17 ms·

Improvements in Windows Explorer - Building Windows 8

162 points by ghurlman 15y ago

mcastner 15y ago
The background information and analysis seemed so reasonable, then they threw that ribbon on there and it looks like a confusing mess.
masnick 15y ago
IMHO, this redesign just adds visual noise. Compare the screenshots of the redesigned Windows 8 Explorer with Finder in OS X: - Win 8: http://cl.ly/321a2D0b1M1G1v1o2r3F http://cl.ly/321a2D0b1M1G1v1o2r3F (from article) - OS X: http://cl.ly/290D3q2Q06203b181C2b http://cl.ly/290D3q2Q06203b181C2b (random Google Images search) I think Microsoft's ribbon approach is horrible for usability. It takes a long time to visually scan all those words/icons to figure out what I want. With OS X, the interface is much cleaner. There are only a few buttons and no extraneous visual noise. Finder stays out of your way and lets you get at your files. I draw this comparison not to start a Mac vs. Windows flame war but to show how wrong-headed I think Microsoft's UI is. Also, refresh accounts for > 6% of Explorer commands. Why don't they just make Explorer refresh automatically and get rid of the need for the command? One thing I do like about the redesign is the prominence of the "copy path" button.
- mcastner 15y ago
  The copy path button is only necessary because Explorer hides the real path with the fake address bar they use now. I'd bet that mostly power users need to copy the path anyways, and they'll be able to figure out how to click on the address bar and Ctrl+C.
  - recoiledsnake 15y ago
    The breadcrumbs on the 'fake path' are extremely useful to jump to one of the parent folders, which is a frequent task, so I appreciate it.
  - arethuza 15y ago
    If you select the "fake address" it transforms to the normal path - which feels a bit gimmicky to me.
    - ak217 15y ago
      It may feel gimmicky to you, but it's very functional. Each area of the breadcrumb bar has a distinct and useful function (jump up the hierarchy, list other folders at that hierarchy level, enter textbox mode). It's insanely useful in comparison to any other method I've seen.
      - masnick 15y ago
        Yes, this is a UI element Microsoft has nailed. It does exactly what I expect it to do. The "Copy path" button just saves you a few keystrokes.
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  Why use URL shorteners on HN? I feel uneasy clicking on them. There's no real reason to use them. >I think Microsoft's ribbon approach is horrible for usability. It takes a long time to visually scan all those words/icons to figure out what I want. A huge percentage of people are repeat users of Explorer. While it may feel cluttered in the beginning, it will soon become second nature once people get used to it, and it's extremely friendly for newbies since it exposes functions instead of hiding it 3 levels deep in some menu. Are you a regular user of Office 2007+? My concern is that it takes up valuable vertical space on the 16:9 monitors that we are getting these days, especially on netbooks. But you can minimize the ribbo and declutter it. See http://www.winsupersite.com/content/content/140353/win8_explorer_01.jpg http://www.winsupersite.com/content/content/140353/win8_expl...
  - ghurlman 15y ago
    CTRL-F1 to minimize/restore the ribbon works on the Office apps now as well; I use it _constantly_.
    - iaskwhy 15y ago
      Extending your comment with some words from the article: "If you collapse the ribbon (double-click the tab, or click the Minimize arrow on the right side of the ribbon), you get even more vertical real estate with our new approach." I double-click on it a lot when working with Office to get focused. When you hide it, if you hover it it will show without taking up all the space it does when it's open.
  - barake 15y ago
    Despite the huge ribbon the new layout actually has more vertical space due to the removal of the details pane. Once the ribbon is minimized there would be tons more real estate: http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/8422.Figure-21-_2D00_-Real-Estate-comparison_5F00_2.png http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communit...
    - 15y ago
- fefzero 15y ago
  Personally, I can't stand Finder. I used a Mac for several years every day before I felt like I really figured it out, and even then I didn't feel like it was user-friendly - it just felt incapable of doing many advanced things (for example, how would you "copy path" in Finder?). Not only can you hide the buttons in the ribbon (which is nice if you typically use keyboard shortcuts), but the experience is consistent with other recent Microsoft applications. I'm not sure a computer novice or even 50% or more of non-power users would have any idea what the buttons on Finder do (does anyone know what that eye button does before they click on it?), and I think that's the target demographic here. Power users know how to hide unwanted buttons or the text that goes with the buttons.
  - innes 15y ago
    I'm glad I'm not alone. That weird columnar view mode (don't know the term for it) shown in the screenshot from the GP has to be the worst aspect of the Finder. I've been seriously considering getting a Mac laptop and now someone goes and reminds me about the Finder. But presumably there are 3rd party tools that fix the problem, right?
    - masnick 15y ago
      I really like the column view. Why don't you like it?
      - innes 15y ago
        I don't like it because it's very wasteful of screen real-estate. I do want to see directory hierarchy, but I don't want my files list to be squeezed into smaller and smaller space so I can see lists of every sibling folder of every folder in the path down to the folder that I'm viewing. This view isn't useful in proportion with how much space it takes up. IMO, access to directory structure works better as a treeview, separate from the 'current folder' view, rather than as a new column for each step down into the hierarchy. The latter doesn't scale well.
        15y ago
- xentronium 15y ago
  The problem is that finder sucks compared to windows explorer. I've used mac os x for two years now and I still do most file management tasks via command-line. This is not the case in windows and linux, where file managers are usable. I don't like ribbon ui at all, though. But for newcomers it's probably going to be an easier way to manage files. Small anecdote: my grandmother had never used a computer until 6 months ago. One of the hardest things to explain to her was windows context menus. With buttons in the ribbon it would have been so much easier.
- nopassrecover 15y ago
  I hate the OS X broswer (one of the main reasons I've never been able to make the switch) but agree that the ribbon explorer UI is terrible.
- ak217 15y ago
  The ribbon lays out the essential commands nicely for novices. Advanced users can double-click the ribbon to hide it, and then the interface is fairly uncluttered. Refresh is done automatically on any filesystems that support it. I think most people do it out of habit, from way back when that wasn't the case. It's pretty funny, people rant about the ribbon, but it is certainly by far the best usability innovation I've seen in recent years. The only thing that remains is the logical step of pushing ribbon headers into the title bar (Office already does this for contextual ribbons, but not for all of them) to take advantage of the infinite height when the window is maximized.
- bane 15y ago
  For sake of argument (and not for sake of flamewars) I'll assume the opposite since I think there is a valid argument both ways. I'm not sure I would hold the OS X finder up as an example of good design: Complaints about the finder are numerous and common, there are more finder replacements than just about any other system utility. A google search for "OS X finder" reveals that in the top 10 results (excluding images), #2, #3, #5, #6, #7, #8 and #10 are all either complaints about the finder, replacements for the finder, or commentary on complaints about the finder. The titles are things like "How to Make the Max OS X Finder Suck Less" as if it's a given that everybody understands it sucks. "n replacements for the Finder". It's even one of those rare topics that Gruber can find it in himself to complain about Apple. http://daringfireball.net/2002/11/that_finder_thing http://daringfireball.net/2002/11/that_finder_thing Also, once I got over the loss of the investment of brain space to memorize every possible menu item in the MS-Office suite, I've actually found the Ribbon interface to be very enjoyable to use, just as fast for things I know about, and many times faster for things I don't because it makes them easily discoverable. But let's assume for a second I step up to each computer with no idea how to use either (but am familiar with very basic metaphors like a hierarchical file structure). Looking at the OS X finder, I have virtually no idea what any of the buttons do. Left to right: arrows going both directions, one is grayed out. Knowing that files can be organized hierarchically, do those buttons let me jump between siblings? 