Win8 - Start is the word

Community
21

Continuing with my Win8 testing, it turns out that the Firefox issues with the latest Flash plugin are worse in Win8 than those I (still) have in Win7.

As it turns out, I may become one of those lost users for Firefox. I even gave Pale Moon a spin, but still, crashing occurs so often. Not to mention the fact that myspace stopped working months back.

I turned over to Chrome. So far Chrome has the basic add-ons I am so much fond of on Firefox: Firebug (Lite), AdBlock, ScriptNo (NoScript).
My internet runs now like “Bolt… Usain Bolt”. :slight_smile:

EDIT: I wanted very much to like IE10. I’m afraid it has nothing on any of the other browsers. It’s one piece of software that feels deprecated.

EDIT EDIT: Start8 does a pretty good job of keeping the old Desktop feel, while making the Start screen accessible and even more attractive. It’s certainly versatile enough to meet most everyone’s needs.

22

I’m curious, for those of us who plan to keep using the desktop, what does Win8 offer that’s new or better than Win7? Usually the only news I hear about Win8 is the metro tiles.

23

Well, it does offer a new and improved scale for the Windows Experience Index: 1.0 to 9.9

Just kidding. :slight_smile:

From what I’ve experienced so far, it brings along some performance improvements. I don’t know if it’s the dynamics in the UI, but it feels faster then Win7.

Everybody notices the Start screen and the tiles being forced as the default way to interact. It has the potential to be a good thing, because it makes the old shortcuts desktop (and the old Start menu) look dated, but it misses by not providing those few buttons for quick(er) access to some (key) areas.

One thing that made me loose some time and made me a little unhappy, is the lack of basic themes. For me, the basic themes were a quick way to universally disable DPI virtualization. But it’s nothing it can’t be fixed.

With all the new mobile OS’s and with OSX and Ubuntu and others bringing “new” concepts forward to get user’s attention, it seems to me like they wanted to make a statement: we can also play the UI game. Otherwise, it’s like a Win7 SP2. If they never release a real one for Win7, I think we’ll all be forced into Win8.

As far as the interaction and UI goes, I think that if they would’ve managed to make the mouse emulate some of the touching interface features, something like when moving the mouse to the sides, it will automatically scroll, like in swipe, and maybe some other simple mouse gestures for similar faster experience for non-touch machines, tiles and the Start screen would have been a BLAST on desktop too.

But, like with IE10, the mouse and keyboard interaction feels deprecated. Too many clicks and right clicks, and longer travelling paths for what used to be simple and fast to access items.

24

The only time I consistently see Macs in a business environment are when the graphic designers request (or beg) for them.

I have noticed that in the last two years, folks have started to become disillusioned with apple and apple products for various reasons (cost, loss of quality in support, various hardware/software limitations).

Windows 8 doesn’t appear to be much better as it is starting to develop some of the same “features” that have been leading to disillusionment of apple products. I really dislike it when software developers force their design preferences on users. I’d much rather see more built-in customization options, not just a one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter operating system.

25

I haven’t tried W8 yet, but it sounds like Microsoft got a bunch of gnome3 designers to work for them.

26

I just thought about this: this is exactly it. It offers you, the developer, the chance to testing live your own Metro Apps. Like OSX would have iOS in the next screen, at a touch of a button.

27

Absolutely, and for the first time in a long time they’re starting to irritate the long-time Apple fanboy market.

The latest issue they seem to be facing is the removal of certain applications. If I remember rightly the latest OSX update completely removed RSS functionality, so those that updated have completely lost their RSS feeds. It’s a move that Apple is happy with and historically they’re not a company to worry about user complaints. There’s also a lot of bad faith between them, developers and Android fans over their treatment of the app store and their legal action against Android.

This is where things now get interesting for Apple. Users are becoming disillusioned with how OSX is becoming more like iOS and to make matters worse Apple are under more pressure than ever for the iPhone 5 to knock Google and Android out of the park. The iPhone was last “redesigned” six years ago and it’s starting to feel dated when compared to the far superior products that Samsung are releasing, and as the iPhone amounts 40% of Apple’s revenue losing that market would kill them very quickly.

