6 ms·

What a weird hill to die on. I gave up trying to navigate the Start Menu to launch programs around Win7 in disgust of Windows' continued "helpful" reorganisatio

What a weird hill to die on. I gave up trying to navigate the Start Menu to launch programs around Win7 in disgust of Windows' continued "helpful" reorganisation of it. My main way to create new files is DEFINITELY "rightclick -> New -> *", because I usually have the directory I'm working in already open in Explorer, because that's where I'm doing my work, so I'm already there! ... The alternative to finding Paint in the start menu and then later on finding my folder in whatever convoluted network drive I'm working on to save the file, is just hitting [Enter] to open the file you just made.

xvector 5y ago
Who is dying on this hill? The article is in support of the New menu too.
- samplatt 5y ago
  Maybe my reading comprehension failed me, but my takeaway was that the article was very much not in support of it. "Why does the New menu even exist for creating new empty files? What’s the point of having a New menu anyway?" Supports my view, I feel.
  - Voloskaya 5y ago
    Try to read past the first line.
    - samplatt 5y ago
      The rest of the article is a schizophrenic compilation of often single-sentence paragraphs barely relating to each other. Regardless, having your articles' title and opening sentence to mean the opposite of what you intend is pretty bad writing, if that's what you're proposing he's doing. (edit: Sorry OP, apparently you've touched a nerve here)
      - scbrg 5y ago
        The title is a question, not an argument. The answer to the question is in the article. It's a very common style of writing.
        samplatt 5y ago
        That makes the whole article make a lot more sense, thanks. I guess I was reading the body as if it was elaborating on (what I read as) a complaint in the headline, not a question leading to an answer. Looks like it was -I- who was dying on a hill.
  - alex_smart 5y ago
    Man, things are not looking bright for your comprehension skills.
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    "The essay question being asked supports my view, no need to read the essay"
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - samplatt 5y ago
      How very reddit of us both.
      - breakfastduck 5y ago
        Touche!
jbay808 5y ago
Agree on all points, but I just wanted to mention that the "finding my folder" step got a lot easier for me when I noticed I could copy and paste paths. With my folder open in the explorer window, I just click in the path display box, ctrl-c, and then paste it into the save menu's path box. Much faster than clicking through a web of deeply nested folders. Although, of course, this doesn't work when some app has rolled their own save/open menu that doesn't allow for navigating directly to a pasted folder path.
- Ahwleung 5y ago
  To save another click, Alt+D will automatically highlight the address bar in Explorer. Works in all common internet browsers as well!
  - laurent92 5y ago
    Also Ctrl+L. And probably Ctrl+K and F6, if it behaves like the browser address bar! https://superuser.com/questions/283956/chromes-omnibar-shortcut-f6-vs-alt-d-vs-ctrl-l https://superuser.com/questions/283956/chromes-omnibar-short...
- mavhc 5y ago
  Right, the reason to use Create New File Here is because Windows can't do drag and drop to save files into already opened windows
tomrod 5y ago
Weird. win+"stub of what I want" works great. Somewhat better than MacOS's ⌘+space+"stub that sort of works but whoops changed at the last second" functionality. Both are poor UI, but one is a bit worse than the other.
- samplatt 5y ago
  The introduction of win+"stub" in Win8 was pretty great, but with Win10 this has been polluted by "search the web for my program" appearing just a fraction of a second before the program itself. Sometimes it even brings up the installer .exe that's still sitting in my downloads folder before it brings up the program itself.
  - quietbritishjim 5y ago
    There's a registry setting you can change that completely disables web results. Aside from hiding results your didn't want in the first place, it speeds up start menu search a bit. I'd need to Google it so I'll leave that for you to do yourself if you're interested. Obviously that's not very helpful to the vast majority of users, who are mostly not techy enough to touch their registry.
    - tomrod 5y ago
      This is a good point. I turn this off. I think this covers it https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-turn-off-web-searching-when-i-use-the-start/bd7960ab-635a-4965-9677-4cdb7f164664 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to...
      - samplatt 5y ago
        You LEGEND, thanks very much for that!
        tomrod 5y ago
        I appreciate the kudos, but it really was a simple search and no skin off my nose :)
beervirus 5y ago
> I gave up trying to navigate the Start Menu to launch programs around Win7 in disgust of Windows' continued "helpful" reorganisation of it. Same, and I was annoyed about it briefly. Then I realized that hitting the Windows key and then typing the beginning of what I wanted (which gives you some combination of the Run command + searching the start menu) was way faster than navigating a menu. If I need a new text file, I can type "[Windows key] n o t e [enter]" in under a second.
- MinusGix 5y ago
  I often do that, but it can be kinda slow (on Windows 10) so Win+R then the executable name if I know that works even quicker.
xerox13ster 5y ago
> The alternative to finding Paint in the start menu and then later on finding my folder in whatever convoluted network drive I'm working on to save the file, is just hitting [Enter] to open the file you just made. The real alternative is hitting Win+R and typing mspaint

xvector 5y ago

Who is dying on this hill? The article is in support of the New menu too.