4 pictographs of no discernible relation to anything to do with file management: e.g. does the second one open up a text editor? the fourth one may have something to do with audio volume or screen brightness there's an eye, does that control my camera? open up a file? only view a file? a gear/light flash/different sort of eye glyph from the one before. if it's a gear maybe this lets me adjust some sort of setting at the interface itself: what is a device vs. a place? what is the relationship to each other? is a place on a device? or is a place something different? Why do I have two columns of what look like folders? are they related to one another? if the rightmost column is supposed to be what's inside of the selected library folder in the second column, does that imply that I can only go one folder deep? then at the bottom I have something that looks like a hard drive (but I wouldn't know that having never seen one), a folder called 'users' (why are there more than one! it's my computer, I'm the only one!), a house and then finally another folder. I'm left with more outstanding questions for what's not on the window. How do I create folders? How do I delete things? How do I rename something? Provided I can figure out that this is a representation of the hierarachical file structure, is there a way to copy or move files between different parts of the file system? How do I add or remove "places"? etc. The principle problems are that the finder is simultaneously underpowered. It also hi-lights something that's sadly becoming more and more common in Apple's interfaces, a lack of discoverability. Sure, the disconnected toolbar up at the top of the screen (or perhaps on a different monitor) may answer some of my questions, and I could hover for tool tips perhaps, but realizing that those things are even connected is a serious interface problem. The new explorer isn't without it's faults: why is there a "File" menu when I'm clearly looking at files, is that something I push to "file" away something? it's got the weird left right arrows and even a weirder up arrow why is there a manage meny? aren't I managing my files right now? But for the most part it achieves discoverability, while also having (or at least doing a better job of revealing) power. Oh! So you push the button clearly labeled "move-to" to move a file to someplace! Oh! There's a button called "open" with a picture of the MS-Word logo, that must open that file in Word. etc. etc. "Also, refresh accounts for > 6% of Explorer commands. Why don't they just make Explorer refresh automatically and get rid of the need for the command?" It does, just sometimes not fast enough for most users. It certainly works better on OS X.
- masklinn 15y ago
  The Finder is not a very good example of a better explorer UI though, it's pretty consistently awful.
- theBobMcCormick 15y ago
  Normally I'm not a fan of the over-fetishization of Apple UI and design that tends to happen here on HN, but in this case I have to strongly agree with you that the OSX finder UI (for all it's many quirks and limitations) is vastly better than this new Explorer UI. Hell, the Windows 7 Explorer UI is better. This new Explorer UI is just waaaay to damned cluttered. Putting the Ribbon UI on Explorer is not necessarily a bad thing, but I really thing they could trim down the number of buttons present by default on the "Home" tab of that ribbon. IMHO, this is gonna be intimidating as hell to most casual/non-savvy users.
endtwist 15y ago
Confused about the conclusion versus the analysis: no one uses the command bar, ergo we should make this useless interface element bigger and more complex! "Note that we haven’t finalized the exact number of commands in the ribbon yet. It will likely end up between 198 and 203 when we’re done." 203 buttons?!
- fefzero 15y ago
  It definitely seems like a jump. Did they interview users? If so, why not reference that data? If not, why not? And what user data prompted them to create 203 buttons if some of the (far less than 200) commands they have now don't get used in more than 1% of user sessions?
  - iaskwhy 15y ago
    I'd guess most Microsoft apps have hundreds of buttons as well. 99% of them are not shown by default but you can customise it to your own taste, that's why there are so many of them.
  - recoiledsnake 15y ago
    I think they've learned from the Office 2007 metrics and feedback. Also they have listed the reasons for choosing the ribbon over other approaches. I don't see a 'jump'. >And what user data prompted them to create 203 buttons if some of the (far less than 200) commands they have now don't get used in more than 1% of user sessions? You say that as if the 200 buttons were on one screen. They are spread out over different contexts and tabs. I believe they were trying to make the commands more discoverable from the previous versions.
    - fefzero 15y ago
      I was only referencing the parent post about the 200 buttons, it's certainly true that they're available in ribbon form. If the commands are things that were previously available and less discoverable, then that's one thing. However, I felt like it was a jump to go from having so few commands available menu to having around 200. Do they expect the new commands to be used frequently? Were they actually needed? That's what I was trying to ask.
zwieback 15y ago
Looking at the history at the beginning of the article I noticed how much I miss the original File Manager. Maybe I should get a third-party Explorer replacement. However, I like the ribbon in general although I prefer using the command line or right-clicking. Big plus for the "command-line here" addition. I've been using a registry mod to get that into my context menu but it's good to see it in the mainstream.
neovive 15y ago
I'm assuming that power users would just hide the ribbon. The flexibility of Windows Explorer is something that I miss on the Mac. Although the Finder is clean and simple, it does feel a bit underpowered. I ended up switching to PathFinder on the Mac.
fefzero 15y ago
I thought it was great that they discussed what user's actually do within Windows Explorer before they decided what to change with it. Too often I feel like changes are forced for change's sake, and, despite my own opinions on the design, it's great that they're open about their reasoning.
Timmy_C 15y ago
I don't see why they made commands like copy and paste into buttons. It seems like they could simplify their interface by using more conventions and fewer ribbon buttons. I tend to dislike the ribbon in general because it feels like their designing software for the user who likes to click things and not for the user that uses keyboard shortcuts.
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  >I tend to dislike the ribbon in general because it feels like their designing software for the user who likes to click things and not for the user that uses keyboard shortcuts. I guess the vast majority of users like clicking on things. >I tend to dislike the ribbon in general because it feels like their designing software for the user who likes to click things and not for the user that uses keyboard shortcuts. Did you read the post fully? They have expanded the number of keyboard shortcuts and there is a way to minimize the ribbon. I don't see what you're complaining about, are you saying that they should force all users to find out and use arcane keyboard shortcuts instead of exposing the functions via the Ribbon UI?
- ghurlman 15y ago
  There are users -- LOTS of users -- that have no idea that you can go into the menus or use a keyboard shortcut to cut & paste. To them, if there's no button, it doesn't exist.
- ak217 15y ago
  The ribbon is beautiful because you can hide it. I disagree strongly with the whole "too many buttons/clutter" sentiment. This provides an awesome learning curve for users. The tooltips for the ribbon expose keyboard shortcuts. A first-time user will click the button, then eventually try the keyboard shortcut, learn it, learn all the shortcuts they need from the ribbon, then learn to hide the ribbon. This opposed to the crappy menu or context menu system which is much less conducive to exploratory UI learning.
- bane 15y ago
  Users, in general, don't like keyboard shortcuts.
julius 15y ago
I like that MS is so open about its development. We even get videos. This video about Win8 has more than 5 million views already: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I I am curious how much hype around Win8 they will have built when they ship it. I think the last time I felt so excited about Windows was in the Longhorn times. (I use OSX)
FuzzyDunlop 15y ago
The ribbon was great in Office because there is a hell of a lot of stuff it made simpler. There was a learning curve but I think it was overall a good choice. In Windows Explorer though? It just looks like clutter. I'm no 'novice' but even I have trouble with the thought of getting used to that mess.
fefzero 15y ago
If I took all that time to customize my command ribbon, I'd certainly want it to look the same across every computer I use. Will there be a way to synchronize my preferences for settings like this anywhere?
- SriniR 15y ago
  Office 2007 and 2010 have had the ability to export your settings with the Export-ui extension. I would guess that you can do the same with Windows Explorer too
erikb 15y ago
I agree with most comments here, that the changes seem to be not so great. The product, of course, is a result of the process creating it. If they fine tune their process of improving usability further, I can really believe that one day we might have a handsome Windows again. Think about how much Win7 improved over Vista. Well, in Germany we say "The last thing that dies, is hope".
jra101 15y ago
Very happy the Up button is back, biggest thing I missed from Windows XP.
joeyespo 15y ago
Despite the use of the Ribbon (which doesn't seem all that bad since you can still customize it if you can't get used to it), I think MS is actually listening to people and using the feedback. The 'up' button is back! As they said, it's the most requested feature in explorer. I even put back the 'up button' keyboard shortcut via Auto Hot Key. Also 'Open command prompt' is in there now. (Finally!) Plus they plan on having shortcuts for every command. I think by listening, including these additions, and reintroducing customizability, they took a big step forward in usability.
