5 ms·

> The Control Panel isn't that deep. It really, really is.

Litmus2336 7y ago
This week in "HN looks at software that took thousands of devs 30 years to write and says 'eh I could've done that in a day!'"
- maccard 7y ago
  They could rewrite it using electron?
  - toyg 7y ago
    Don't give them ideas!
    - pas 7y ago
      Too late :) The Win10 settings is basically a WebView.
      - ripdog 7y ago
        What? No. Is it? Surely it's WPF. Right?
  - pas 7y ago
    The fancy Win 10 settings uses a WebView basically.
    - trulyrandom 7y ago
      That's interesting. Where did you learn about this? One would think they'd just make it a UWP app.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  No they're not. They're looking at control panels that were mostly written between 1992 and 2000, and asking why the decade since Win7's release hasn't been enough time to get them all on the same UI framework. "that deep" should be read in terms of the resources of a large company. It's a small fraction of the OS.
  - Litmus2336 7y ago
    I know relatively very little about win32 but I know enough to say that "getting them on the same UI framework" sounds incredibly complicated to me, and I think would entail basically a complete redoing of the control panel, which is similar to what Microsoft actually did.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      Redoing the control panel except: 1. You already know exactly what functions it needs up front, unlike the first time you coded it. 2. You have much more advanced libraries and development environments available. 3. You have more years for the redo than the original took. I would not call that "incredibly complicated". I would call it "doing a significantly easier version of what you already did". And "The Control Panel isn't that deep. It's not as though Microsoft needs to create a UI for every advanced Group Policy setting." is talking about scope, not complexity. So I'll say again that it's a small fraction of the OS. (It doesn't matter how complicated it is in a vacuum, anyway. As long as the complication is on par with the rest of the OS, which it probably is, then we already know that Microsoft can handle it.) > similar to what Microsoft actually did What they actually did was redo parts of it in a giant mishmash of overlapping and conflicting UIs. Even if they need to keep around parts of the old UI for third parties to hook into, there's no good reason that the new UI is so far from complete. (Except for the obvious reason of "it wasn't a priority, they don't care as an institution that it's a horrible mess")
      - Litmus2336 7y ago
        Win32 is a disgusting nightmare, and I pity the devs who have to re-engineer its features. For backwards compatibility reasons, I am unsure if they would be able to use new Frameworks or tools. Apple still uses ANSI C (as do so many people) because anything newer is a backwards compatibility nightmare.
blattimwind 7y ago
There are still dialogs for configuring 56k dial up connections in Windows 10. NETBIOS is probably somewhere in there, too.
- snazz 7y ago
  Dial up isn’t dead yet. I’m okay with old functionality, but it should be more consistently designed so that everything looks at least somewhat cohesive.
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    it should be more consistently designed so that everything looks at least somewhat cohesive. Honestly, I think that having Device Manager and the like function the same way [it does have new icons, but that's about it] is good enough for me- I know how to use the tool, and it would be rather frustrating to techs if they replaced it and dropped even one little thing. Personally, I'm okay with old functionalities- but replacing the stock Windows 98 icons with the new design scheme and making the background window color white [personally, I prefer black, but I'll take what I can get] is enough fresh paint for me. EDIT: I also want to say that for "old people" that specifically use "old functionalities" and replace their machines with new ones but want to use those same tools, it would be somewhat frustrating to them to have to re-learn a new UI, and we really don't want them running Windows XP anymore.
pas 7y ago
That's okay. But why isn't there a big strongly typed settings data model with automatic presentation? If it's just reg settings all the way down and triggers on them?
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
If that’s really the case, they should have left the control panel as-is. It would have been preferable to the duplicate functionality. Either do something right, or not at all.

This week in "HN looks at software that took thousands of devs 30 years to write and says 'eh I could've done that in a day!'"

maccard 7y ago
They could rewrite it using electron?
- toyg 7y ago
  Don't give them ideas!
  - pas 7y ago
    Too late :) The Win10 settings is basically a WebView.
    - ripdog 7y ago
      What? No. Is it? Surely it's WPF. Right?
- pas 7y ago
  The fancy Win 10 settings uses a WebView basically.
  - trulyrandom 7y ago
    That's interesting. Where did you learn about this? One would think they'd just make it a UWP app.
Dylan16807 7y ago
No they're not. They're looking at control panels that were mostly written between 1992 and 2000, and asking why the decade since Win7's release hasn't been enough time to get them all on the same UI framework. "that deep" should be read in terms of the resources of a large company. It's a small fraction of the OS.
- Litmus2336 7y ago
  I know relatively very little about win32 but I know enough to say that "getting them on the same UI framework" sounds incredibly complicated to me, and I think would entail basically a complete redoing of the control panel, which is similar to what Microsoft actually did.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Redoing the control panel except: 1. You already know exactly what functions it needs up front, unlike the first time you coded it. 2. You have much more advanced libraries and development environments available. 3. You have more years for the redo than the original took. I would not call that "incredibly complicated". I would call it "doing a significantly easier version of what you already did". And "The Control Panel isn't that deep. It's not as though Microsoft needs to create a UI for every advanced Group Policy setting." is talking about scope, not complexity. So I'll say again that it's a small fraction of the OS. (It doesn't matter how complicated it is in a vacuum, anyway. As long as the complication is on par with the rest of the OS, which it probably is, then we already know that Microsoft can handle it.) > similar to what Microsoft actually did What they actually did was redo parts of it in a giant mishmash of overlapping and conflicting UIs. Even if they need to keep around parts of the old UI for third parties to hook into, there's no good reason that the new UI is so far from complete. (Except for the obvious reason of "it wasn't a priority, they don't care as an institution that it's a horrible mess")
    - Litmus2336 7y ago
      Win32 is a disgusting nightmare, and I pity the devs who have to re-engineer its features. For backwards compatibility reasons, I am unsure if they would be able to use new Frameworks or tools. Apple still uses ANSI C (as do so many people) because anything newer is a backwards compatibility nightmare.

blattimwind 7y ago

There are still dialogs for configuring 56k dial up connections in Windows 10. NETBIOS is probably somewhere in there, too.

snazz 7y ago
Dial up isn’t dead yet. I’m okay with old functionality, but it should be more consistently designed so that everything looks at least somewhat cohesive.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  it should be more consistently designed so that everything looks at least somewhat cohesive. Honestly, I think that having Device Manager and the like function the same way [it does have new icons, but that's about it] is good enough for me- I know how to use the tool, and it would be rather frustrating to techs if they replaced it and dropped even one little thing. Personally, I'm okay with old functionalities- but replacing the stock Windows 98 icons with the new design scheme and making the background window color white [personally, I prefer black, but I'll take what I can get] is enough fresh paint for me. EDIT: I also want to say that for "old people" that specifically use "old functionalities" and replace their machines with new ones but want to use those same tools, it would be somewhat frustrating to them to have to re-learn a new UI, and we really don't want them running Windows XP anymore.

pas 7y ago

That's okay. But why isn't there a big strongly typed settings data model with automatic presentation? If it's just reg settings all the way down and triggers on them?

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

If that’s really the case, they should have left the control panel as-is. It would have been preferable to the duplicate functionality. Either do something right, or not at all.