not hold much hope of uniform system behaviour. So you can see the cobbled-together nature that Windows 10 exudes, despite a fantastic opportunity to make the entire system coherent again. And I say this as a C++ developer on Windows as my day job.

BatFastard 10y ago

In fairness, while double clicking the upper left icon did work, it was non standard and redundant.