- ConstantineXVI 15y ago
  You've actually always(at least since W2K) been able to get the "open command prompt" option by holding Shift when right-clicking in a folder, and I think there's some tweak deep down in the bowels of Windows that turns it on permanently.
  - joeyespo 15y ago
    Wow didn't know about that, thanks. I've been using AHK for that too. Press Win+C and a prompt will open at that location. It's much faster than shift-clicking through a menu. I wonder how many others knew about the "open command prompt" who really did need it. Revealing it in the Ribbon is a double-win then, because now you immediately know it's there and you can now also use a keyboard shortcut.
pasbesoin 15y ago
So, seeing as I don't want to wade through all this bs, answer the essential question: Does Explorer finally have multithreading (possibly gnarly to get right), and/or multi-process support turned on by default. I could give a flying f about the eye candy. P.S. I'm glad to see that "gnarly" is in this browser's spell check support. P.P.S. My Windows machines are still on XP, so maybe I've missed something. Others' gripes, seen here and there, make me think not, though.
deleted 15y ago
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masklinn 15y ago
I don't really care about the looks, I'd just like them to unbreak the search UI and behavior. XP was slow but worked correctly, 7's search is a pain when you try to actually interact with the matches.
benaston 15y ago
Users do not know what a filesystem is. They don't want to know. Whilst the improvements enumerated here are undoubtedly improvements it's all lipstick on a pig. It's time for the hierarchical filesystem to die.
- sp332 15y ago
  1. Press the "windows" key on your keyboard. 2. Type what you want to find. 3. Profit!
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - ugh 15y ago
    Search is part of the answer but it’s not the whole deal. Some users don’t like to search, it would be disastrous to just replace everything with search. I think that tailor made libraries that leverage metadata are the other part of the answer. All modern music players and photo library apps already do this, they have a tailor made interface specifically for browsing music and photos. It’s not necessary to ever touch a music file or a photo in the file system. The obvious problem are files you want to use in several applications – e.g. that CSS or JavaScript file you are working on. It wouldn’t make sense to give every app a library, that would only confuse and lead to inconsistencies. I do think, though, that this is a problem most casual users will never encounter. Just add a document library to Office and most people would be set.
- cabirum 15y ago
  They need to know, and if they don't know, they must learn some basics. Just like they must get a driver's license to drive a vehicle. Anything can be built on top of hierarchical filesystem. Windows already has libraries. Some alternative file managers support file tagging and user catalogs.
  - benaston 15y ago
    No, they do not need to know about the filesystem. Take the iPad or iPod as examples. They have full-featured applications and the filesystem is invisible.
51Cards 15y ago
I was cringing right through this whole article until I hit the Quick Access Toolbar. In short I hate the Windows Ribbon UI for reasons others have mentioned. But this entire redesign was saved in my eyes by the quick access bar and the fact that you can add any function to it and collapse the ribbon out of sight. Now THIS is what Explorer has needed for years and I am actually excited about using it now. I will never have that ribbon open, it's way too cluttered and a visual mess... but give me 10 minutes and I'll have a QAT bar set up that will (on first glance) make me a VERY happy power user. Now, we'll see what their attention to detail is when I try my favourite shortcut... Holding CTRL while clicking on the up arrow. This used to open the parent folder in a New Window and it seems that MS forgot this shortcut in recent Windows versions.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  I think I should point out just so it's duly noted- what my parent has just noticed is the Windows team catering to both Regular Joe Users and Power Users, at the same time, without stepping on the toes of either too much.
- Wilduck 15y ago
  They didn't forget it. Just use ALT.
- fmavituna 15y ago
  In 7, you can hold Alt and press up (parent), left (back), right (next). AFAIK Alt was same since WinXP but can't confirm. Ctrl is right now used for doing multiple selections in folders.
  - 51Cards 15y ago
    Thanks for the reply. The ALT-up-keyboard opens the parent folder, yes... but I was referring to the fact that CTRL-click a folder would open a New Explorer Window leaving the current one untouched. The CTRL-{up_toolbar_icon} used to open the parent folder in a New Explorer Window leaving the current window open as well. Was great when you needed to go up a level and open a sibling folder without closing the current explorer window. There is no quick way to do this in Vista / Win7 because you can't CTRL-{open parent} in a new window anymore. What should have worked would have been CTRL-ALT-{keyboard arrow} (up, left, right) to open the parent/previous/next folder in a new window but that doesn't work. Anyhow, I do realize these are just nit-picks of power users.
dominik 15y ago
Why does Microsoft love the Ribbon so?
- smiler 15y ago
  Because they did hours and hours of research, testing, usability sessions and found that it worked.
  - mitjak 15y ago
    Why can't I ever find anyone who liked it then? Everyone in my family and non-geeky friends are struggling to find anything on the ribbon or are complaining it takes entirely too long to find something that was just fine living in the menu.
    - janjan 15y ago
      It seems that I am one of those rare people that love the ribbon (at least in Word and Powerpoint). I don't know exactly why I like it, but after using the new Word/Powerpoint for just a few minutes I never want to switch back to the old menu systems.
dominik 15y ago
Why does Microsoft love the Ribbon so?
georgieporgie 15y ago
Since I can hide it pretty well, I think this is great. It will make things more accessible to my mother, which means fewer 'tech support' calls. Things they still don't seem to be addressing: * Drive letters. It's 2011. * Inability to make hard links to non-local storage. This infuriates me and makes it extremely difficult for me to manage my media in a clean way. On the Mac or Linux, for example, I can map my music folder to my Terastation. When I'm traveling, I can map my music folder to my external USB drive. Can't really do that for Windows, though. There are countless other minor issues I have with Windows, and I see no sign that they're doing anything to improve on them. This is looking an awful lot like more superficial changes, which seems to be Microsoft's forte of late. Why do real work when you can rebrand, reorganize, change the website layout, etc. ?
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  Can't you use Libraries ?
  - wanorris 15y ago
    This is absolutely the Windows way of accomplishing it. With Libraries, you don't just "map" your Music folder to something, you can have as many folders as you want included in your music library. How to Include a Network Drive or Folder in a Library in Windows 7: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/4617-libraries-include-network-folder.html http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/4617-libraries-include-...
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    Can you use libraries so that the same media is sometimes available on a USB drive and sometimes available on a network server? i.e. an item may or may not be there, and it shouldn't appear duplicated.
- arthurschreiber 15y ago
  Regarding your second point: I'm not exactly sure about the details, but you could assign a drive letter to your music collection on your Terastation, and when you're traveling, you could reassign the drive letter to your music folder on your external HDD. This is not perfect, but could be a possible workaround.
ajg1977 15y ago
When the screenshot of the Windows 8 Explorer scrolled into view I thought I'd reached the punchline in an Onion article.
ender7 15y ago
For me, this should serve as a warning to anyone trying to let data do the designing for them. To me this screams "hey! Our data says 'X'! Let's apply it in the simplest way possible, with little to no editing or afterthought, and then bask in the false confidence our data provides." I'm not saying that their approach is a bad idea, but they've allowed their execution to falter. They're still in the idea phase. This is not a 'product' phase. 1. It's visually noisy. The problem is not necessarily that there are shitloads of buttons, but that they're everywhere. We have an area for buttons on the top right, then an area of tabs, then an area of large, poorly-gridded buttons, then another row of buttons on the address bar area. Oh, and the freaky tab-above-the-tabs thing on the title bar. There's no visual organization or hierarchy. The whitespace and value is all monotone. When you squint your eyes, all you see is buttons, and no organization behind them. 2. Look, I'm sorry, it's ugly. I'm not saying you need to go stick-up-the-ass Apple brushed metal. Just...after you've worked out the usability aspects, hire a graphic designer. They're really good at all those tiny little visual tweaks that can make the difference between 'eh' and 'great'. UI/UX people usually don't have the chops to accomplish that - you need a dedicated artist. 3. In the words of Dr. Malcolm, "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think if they should." All right, your solution appears to be "more buttons". Take that a little farther. How many is enough? Can you have 'too many buttons'? (hint: yes) Do you want to distinguish visually between commonly-used and uncommonly-used buttons? Is it safe to draw this conclusion from your data? How representative of the average user's needs are these after-market add-ons that will probably only be installed by power users? Look, data is useful, but poorly-analyzed data is dangerous. If you're not careful it will sing you whatever song you desire, whispering "yes, yes, more like that" in your ear as you dance down to hell.