samplatt 5y ago
Maybe my reading comprehension failed me, but my takeaway was that the article was very much not in support of it. "Why does the New menu even exist for creating new empty files? What’s the point of having a New menu anyway?" Supports my view, I feel.
- Voloskaya 5y ago
  Try to read past the first line.
  - samplatt 5y ago
    The rest of the article is a schizophrenic compilation of often single-sentence paragraphs barely relating to each other. Regardless, having your articles' title and opening sentence to mean the opposite of what you intend is pretty bad writing, if that's what you're proposing he's doing. (edit: Sorry OP, apparently you've touched a nerve here)
    - scbrg 5y ago
      The title is a question, not an argument. The answer to the question is in the article. It's a very common style of writing.
      - samplatt 5y ago
        That makes the whole article make a lot more sense, thanks. I guess I was reading the body as if it was elaborating on (what I read as) a complaint in the headline, not a question leading to an answer. Looks like it was -I- who was dying on a hill.
- alex_smart 5y ago
  Man, things are not looking bright for your comprehension skills.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  "The essay question being asked supports my view, no need to read the essay"
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - samplatt 5y ago
    How very reddit of us both.
    - breakfastduck 5y ago
      Touche!

jbay808 5y ago

Agree on all points, but I just wanted to mention that the "finding my folder" step got a lot easier for me when I noticed I could copy and paste paths. With my folder open in the explorer window, I just click in the path display box, ctrl-c, and then paste it into the save menu's path box. Much faster than clicking through a web of deeply nested folders. Although, of course, this doesn't work when some app has rolled their own save/open menu that doesn't allow for navigating directly to a pasted folder path.

Ahwleung 5y ago
To save another click, Alt+D will automatically highlight the address bar in Explorer. Works in all common internet browsers as well!
- laurent92 5y ago
  Also Ctrl+L. And probably Ctrl+K and F6, if it behaves like the browser address bar! https://superuser.com/questions/283956/chromes-omnibar-shortcut-f6-vs-alt-d-vs-ctrl-l https://superuser.com/questions/283956/chromes-omnibar-short...
mavhc 5y ago
Right, the reason to use Create New File Here is because Windows can't do drag and drop to save files into already opened windows

tomrod 5y ago

Weird. win+"stub of what I want" works great. Somewhat better than MacOS's ⌘+space+"stub that sort of works but whoops changed at the last second" functionality. Both are poor UI, but one is a bit worse than the other.

samplatt 5y ago
The introduction of win+"stub" in Win8 was pretty great, but with Win10 this has been polluted by "search the web for my program" appearing just a fraction of a second before the program itself. Sometimes it even brings up the installer .exe that's still sitting in my downloads folder before it brings up the program itself.
- quietbritishjim 5y ago
  There's a registry setting you can change that completely disables web results. Aside from hiding results your didn't want in the first place, it speeds up start menu search a bit. I'd need to Google it so I'll leave that for you to do yourself if you're interested. Obviously that's not very helpful to the vast majority of users, who are mostly not techy enough to touch their registry.
  - tomrod 5y ago
    This is a good point. I turn this off. I think this covers it https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-turn-off-web-searching-when-i-use-the-start/bd7960ab-635a-4965-9677-4cdb7f164664 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to...
    - samplatt 5y ago
      You LEGEND, thanks very much for that!
      - tomrod 5y ago
        I appreciate the kudos, but it really was a simple search and no skin off my nose :)

beervirus 5y ago

> I gave up trying to navigate the Start Menu to launch programs around Win7 in disgust of Windows' continued "helpful" reorganisation of it. Same, and I was annoyed about it briefly. Then I realized that hitting the Windows key and then typing the beginning of what I wanted (which gives you some combination of the Run command + searching the start menu) was way faster than navigating a menu. If I need a new text file, I can type "[Windows key] n o t e [enter]" in under a second.

MinusGix 5y ago
I often do that, but it can be kinda slow (on Windows 10) so Win+R then the executable name if I know that works even quicker.

xerox13ster 5y ago

> The alternative to finding Paint in the start menu and then later on finding my folder in whatever convoluted network drive I'm working on to save the file, is just hitting [Enter] to open the file you just made. The real alternative is hitting Win+R and typing mspaint