Apple have around five years to solidify their dominance and to see if they are a great company or the vision of one great man.

Although I agree with you it must be noted that the modern OS looks exactly the same as it did fifteen years ago. We’ve added some bells and whistles along the way but it’s the exact same system. Microsoft have had the stones to really change things and although people are going to hate it Microsoft need to stress this fact and that this is progress.

28

Not to discredit your experiences but ive noticed alot more use of macs in the buisness environment - and its not just graphic designers. a large number of web coders and other types of design (graphical or not) use macs as a standard - not something to be begged for.
The film an smaller time video production (commercials, etc) make very large use of Mac.

Generally speaking Apple offers a much more stable and secure OS than Microsoft - and they know it (ego accounts for a large portion of the price increase). Macs dont crash or have hardware or software failure as often as Windows PC’s, They are less susceptible to viral and hacker attacks, and in general they last longer. Granted there are PCs that have just lasted a stupidly long time (Ive run into people still running a Win95 system and refusing to upgrade) but after so long there is a significant performance decrease - Macs will go the same amount of time with significantly lower decrease in performance.

Again Im speaking generally, i have no specific cases to reference.

For home use and even alot of work i do i prefer a Windows PC but a Mac running OSX has substantial benefits of its own.

Just sayin.

29

A few more impressions.

It turns out the myspace problem has something to do with the player myspace uses. But Firefox crushing over Flash is still a very big issue.

Testing Chrome for Firefox replacement presents me with occasional frustration and walls. Mostly about little things, like not having the same customization options for the toolbar.

Otherwise, there are a few old bugs that aren’t yet resolved, like triple clicking to link select works wonders in FF, but in Ch it would select even the empty space in the paragraph, making the “Open link …” context commands useless.

It appears that, unlike FF, it starts text selection towards right hand and then it extends toward left hand. FF goes a step towards left hand and then it extends more in the same direction.

I’ve uninstalled Start8, I decided to go for the full Win8 Desktop&Start screen experience.

I’m still unsure whether the lack of Desktop Gadgets is something that bothers me. In fact, I’m still torn apart by the simplicity of the Desktop.

One one hand, I really feel like it’s lighter and smarter. Overall, it’s a pleasant experience.

One the other hand, it’s a little frustrating seeing how some of my long time user habits deceive me on Win8.

Being able to quickly switch between Desktop and Start screen with the WinKey is fine, but I’d still like faster ways to travel to a few significant places and options.

I haven’t done any real benchmark, but, from what multimedia experience I’ve had so far, Win8 is faster. I have a few more apps to test, development and such, but I suspect they’d be faster too.

One thing I noticed, previously open Metro apps don’t get (auto) closed at all. Or maybe they work by quotas, only when available memory isn’t enough that’s when they get disposed off.

30

Granted, in some workplaces that are more open and have more liquidity, you probably will see more Macs. Some people also just BYOD instead of using company-provided equipment.

As for video production, I have worked with both platforms professionally, and can produce videos just as easily on one platform as the other.

Generally speaking Apple offers a much more stable and secure OS than Microsoft - and they know it (ego accounts for a large portion of the price increase). Macs dont crash or have hardware or software failure as often as Windows PC’s, They are less susceptible to viral and hacker attacks, and in general they last longer. Granted there are PCs that have just lasted a stupidly long time (Ive run into people still running a Win95 system and refusing to upgrade) but after so long there is a significant performance decrease - Macs will go the same amount of time with significantly lower decrease in performance.

This is simply an outdated and largely false statement.

  1. Stability is about equal.

  2. If you buy quality hardware from manufacturers, longevity is about equal. The PC platform has a wide array of manufacturers making hardware for it; some produce junk (HP, Sony, Acer, Toshiba), some produce middle-of-the-road hardware (Dell) and a few produce high-quality hardware (Lenovo, Asus) that rarely fails. Apple simply has a monopoly on their products and production line.