- Nagyman 15y ago
  To your point about letting the data do the designing for them, I believe they actually ignored an important aspect of their data or they were so biased towards the ribbon that they interpreted the data towards supporting it's implementation. For example, the "Command Entrypoint Usage" graph, shows the Context Menu as the most prominent means to perform tasks and the "Menu Bar" as the least. Whereas they read this as "We need to make the menu bar easier to use", I would interpret that as a strong indicator that the context menu needs more attention.
aresant 15y ago
I like the changes they're making as a professional user. But what's missing is recognition of the leaps forward in the iPhone / Android's general consumer interfaces. iOS obfuscates the explorer interface and replaces it with simple contextual commands which seems fitting here - the 80% like new / copy / paste / etc. If they approached it like iOS the question wouldn't be how to "improve windows explorer" but how to eliminate it.
- kapnobatairza 15y ago
  What is odd to me is that Windows 8 seems to have a dual personality between its Metro interface and Desktop interface. I'm eagerly waiting for how Microsoft is going to try to make this seamless.
prg318 15y ago
It looks like Microsoft is taking a lot of care to take user usage statistics to see how the default behavior of explorer should be. However, I really hope they don't strip out any existing functionality out of explorer since it is "not used much". To be honest, I'd still prefer two-paned 3.1 style (instead of a useless shortcut bar or whatever they have by default on the left now)
jdavid 15y ago
I think the next file explorer I want is more like a Graph/ DB, with search, stats and files resting in multiple folders like tags. I think windows is so set in how they do things that they can not think out of the box ( window ) at all. With 3d and ssd becoming standard there are plenty of new ways to visualize the files on your drive. Even photosynth an ms product would be a cool bolt on to file explorer.
kenjackson 15y ago
I had talked to some UI designers at MS about the ribbon not too long ago and heard some interesting feedback. For virtually every group that uses it they prefer it. One group doesn't like it as much though -- developers and power users. You'll probably never see the ribbon in Visual Studio. What I found interesting is what tested best with power users -- whatever they were currently using. Even if they didn't really like it, they always liked it more than then next thing. One of the worst places to get UI feedback, for something like Explorer, is from people who would read such a blog. I hope MS is mindful of this.
- narag 15y ago
  In all this discusion there is an assumption that I disagree with: that the people that has no idea about using computers should dictate the UI. With every version of Windows, I must work a little more, if at all possible, to go back to the Windows 95 Explorer. With every version of Windows they add some "innovation" or "enhacement" that degrades a little more my user experience. Buttons and bars that add nothing useful and take screen space. A couple of minutes looking for the options to revert the changes... the options BTW also move. Windows 7 makes it specially difficult to restore the menu. "Simplified" folder managing prevents me from seeing two sibling folders in the tree at once. That was Vista I think, The Windows 7 "libraries" are terrible and impossible to disable completely. The "classic" start menu has disappeared from earth's face. And so on. Windows 8 may be a little more difficult. I don't know if beginners are happier. I don't care.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    In all this discusion there is an assumption that I disagree with: that the people that has no idea about using computers should dictate the UI. I don't think its people with no idea, but rather people who aren't power users. I suspect almost all of us on a site called "Hacker News" are likely power users in our OS of choice. When Windows changes, I'm inconvenienced for an hour or so as I relearn where various things are. But as a power user, I relearn these things pretty quickly (if I'm so inclined). "Oh they've added something called a registry. Let me take a look at this... Hmm... so there is where the files are registering this data. What if I..." This is what we do. We're going to figure it out. And to be honest, I find Win7 way more user friendly than XP. For example, with multimon and the ability to quickly snap windows into place with Win-L and Win-R -- that right there makes me feel naked on XP (or Vista). So you make look around and say there are 250,000 Windows power users out here (and you're probably surrounded by them)! There are 300 million who aren't.
csomar 15y ago
I'm not sure why I'm different than most commenters here, but I really like the ribbon UI. I hate menus, they are too small. As a Windows user for more than 12 years, I find the ribbon UI and functionality for Explorer a quite good improvement. I need to copy/paste, changes views, search easily from one bar. The menu is too small and requires an additional click.
deleted 15y ago
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GBKS 15y ago
This looks like a professional tool for doing stuff with files. The same way Word is a professional tool for text and documents, and the same way that Photoshop is a professional tool for editing images. Difference is that doing stuff with files is not a profession.
- contextfree 15y ago
  FWIW, I've had jobs in e-discovery/computer forensics where I was something very close to a "professional file-doing-stuff-with-er". I was a heavy power user of Explorer, along with cmd, powershell, cygwin, in-house tools, third-party tools, third-party Explorer add-ins, etc. I think if I still had that kind of job now I wouldn't care much about the command/menu bars vs. the ribbon - the former were pretty useless, so at least there's not a lot to lose - but I'd be very happy to see them implementing drag-and-drop from/to the breadcrumb bar.
dendory 15y ago
I've never, ever used the ribbon, it's just a waste of space as far as I'm concerned. The fact that Microsoft still insists, to this day, on pushing it everywhere just screams that they don't get computers. No wonder they're struggling in innovating outside the enterprise.
mun2mun 15y ago
Overall like explorer in Windows 7, but its file indexing is very slow. Search takes long time. But third part software like everything[1] does it smoothly. I hope they fix it in Windows 8. http://www.voidtools.com/ http://www.voidtools.com/
jhdavids8 15y ago
"Microsoft. Making sure everything you may ever need to do with a file in Windows Explorer is presented to you in a ribbon bar, in case you only own a mouse and no keyboard. In this case, it may take you 10 minutes to find the 'Delete' button, but at least it's jammed into the ribbon bar. After all, every possible action should be visually presented to the user so they know every possible thing they can do with a file. You never know when you'll need the 'Easy access' option, which is ironically one of the hardest buttons to find." Sorry for the convoluted take on the article, but I figured I'd take the Microsoft approach when mocking Microsoft.
artursapek 15y ago
I think they're just swerving around in the wrong general direction anyway, but the Command Prompt and "Move Up" buttons I was glad to see. However I think they need to stop looking at positioning and layout and more at function and whether-or-not-this-should-be-there-at-all. There are things about the Explorer UI that I find non-intuitive and redundant. The bottom bar showing the file's information, for example, is useless when the user is in the "Details" mode. It should automatically disappear when its purpose is recreated in the main view. Even right-click > hide on it only works until you open a new Explorer window and there it is again! And I have never once used the "Burn" button, yet it's ALWAYS there even when there's no CD in the drive to burn to. It instead pops out my drive and tells me to use a CD. I don't think any user, no matter how bad they are with computers, needs that amount of instruction. I hope they take a lot from watching their users in supplement to this quantifiable data. I once thought I lost an important folder when I tried dragging it to the Favorites bar, until I later realized in relief that because I didn't hold down Alt Windows actually moved the folder in question into my Favorites folder. You know, just things like that.
elmindreda 15y ago
I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Microsoft on making Windows unambiguously worse than KDE 2.
ku16610 15y ago
it looks like word :(
deleted 15y ago
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zmonkeyz 15y ago
I really like the Metro design that Microsoft has. A mishmash of Metro UI based apps and this older looking aero windows are going to look strange together.

