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I guess that's why they're killing of third party printer drivers as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37473628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37

I guess that's why they're killing of third party printer drivers as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37473628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37473628

jeroenhd 3y ago
They're not killing off printer drivers entirely, but they are moving them to userspace. A good idea that should've been implemented a long time ago, in my opinion, though I suspect printer driver manufacturers would've thrown a hissy fit if they actually did so back in the day.
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  They tried in Windows 8 and printer driver manufacturers did throw a hissy fit. It was one of the big propaganda sources for "UWP is terrible" discourse because UWP gave the best printer experience for userspace printer drivers and that was Windows 8's carrot incentive to try to get the driver writers to upgrade. Rather than accept the carrot most of the driver writers jumped straight into "UWP is bad and no one wants it and please, please users should ignore the nice parts like the new print driver stack" bandwagon.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    Windows 8's implementation of UWP was shit for most use cases, though. Desktop users and full screen touch interfaces just don't mix.
    - WorldMaker 3y ago
      I greatly disagree, personally. I don't think enough desktop users gave it a chance. It certainly didn't help that good differentiating features like the better printer stack were just about murdered in their crib. I still think there was a lot of missed opportunity in Windows 8's implementation of UWP and still wonder what might have happened had it been given more time to iterate and more time to showcase its good sides. (Also, Fitt's Law suggests that what's good for the touch goose is great for the mouse gander. Carefully thought out "touch screen-first" interfaces can be amazingly friendly to mouse users. Desktop users have become obsessed with reducing things down to the FPS equivalent of a "headshot" target area and have forgotten what early 640x480 Windows was like when even 32x32 pixel targets were the relative size of a barn door and much friendlier to newcomers, tired eyes/arms, and anyone in some state of different ability.)
      - patmorgan23 3y ago
        I disagree there are many UI patterns that make an exquisite touch interface and a horrible KB&M interface (and vice versa). There are certainly parts of windows desktop apps with absurdly small click targets (have you tried to resize a window recently?) That doesn't mean desktop users are in favor of those. Desktop users generally favor much more information dense interfaces that you can't achieve in a touch interface because the touch targets would be too small. Can you design an interface that's great for both? Sure, but it's really difficult.
      - jeroenhd 3y ago
        I used Windows RT on a tablet and it was great. Easily beat iOS and Android at the time, and I still don't get why professionals went for iPads for so long when there were great Windows tablets that did so much more so much more easily. I used Windows 8 on a laptop and it sucked. Windows 8.1 made the OS usable but it took until Windows 10 until I stopped being annoyed at the random mix between Windows and Windows Mobile UI controls. I still dislike how obviously touch-targeted the Windows applications I'll only ever interact with using a mouse are. UWP itself was a better model in many ways, but the way they implemented them as a screen filling thing that took away your task bar was a mistake. The design language, which seems to be "make everything flat, make buttons difficult to recognise rectangles, add whitespace wherever you can", is something I'll probably never get over. I use a 1080p screen at 1x scaling, maybe I'm supposed to buy a 4k screen to make UWP feel less bloated? I think the Windows 7 had perfectly fine mouse targets. I think the design matters too: when I was looking at a fake Windows 7 theme, I saw a picture of the X button independent of the title bar, and it felt weirdly large. Only when I dragged it up to the top right did I notice that the button was much larger than I remembered it being. The touch targets could've been bigger (the OS was still optimised for stylus based touch screens) but Windows 10's tablet mode shows how that could've been resolved. I'm not suggesting we go back to the tiny buttons featured in Windows 2000, but I'd like to trade some modern whitespace back in for information density.

I guess that's why they're killing of third party printer drivers as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37473628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37473628

jeroenhd 3y ago

They're not killing off printer drivers entirely, but they are moving them to userspace. A good idea that should've been implemented a long time ago, in my opinion, though I suspect printer driver manufacturers would've thrown a hissy fit if they actually did so back in the day.

WorldMaker 3y ago
They tried in Windows 8 and printer driver manufacturers did throw a hissy fit. It was one of the big propaganda sources for "UWP is terrible" discourse because UWP gave the best printer experience for userspace printer drivers and that was Windows 8's carrot incentive to try to get the driver writers to upgrade. Rather than accept the carrot most of the driver writers jumped straight into "UWP is bad and no one wants it and please, please users should ignore the nice parts like the new print driver stack" bandwagon.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  Windows 8's implementation of UWP was shit for most use cases, though. Desktop users and full screen touch interfaces just don't mix.
  - WorldMaker 3y ago
    I greatly disagree, personally. I don't think enough desktop users gave it a chance. It certainly didn't help that good differentiating features like the better printer stack were just about murdered in their crib. I still think there was a lot of missed opportunity in Windows 8's implementation of UWP and still wonder what might have happened had it been given more time to iterate and more time to showcase its good sides. (Also, Fitt's Law suggests that what's good for the touch goose is great for the mouse gander. Carefully thought out "touch screen-first" interfaces can be amazingly friendly to mouse users. Desktop users have become obsessed with reducing things down to the FPS equivalent of a "headshot" target area and have forgotten what early 640x480 Windows was like when even 32x32 pixel targets were the relative size of a barn door and much friendlier to newcomers, tired eyes/arms, and anyone in some state of different ability.)
    - patmorgan23 3y ago
      I disagree there are many UI patterns that make an exquisite touch interface and a horrible KB&M interface (and vice versa). There are certainly parts of windows desktop apps with absurdly small click targets (have you tried to resize a window recently?) That doesn't mean desktop users are in favor of those. Desktop users generally favor much more information dense interfaces that you can't achieve in a touch interface because the touch targets would be too small. Can you design an interface that's great for both? Sure, but it's really difficult.
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      I used Windows RT on a tablet and it was great. Easily beat iOS and Android at the time, and I still don't get why professionals went for iPads for so long when there were great Windows tablets that did so much more so much more easily. I used Windows 8 on a laptop and it sucked. Windows 8.1 made the OS usable but it took until Windows 10 until I stopped being annoyed at the random mix between Windows and Windows Mobile UI controls. I still dislike how obviously touch-targeted the Windows applications I'll only ever interact with using a mouse are. UWP itself was a better model in many ways, but the way they implemented them as a screen filling thing that took away your task bar was a mistake. The design language, which seems to be "make everything flat, make buttons difficult to recognise rectangles, add whitespace wherever you can", is something I'll probably never get over. I use a 1080p screen at 1x scaling, maybe I'm supposed to buy a 4k screen to make UWP feel less bloated? I think the Windows 7 had perfectly fine mouse targets. I think the design matters too: when I was looking at a fake Windows 7 theme, I saw a picture of the X button independent of the title bar, and it felt weirdly large. Only when I dragged it up to the top right did I notice that the button was much larger than I remembered it being. The touch targets could've been bigger (the OS was still optimised for stylus based touch screens) but Windows 10's tablet mode shows how that could've been resolved. I'm not suggesting we go back to the tiny buttons featured in Windows 2000, but I'd like to trade some modern whitespace back in for information density.