  3. The only reason why OS X hasn’t been hit as hard as windows with malware and hackers is because the platform wasn’t nearly as popular a few years ago, unlike today. OS X is just as prone to infections as Windows is (although infections typically aren’t cross-platform, this is slowly changing).

but a Mac running OSX has substantial benefits of its own.

Honestly, I can do anything on Windows that I can do on a Mac. There hasn’t been a huge practical benefit to going with one platform or the other other than personal preference or company tradition in quite a long time (probably since the late 90s).

31

At the risk of fueling a Mac vs PC argument…

ForceFlow, your second point is basically conceding that PC’s have shit hardware a lot of the time.
Apple has consistently had superior hardware and software.

Like Tim, I’ve seen a lot more macs in the business setting and amongst developers.
One of the huge limitations for Windows for developers is the Unix shell.

32

This is a fact, but some companies (such as United Health Care) give their dev staff BOTH pc and mac laptops.
Each has its own benefits and they are absolutely NOT created equal.

33

Two key shortcuts I believe will gain traction quickly:

WinKey+X - In Desktop mode and in Modern UI mode, it brings up in the lower left corner, where the Start menu used to be, the power user menu, with a few key commands: Programs and Features, Task Manager, Control Panel, among others.

To note also, that hovering with the mouse cursor in the lower left corner will disclose a miniature Start screen you can click on.

WinKey+. (or > as in “to the left”) - In Modern UI mode, it snaps the opened app to the sides of the screen, one or two or multiple presses. Going to Desktop mode, the app will stick to that side, taking about 1/6 of the screen size. Now in Desktop mode, you can play the carousel with the two Win8 interfaces, each taking from the small side space to full screen space. Kind of fun!

If you take the time, I believe Win8 is rewarding. I’m definitely playing the game it wants and it is for better.

Whether you have a small screen or a huge screen is bound to cover both, either by Desktop or by Modern UI, or by the coexistence of both in the same screen.

This, having a Modern UI app sticking to the side, reminds me of the Office Shortcuts Sidebar. I’m sure that for users in Desktop mode, playing your developer cards right, you could design pretty useful Modern UI apps that take advantage of this coexistence on the same screen.

34

[QUOTE=itmitică;5165890]
WinKey+. (or > as in “to the left”)[/QUOTE]

Of course, it should be read ‘as in “to the right”’! Sorry.

Oh, and when in Modern UI mode, hovering with the mouse pointer in the upper left corners discloses a miniature Desktop you can click on.

With this hovering in the left corners, if you move up or down, it turns into a sidebar. This sidebar is much like a task manager, it lists the desktop and the apps. You can quickly close them down by right click and Close.

Remember earlier I said apps don’t autoclose. The above is a very handy way to close them.

35

I wouldn’t necessarily count IT and software development users. It’s a given that they would have/need access to multiple platforms for testing purposes.

That wasn’t really the point. You have choice with the PC platform. Apple has a monopoly. The few times that 3rd-parties have tried to enter the market with hackintoshes, Apple has sued them out of existence.

For the PC platform, sure there are a lot of sub-par manufacturers. But there are good ones too. And if you go with a good one, the point is that the quality and longevity is equal or better to that of the Mac platform.

36

I just installed the preview…

My feelings on metro are very mixed. It isn’t bad per se. If it was just a replacement for the start button it would be fantastic. A nice way to find programs and allow ones which were already running to display some useful information, e.g. the song playing in media player, inbox snippets from outlook, latest IMs. That would be brilliant

The problem is the “apps”. My main gripe is there’s no real “home screen” so it always feels like I get “stuck” there’s no way to get back to where you were very easily. I feel it needs, at minimum, a consistently placed “Back” button which takes you all the way back to the start menu if you press it enough.

Using metro on multi monitors is confusing at best. The second screen defaults to the standard windows desktop, which is fine. It’s quite nice actually. In theory it would be nice to be able to have the start screen continually open on the one screen, with perhaps a few docked apps running and the desktop on another. There is some bizarre behaviuor though. If I open the start screen, then click the desktop on another monitor… something happens. It will close the start screen entirely, causing the last app (or if it was the desktop, the desktop) that you had running to come reappear. This is confusing. I click an app on screen 2 and something entirely unrelated on screen 1 changes? That doesn’t feel right at all. It’s confusing, very confusing.