162 points by ghurlman 15y ago

The background information and analysis seemed so reasonable, then they threw that ribbon on there and it looks like a confusing mess.

masnick 15y ago

IMHO, this redesign just adds visual noise. Compare the screenshots of the redesigned Windows 8 Explorer with Finder in OS X: - Win 8: http://cl.ly/321a2D0b1M1G1v1o2r3F http://cl.ly/321a2D0b1M1G1v1o2r3F (from article) - OS X: http://cl.ly/290D3q2Q06203b181C2b http://cl.ly/290D3q2Q06203b181C2b (random Google Images search) I think Microsoft's ribbon approach is horrible for usability. It takes a long time to visually scan all those words/icons to figure out what I want. With OS X, the interface is much cleaner. There are only a few buttons and no extraneous visual noise. Finder stays out of your way and lets you get at your files. I draw this comparison not to start a Mac vs. Windows flame war but to show how wrong-headed I think Microsoft's UI is. Also, refresh accounts for > 6% of Explorer commands. Why don't they just make Explorer refresh automatically and get rid of the need for the command? One thing I do like about the redesign is the prominence of the "copy path" button.

mcastner 15y ago
The copy path button is only necessary because Explorer hides the real path with the fake address bar they use now. I'd bet that mostly power users need to copy the path anyways, and they'll be able to figure out how to click on the address bar and Ctrl+C.
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  The breadcrumbs on the 'fake path' are extremely useful to jump to one of the parent folders, which is a frequent task, so I appreciate it.
- arethuza 15y ago
  If you select the "fake address" it transforms to the normal path - which feels a bit gimmicky to me.
  - ak217 15y ago
    It may feel gimmicky to you, but it's very functional. Each area of the breadcrumb bar has a distinct and useful function (jump up the hierarchy, list other folders at that hierarchy level, enter textbox mode). It's insanely useful in comparison to any other method I've seen.
    - masnick 15y ago
      Yes, this is a UI element Microsoft has nailed. It does exactly what I expect it to do. The "Copy path" button just saves you a few keystrokes.
recoiledsnake 15y ago
Why use URL shorteners on HN? I feel uneasy clicking on them. There's no real reason to use them. >I think Microsoft's ribbon approach is horrible for usability. It takes a long time to visually scan all those words/icons to figure out what I want. A huge percentage of people are repeat users of Explorer. While it may feel cluttered in the beginning, it will soon become second nature once people get used to it, and it's extremely friendly for newbies since it exposes functions instead of hiding it 3 levels deep in some menu. Are you a regular user of Office 2007+? My concern is that it takes up valuable vertical space on the 16:9 monitors that we are getting these days, especially on netbooks. But you can minimize the ribbo and declutter it. See http://www.winsupersite.com/content/content/140353/win8_explorer_01.jpg http://www.winsupersite.com/content/content/140353/win8_expl...
- ghurlman 15y ago
  CTRL-F1 to minimize/restore the ribbon works on the Office apps now as well; I use it _constantly_.
  - iaskwhy 15y ago
    Extending your comment with some words from the article: "If you collapse the ribbon (double-click the tab, or click the Minimize arrow on the right side of the ribbon), you get even more vertical real estate with our new approach." I double-click on it a lot when working with Office to get focused. When you hide it, if you hover it it will show without taking up all the space it does when it's open.
- barake 15y ago
  Despite the huge ribbon the new layout actually has more vertical space due to the removal of the details pane. Once the ribbon is minimized there would be tons more real estate: http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/8422.Figure-21-_2D00_-Real-Estate-comparison_5F00_2.png http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communit...
  - 15y ago
fefzero 15y ago
Personally, I can't stand Finder. I used a Mac for several years every day before I felt like I really figured it out, and even then I didn't feel like it was user-friendly - it just felt incapable of doing many advanced things (for example, how would you "copy path" in Finder?). Not only can you hide the buttons in the ribbon (which is nice if you typically use keyboard shortcuts), but the experience is consistent with other recent Microsoft applications. I'm not sure a computer novice or even 50% or more of non-power users would have any idea what the buttons on Finder do (does anyone know what that eye button does before they click on it?), and I think that's the target demographic here. Power users know how to hide unwanted buttons or the text that goes with the buttons.
- innes 15y ago
  I'm glad I'm not alone. That weird columnar view mode (don't know the term for it) shown in the screenshot from the GP has to be the worst aspect of the Finder. I've been seriously considering getting a Mac laptop and now someone goes and reminds me about the Finder. But presumably there are 3rd party tools that fix the problem, right?
  - masnick 15y ago
    I really like the column view. Why don't you like it?
    - innes 15y ago
      I don't like it because it's very wasteful of screen real-estate. I do want to see directory hierarchy, but I don't want my files list to be squeezed into smaller and smaller space so I can see lists of every sibling folder of every folder in the path down to the folder that I'm viewing. This view isn't useful in proportion with how much space it takes up. IMO, access to directory structure works better as a treeview, separate from the 'current folder' view, rather than as a new column for each step down into the hierarchy. The latter doesn't scale well.
      - 15y ago
xentronium 15y ago
The problem is that finder sucks compared to windows explorer. I've used mac os x for two years now and I still do most file management tasks via command-line. This is not the case in windows and linux, where file managers are usable. I don't like ribbon ui at all, though. But for newcomers it's probably going to be an easier way to manage files. Small anecdote: my grandmother had never used a computer until 6 months ago. One of the hardest things to explain to her was windows context menus. With buttons in the ribbon it would have been so much easier.
nopassrecover 15y ago
I hate the OS X broswer (one of the main reasons I've never been able to make the switch) but agree that the ribbon explorer UI is terrible.
ak217 15y ago
The ribbon lays out the essential commands nicely for novices. Advanced users can double-click the ribbon to hide it, and then the interface is fairly uncluttered. Refresh is done automatically on any filesystems that support it. I think most people do it out of habit, from way back when that wasn't the case. It's pretty funny, people rant about the ribbon, but it is certainly by far the best usability innovation I've seen in recent years. The only thing that remains is the logical step of pushing ribbon headers into the title bar (Office already does this for contextual ribbons, but not for all of them) to take advantage of the infinite height when the window is maximized.
bane 15y ago
For sake of argument (and not for sake of flamewars) I'll assume the opposite since I think there is a valid argument both ways. I'm not sure I would hold the OS X finder up as an example of good design: Complaints about the finder are numerous and common, there are more finder replacements than just about any other system utility. A google search for "OS X finder" reveals that in the top 10 results (excluding images), #2, #3, #5, #6, #7, #8 and #10 are all either complaints about the finder, replacements for the finder, or commentary on complaints about the finder. The titles are things like "How to Make the Max OS X Finder Suck Less" as if it's a given that everybody understands it sucks. "n replacements for the Finder". It's even one of those rare topics that Gruber can find it in himself to complain about Apple. http://daringfireball.net/2002/11/that_finder_thing http://daringfireball.net/2002/11/that_finder_thing Also, once I got over the loss of the investment of brain space to memorize every possible menu item in the MS-Office suite, I've actually found the Ribbon interface to be very enjoyable to use, just as fast for things I know about, and many times faster for things I don't because it makes them easily discoverable. But let's assume for a second I step up to each computer with no idea how to use either (but am familiar with very basic metaphors like a hierarchical file structure). Looking at the OS X finder, I have virtually no idea what any of the buttons do. Left to right: arrows going both directions, one is grayed out. Knowing that files can be organized hierarchically, do those buttons let me jump between siblings? 4 pictographs of no discernible relation to anything to do with file management: e.g. does the second one open up a text editor? the fourth one may have something to do with audio volume or screen brightness there's an eye, does that control my camera? open up a file? only view a file? a gear/light flash/different sort of eye glyph from the one before. if it's a gear maybe this lets me adjust some sort of setting at the interface itself: what is a device vs. a place? what is the relationship to each other? is a place on a device? or is a place something different? Why do I have two columns of what look like folders? are they related to one another? if the rightmost column is supposed to be what's inside of the selected library folder in the second column, does that imply that I can only go one folder deep? then at the bottom I have something that looks like a hard drive (but I wouldn't know that having never seen one), a folder called 'users' (why are there more than one! it's my computer, I'm the only one!), a house and then finally another folder. I'm left with more outstanding questions for what's not on the window. How do I create folders? How do I delete things? How do I rename something? Provided I can figure out that this is a representation of the hierarachical file structure, is there a way to copy or move files between different parts of the file system? How do I add or remove "places"? etc. The principle problems are that the finder is simultaneously underpowered. It also hi-lights something that's sadly becoming more and more common in Apple's interfaces, a lack of discoverability. Sure, the disconnected toolbar up at the top of the screen (or perhaps on a different monitor) may answer some of my questions, and I could hover for tool tips perhaps, but realizing that those things are even connected is a serious interface problem. The new explorer isn't without it's faults: why is there a "File" menu when I'm clearly looking at files, is that something I push to "file" away something? it's got the weird left right arrows and even a weirder up arrow why is there a manage meny? aren't I managing my files right now? But for the most part it achieves discoverability, while also having (or at least doing a better job of revealing) power. Oh! So you push the button clearly labeled "move-to" to move a file to someplace! Oh! There's a button called "open" with a picture of the MS-Word logo, that must open that file in Word. etc. etc. "Also, refresh accounts for > 6% of Explorer commands. Why don't they just make Explorer refresh automatically and get rid of the need for the command?" It does, just sometimes not fast enough for most users. It certainly works better on OS X.
masklinn 15y ago
The Finder is not a very good example of a better explorer UI though, it's pretty consistently awful.
theBobMcCormick 15y ago
Normally I'm not a fan of the over-fetishization of Apple UI and design that tends to happen here on HN, but in this case I have to strongly agree with you that the OSX finder UI (for all it's many quirks and limitations) is vastly better than this new Explorer UI. Hell, the Windows 7 Explorer UI is better. This new Explorer UI is just waaaay to damned cluttered. Putting the Ribbon UI on Explorer is not necessarily a bad thing, but I really thing they could trim down the number of buttons present by default on the "Home" tab of that ribbon. IMHO, this is gonna be intimidating as hell to most casual/non-savvy users.

endtwist 15y ago

Confused about the conclusion versus the analysis: no one uses the command bar, ergo we should make this useless interface element bigger and more complex! "Note that we haven’t finalized the exact number of commands in the ribbon yet. It will likely end up between 198 and 203 when we’re done." 203 buttons?!

fefzero 15y ago
It definitely seems like a jump. Did they interview users? If so, why not reference that data? If not, why not? And what user data prompted them to create 203 buttons if some of the (far less than 200) commands they have now don't get used in more than 1% of user sessions?
- iaskwhy 15y ago
  I'd guess most Microsoft apps have hundreds of buttons as well. 99% of them are not shown by default but you can customise it to your own taste, that's why there are so many of them.
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  I think they've learned from the Office 2007 metrics and feedback. Also they have listed the reasons for choosing the ribbon over other approaches. I don't see a 'jump'. >And what user data prompted them to create 203 buttons if some of the (far less than 200) commands they have now don't get used in more than 1% of user sessions? You say that as if the 200 buttons were on one screen. They are spread out over different contexts and tabs. I believe they were trying to make the commands more discoverable from the previous versions.
  - fefzero 15y ago
    I was only referencing the parent post about the 200 buttons, it's certainly true that they're available in ribbon form. If the commands are things that were previously available and less discoverable, then that's one thing. However, I felt like it was a jump to go from having so few commands available menu to having around 200. Do they expect the new commands to be used frequently? Were they actually needed? That's what I was trying to ask.

zwieback 15y ago

Looking at the history at the beginning of the article I noticed how much I miss the original File Manager. Maybe I should get a third-party Explorer replacement. However, I like the ribbon in general although I prefer using the command line or right-clicking. Big plus for the "command-line here" addition. I've been using a registry mod to get that into my context menu but it's good to see it in the mainstream.

neovive 15y ago

I'm assuming that power users would just hide the ribbon. The flexibility of Windows Explorer is something that I miss on the Mac. Although the Finder is clean and simple, it does feel a bit underpowered. I ended up switching to PathFinder on the Mac.

fefzero 15y ago

I thought it was great that they discussed what user's actually do within Windows Explorer before they decided what to change with it. Too often I feel like changes are forced for change's sake, and, despite my own opinions on the design, it's great that they're open about their reasoning.

Timmy_C 15y ago

I don't see why they made commands like copy and paste into buttons. It seems like they could simplify their interface by using more conventions and fewer ribbon buttons. I tend to dislike the ribbon in general because it feels like their designing software for the user who likes to click things and not for the user that uses keyboard shortcuts.

recoiledsnake 15y ago
>I tend to dislike the ribbon in general because it feels like their designing software for the user who likes to click things and not for the user that uses keyboard shortcuts. I guess the vast majority of users like clicking on things. >I tend to dislike the ribbon in general because it feels like their designing software for the user who likes to click things and not for the user that uses keyboard shortcuts. Did you read the post fully? They have expanded the number of keyboard shortcuts and there is a way to minimize the ribbon. I don't see what you're complaining about, are you saying that they should force all users to find out and use arcane keyboard shortcuts instead of exposing the functions via the Ribbon UI?
ghurlman 15y ago
There are users -- LOTS of users -- that have no idea that you can go into the menus or use a keyboard shortcut to cut & paste. To them, if there's no button, it doesn't exist.
ak217 15y ago
The ribbon is beautiful because you can hide it. I disagree strongly with the whole "too many buttons/clutter" sentiment. This provides an awesome learning curve for users. The tooltips for the ribbon expose keyboard shortcuts. A first-time user will click the button, then eventually try the keyboard shortcut, learn it, learn all the shortcuts they need from the ribbon, then learn to hide the ribbon. This opposed to the crappy menu or context menu system which is much less conducive to exploratory UI learning.
bane 15y ago
Users, in general, don't like keyboard shortcuts.

julius 15y ago

I like that MS is so open about its development. We even get videos. This video about Win8 has more than 5 million views already: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I I am curious how much hype around Win8 they will have built when they ship it. I think the last time I felt so excited about Windows was in the Longhorn times. (I use OSX)

FuzzyDunlop 15y ago

The ribbon was great in Office because there is a hell of a lot of stuff it made simpler. There was a learning curve but I think it was overall a good choice. In Windows Explorer though? It just looks like clutter. I'm no 'novice' but even I have trouble with the thought of getting used to that mess.

fefzero 15y ago

If I took all that time to customize my command ribbon, I'd certainly want it to look the same across every computer I use. Will there be a way to synchronize my preferences for settings like this anywhere?

SriniR 15y ago
Office 2007 and 2010 have had the ability to export your settings with the Export-ui extension. I would guess that you can do the same with Windows Explorer too

erikb 15y ago

I agree with most comments here, that the changes seem to be not so great. The product, of course, is a result of the process creating it. If they fine tune their process of improving usability further, I can really believe that one day we might have a handsome Windows again. Think about how much Win7 improved over Vista. Well, in Germany we say "The last thing that dies, is hope".

jra101 15y ago

Very happy the Up button is back, biggest thing I missed from Windows XP.

joeyespo 15y ago

Despite the use of the Ribbon (which doesn't seem all that bad since you can still customize it if you can't get used to it), I think MS is actually listening to people and using the feedback. The 'up' button is back! As they said, it's the most requested feature in explorer. I even put back the 'up button' keyboard shortcut via Auto Hot Key. Also 'Open command prompt' is in there now. (Finally!) Plus they plan on having shortcuts for every command. I think by listening, including these additions, and reintroducing customizability, they took a big step forward in usability.

ConstantineXVI 15y ago
You've actually always(at least since W2K) been able to get the "open command prompt" option by holding Shift when right-clicking in a folder, and I think there's some tweak deep down in the bowels of Windows that turns it on permanently.
- joeyespo 15y ago
  Wow didn't know about that, thanks. I've been using AHK for that too. Press Win+C and a prompt will open at that location. It's much faster than shift-clicking through a menu. I wonder how many others knew about the "open command prompt" who really did need it. Revealing it in the Ribbon is a double-win then, because now you immediately know it's there and you can now also use a keyboard shortcut.

pasbesoin 15y ago

So, seeing as I don't want to wade through all this bs, answer the essential question: Does Explorer finally have multithreading (possibly gnarly to get right), and/or multi-process support turned on by default. I could give a flying f about the eye candy. P.S. I'm glad to see that "gnarly" is in this browser's spell check support. P.P.S. My Windows machines are still on XP, so maybe I've missed something. Others' gripes, seen here and there, make me think not, though.

deleted 15y ago

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masklinn 15y ago

I don't really care about the looks, I'd just like them to unbreak the search UI and behavior. XP was slow but worked correctly, 7's search is a pain when you try to actually interact with the matches.

benaston 15y ago

Users do not know what a filesystem is. They don't want to know. Whilst the improvements enumerated here are undoubtedly improvements it's all lipstick on a pig. It's time for the hierarchical filesystem to die.

sp332 15y ago
1. Press the "windows" key on your keyboard. 2. Type what you want to find. 3. Profit!
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- ugh 15y ago
  Search is part of the answer but it’s not the whole deal. Some users don’t like to search, it would be disastrous to just replace everything with search. I think that tailor made libraries that leverage metadata are the other part of the answer. All modern music players and photo library apps already do this, they have a tailor made interface specifically for browsing music and photos. It’s not necessary to ever touch a music file or a photo in the file system. The obvious problem are files you want to use in several applications – e.g. that CSS or JavaScript file you are working on. It wouldn’t make sense to give every app a library, that would only confuse and lead to inconsistencies. I do think, though, that this is a problem most casual users will never encounter. Just add a document library to Office and most people would be set.
cabirum 15y ago
They need to know, and if they don't know, they must learn some basics. Just like they must get a driver's license to drive a vehicle. Anything can be built on top of hierarchical filesystem. Windows already has libraries. Some alternative file managers support file tagging and user catalogs.
- benaston 15y ago
  No, they do not need to know about the filesystem. Take the iPad or iPod as examples. They have full-featured applications and the filesystem is invisible.

51Cards 15y ago

I was cringing right through this whole article until I hit the Quick Access Toolbar. In short I hate the Windows Ribbon UI for reasons others have mentioned. But this entire redesign was saved in my eyes by the quick access bar and the fact that you can add any function to it and collapse the ribbon out of sight. Now THIS is what Explorer has needed for years and I am actually excited about using it now. I will never have that ribbon open, it's way too cluttered and a visual mess... but give me 10 minutes and I'll have a QAT bar set up that will (on first glance) make me a VERY happy power user. Now, we'll see what their attention to detail is when I try my favourite shortcut... Holding CTRL while clicking on the up arrow. This used to open the parent folder in a New Window and it seems that MS forgot this shortcut in recent Windows versions.

sliverstorm 15y ago
I think I should point out just so it's duly noted- what my parent has just noticed is the Windows team catering to both Regular Joe Users and Power Users, at the same time, without stepping on the toes of either too much.
Wilduck 15y ago
They didn't forget it. Just use ALT.
fmavituna 15y ago
In 7, you can hold Alt and press up (parent), left (back), right (next). AFAIK Alt was same since WinXP but can't confirm. Ctrl is right now used for doing multiple selections in folders.
- 51Cards 15y ago
  Thanks for the reply. The ALT-up-keyboard opens the parent folder, yes... but I was referring to the fact that CTRL-click a folder would open a New Explorer Window leaving the current one untouched. The CTRL-{up_toolbar_icon} used to open the parent folder in a New Explorer Window leaving the current window open as well. Was great when you needed to go up a level and open a sibling folder without closing the current explorer window. There is no quick way to do this in Vista / Win7 because you can't CTRL-{open parent} in a new window anymore. What should have worked would have been CTRL-ALT-{keyboard arrow} (up, left, right) to open the parent/previous/next folder in a new window but that doesn't work. Anyhow, I do realize these are just nit-picks of power users.

dominik 15y ago

Why does Microsoft love the Ribbon so?

smiler 15y ago
Because they did hours and hours of research, testing, usability sessions and found that it worked.
- mitjak 15y ago
  Why can't I ever find anyone who liked it then? Everyone in my family and non-geeky friends are struggling to find anything on the ribbon or are complaining it takes entirely too long to find something that was just fine living in the menu.
  - janjan 15y ago
    It seems that I am one of those rare people that love the ribbon (at least in Word and Powerpoint). I don't know exactly why I like it, but after using the new Word/Powerpoint for just a few minutes I never want to switch back to the old menu systems.

dominik 15y ago

Why does Microsoft love the Ribbon so?

georgieporgie 15y ago

Since I can hide it pretty well, I think this is great. It will make things more accessible to my mother, which means fewer 'tech support' calls. Things they still don't seem to be addressing: * Drive letters. It's 2011. * Inability to make hard links to non-local storage. This infuriates me and makes it extremely difficult for me to manage my media in a clean way. On the Mac or Linux, for example, I can map my music folder to my Terastation. When I'm traveling, I can map my music folder to my external USB drive. Can't really do that for Windows, though. There are countless other minor issues I have with Windows, and I see no sign that they're doing anything to improve on them. This is looking an awful lot like more superficial changes, which seems to be Microsoft's forte of late. Why do real work when you can rebrand, reorganize, change the website layout, etc. ?

recoiledsnake 15y ago
Can't you use Libraries ?
- wanorris 15y ago
  This is absolutely the Windows way of accomplishing it. With Libraries, you don't just "map" your Music folder to something, you can have as many folders as you want included in your music library. How to Include a Network Drive or Folder in a Library in Windows 7: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/4617-libraries-include-network-folder.html http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/4617-libraries-include-...
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  Can you use libraries so that the same media is sometimes available on a USB drive and sometimes available on a network server? i.e. an item may or may not be there, and it shouldn't appear duplicated.
arthurschreiber 15y ago
Regarding your second point: I'm not exactly sure about the details, but you could assign a drive letter to your music collection on your Terastation, and when you're traveling, you could reassign the drive letter to your music folder on your external HDD. This is not perfect, but could be a possible workaround.

ajg1977 15y ago

When the screenshot of the Windows 8 Explorer scrolled into view I thought I'd reached the punchline in an Onion article.

ender7 15y ago

For me, this should serve as a warning to anyone trying to let data do the designing for them. To me this screams "hey! Our data says 'X'! Let's apply it in the simplest way possible, with little to no editing or afterthought, and then bask in the false confidence our data provides." I'm not saying that their approach is a bad idea, but they've allowed their execution to falter. They're still in the idea phase. This is not a 'product' phase. 1. It's visually noisy. The problem is not necessarily that there are shitloads of buttons, but that they're everywhere. We have an area for buttons on the top right, then an area of tabs, then an area of large, poorly-gridded buttons, then another row of buttons on the address bar area. Oh, and the freaky tab-above-the-tabs thing on the title bar. There's no visual organization or hierarchy. The whitespace and value is all monotone. When you squint your eyes, all you see is buttons, and no organization behind them. 2. Look, I'm sorry, it's ugly. I'm not saying you need to go stick-up-the-ass Apple brushed metal. Just...after you've worked out the usability aspects, hire a graphic designer. They're really good at all those tiny little visual tweaks that can make the difference between 'eh' and 'great'. UI/UX people usually don't have the chops to accomplish that - you need a dedicated artist. 3. In the words of Dr. Malcolm, "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think if they should." All right, your solution appears to be "more buttons". Take that a little farther. How many is enough? Can you have 'too many buttons'? (hint: yes) Do you want to distinguish visually between commonly-used and uncommonly-used buttons? Is it safe to draw this conclusion from your data? How representative of the average user's needs are these after-market add-ons that will probably only be installed by power users? Look, data is useful, but poorly-analyzed data is dangerous. If you're not careful it will sing you whatever song you desire, whispering "yes, yes, more like that" in your ear as you dance down to hell.

Nagyman 15y ago
To your point about letting the data do the designing for them, I believe they actually ignored an important aspect of their data or they were so biased towards the ribbon that they interpreted the data towards supporting it's implementation. For example, the "Command Entrypoint Usage" graph, shows the Context Menu as the most prominent means to perform tasks and the "Menu Bar" as the least. Whereas they read this as "We need to make the menu bar easier to use", I would interpret that as a strong indicator that the context menu needs more attention.

aresant 15y ago

I like the changes they're making as a professional user. But what's missing is recognition of the leaps forward in the iPhone / Android's general consumer interfaces. iOS obfuscates the explorer interface and replaces it with simple contextual commands which seems fitting here - the 80% like new / copy / paste / etc. If they approached it like iOS the question wouldn't be how to "improve windows explorer" but how to eliminate it.

kapnobatairza 15y ago
What is odd to me is that Windows 8 seems to have a dual personality between its Metro interface and Desktop interface. I'm eagerly waiting for how Microsoft is going to try to make this seamless.

prg318 15y ago

It looks like Microsoft is taking a lot of care to take user usage statistics to see how the default behavior of explorer should be. However, I really hope they don't strip out any existing functionality out of explorer since it is "not used much". To be honest, I'd still prefer two-paned 3.1 style (instead of a useless shortcut bar or whatever they have by default on the left now)

jdavid 15y ago

I think the next file explorer I want is more like a Graph/ DB, with search, stats and files resting in multiple folders like tags. I think windows is so set in how they do things that they can not think out of the box ( window ) at all. With 3d and ssd becoming standard there are plenty of new ways to visualize the files on your drive. Even photosynth an ms product would be a cool bolt on to file explorer.

kenjackson 15y ago

I had talked to some UI designers at MS about the ribbon not too long ago and heard some interesting feedback. For virtually every group that uses it they prefer it. One group doesn't like it as much though -- developers and power users. You'll probably never see the ribbon in Visual Studio. What I found interesting is what tested best with power users -- whatever they were currently using. Even if they didn't really like it, they always liked it more than then next thing. One of the worst places to get UI feedback, for something like Explorer, is from people who would read such a blog. I hope MS is mindful of this.

narag 15y ago
In all this discusion there is an assumption that I disagree with: that the people that has no idea about using computers should dictate the UI. With every version of Windows, I must work a little more, if at all possible, to go back to the Windows 95 Explorer. With every version of Windows they add some "innovation" or "enhacement" that degrades a little more my user experience. Buttons and bars that add nothing useful and take screen space. A couple of minutes looking for the options to revert the changes... the options BTW also move. Windows 7 makes it specially difficult to restore the menu. "Simplified" folder managing prevents me from seeing two sibling folders in the tree at once. That was Vista I think, The Windows 7 "libraries" are terrible and impossible to disable completely. The "classic" start menu has disappeared from earth's face. And so on. Windows 8 may be a little more difficult. I don't know if beginners are happier. I don't care.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  In all this discusion there is an assumption that I disagree with: that the people that has no idea about using computers should dictate the UI. I don't think its people with no idea, but rather people who aren't power users. I suspect almost all of us on a site called "Hacker News" are likely power users in our OS of choice. When Windows changes, I'm inconvenienced for an hour or so as I relearn where various things are. But as a power user, I relearn these things pretty quickly (if I'm so inclined). "Oh they've added something called a registry. Let me take a look at this... Hmm... so there is where the files are registering this data. What if I..." This is what we do. We're going to figure it out. And to be honest, I find Win7 way more user friendly than XP. For example, with multimon and the ability to quickly snap windows into place with Win-L and Win-R -- that right there makes me feel naked on XP (or Vista). So you make look around and say there are 250,000 Windows power users out here (and you're probably surrounded by them)! There are 300 million who aren't.

csomar 15y ago

I'm not sure why I'm different than most commenters here, but I really like the ribbon UI. I hate menus, they are too small. As a Windows user for more than 12 years, I find the ribbon UI and functionality for Explorer a quite good improvement. I need to copy/paste, changes views, search easily from one bar. The menu is too small and requires an additional click.

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GBKS 15y ago

This looks like a professional tool for doing stuff with files. The same way Word is a professional tool for text and documents, and the same way that Photoshop is a professional tool for editing images. Difference is that doing stuff with files is not a profession.

contextfree 15y ago
FWIW, I've had jobs in e-discovery/computer forensics where I was something very close to a "professional file-doing-stuff-with-er". I was a heavy power user of Explorer, along with cmd, powershell, cygwin, in-house tools, third-party tools, third-party Explorer add-ins, etc. I think if I still had that kind of job now I wouldn't care much about the command/menu bars vs. the ribbon - the former were pretty useless, so at least there's not a lot to lose - but I'd be very happy to see them implementing drag-and-drop from/to the breadcrumb bar.

dendory 15y ago

I've never, ever used the ribbon, it's just a waste of space as far as I'm concerned. The fact that Microsoft still insists, to this day, on pushing it everywhere just screams that they don't get computers. No wonder they're struggling in innovating outside the enterprise.

mun2mun 15y ago

Overall like explorer in Windows 7, but its file indexing is very slow. Search takes long time. But third part software like everything[1] does it smoothly. I hope they fix it in Windows 8. http://www.voidtools.com/ http://www.voidtools.com/

jhdavids8 15y ago

"Microsoft. Making sure everything you may ever need to do with a file in Windows Explorer is presented to you in a ribbon bar, in case you only own a mouse and no keyboard. In this case, it may take you 10 minutes to find the 'Delete' button, but at least it's jammed into the ribbon bar. After all, every possible action should be visually presented to the user so they know every possible thing they can do with a file. You never know when you'll need the 'Easy access' option, which is ironically one of the hardest buttons to find." Sorry for the convoluted take on the article, but I figured I'd take the Microsoft approach when mocking Microsoft.

artursapek 15y ago

I think they're just swerving around in the wrong general direction anyway, but the Command Prompt and "Move Up" buttons I was glad to see. However I think they need to stop looking at positioning and layout and more at function and whether-or-not-this-should-be-there-at-all. There are things about the Explorer UI that I find non-intuitive and redundant. The bottom bar showing the file's information, for example, is useless when the user is in the "Details" mode. It should automatically disappear when its purpose is recreated in the main view. Even right-click > hide on it only works until you open a new Explorer window and there it is again! And I have never once used the "Burn" button, yet it's ALWAYS there even when there's no CD in the drive to burn to. It instead pops out my drive and tells me to use a CD. I don't think any user, no matter how bad they are with computers, needs that amount of instruction. I hope they take a lot from watching their users in supplement to this quantifiable data. I once thought I lost an important folder when I tried dragging it to the Favorites bar, until I later realized in relief that because I didn't hold down Alt Windows actually moved the folder in question into my Favorites folder. You know, just things like that.

elmindreda 15y ago

I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Microsoft on making Windows unambiguously worse than KDE 2.

ku16610 15y ago

it looks like word :(

deleted 15y ago

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zmonkeyz 15y ago

I really like the Metro design that Microsoft has. A mishmash of Metro UI based apps and this older looking aero windows are going to look strange together.