There is no way to close the app you’re on! If you hover your mouse in the top left, then move it down, you get a list of every running app… apart from the one you’re currently viewing! If you then right click, the app you can close it. You can’t close the one you’re on.

As for metro apps… they’re very hit and miss. They feel very clunky. I think they try to do too much. I feel that if “apps” were used for simple disposable tasks, such as writing notes, calculator, searching for a file/program and all ran within the start screen for instance on the wasted space to the right of it, and the desktop was kept for programs you’ll be in for an extended period such as a web browser, image editor, etc. The apps all use far too much screen real estate. There is no reason the weather app needs to be fullscreen. I’d much prefer it if it was able to be the tile size, and docked somewhere.

I quite like the idea of hotspots, and like them but the implementation with a mouse is AWFUL. If you put your mouse in the corner to get the start button, a thumbnail appears. This is good, this is a very nice visual clue, the problem is… it’s not a button! If you move your mouse back up/right to click the centre of it (because it looks like you can click it!), the thing disappears! Very frustrating. You actually have to click somewhere like the bottom 20x20 pixel square, rather than the thumbnail which appears.

I feel metro is a step in the right direction, but it’s also a step too far. I might see if I can develop a metro app to fix a lot of its problems. I think metro could be made fantastic by:

-Keeping apps ringfenced to tasks which are informative and not interactive. Weather app, news reader, video player, music player - great apps. Or apps which are for very simple, disposable tasks. E.g. calculator, you just want the result. You don’t care about saving it, opening files, or interacting with any other part of the system. Paint/drawing tool, not so great! Keep file open/save dialogs out of metro, they’re awful, clunky and any app which needs UI file access should be a desktop app.

-Using it as a task launcher. Rather than running “apps” within the metro UI, just use it as a replacement for the old start button. Launch desktop apps when they’re clicked.

-Using the tiles to display a ‘live preview’ of the running (desktop!) applications, rather than just an icon.

-Making the start screen a “home screen” allow half of it to be customised to contain informative apps

-Making the escape key in metro take you back, it’s just consistent behavior… or at least add a consistent close/back button!

Don’t get me started on the placement of the IE10 metro address bar at the bottom of the screen. Ignoring the fact that it goes against 20 years of people’s expectations, I don’t mind it at the bottom and in black, it’s quite slick. My annoyance is that it’s inconsistent with everything else in the operating system. As soon as you open IE10 on the desktop, the address bar is back at the top! You open windows explorer and the address bar is at the top. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs shooting!

Over all, I’d say metro could be the best thing to happen to windows in many years, however, the implementation is clunky, it doesn’t act like it should and it gets in the way too much. Given some polishing, and putting the user back in control it could be good, but MS need to take it a step backwards and limit metro’s influence over the OS.

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Actually, you can: touch screen swipe. But, for non-touch, I like to simply call it: drag it way down. It’s a “title bar” drag-and-drop to the bottom of the screen.

While in app, move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. It’ll change to a hand. While pressing the mouse button, move the mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen. Eventually you’ll get a big thumbnail of the app’s screen. That’s when you release the mouse button. The app is now closed.

I was lost too, at first, by the non-existence of a few software key buttons, but it appears they’re not needed. The hard button WinKey, on both mobile/tablet and on laptop/desktop keyboard and learning a few new things about the screen edges is all it takes. You don’t even need to unlearn anything.

Left screen edge is the Task Manager Bar. Right screen edge is Charms Bar. Top screen edge is App Control Bar. Bottom screen edge is Context Menu Bar.

Seeing that you and I started in the same place, finding the Modern UI a bit frustrating but also attractive, like a lot of folks actually, it seems like the Modern UI is something you need to learn about a little at first. Then, it all falls into its place.

The fact that you can have the Desktop and the Modern UI in the same screen, and interchanged them (“WinKey+.” carousel) makes it even more attractive.

So far, I’d say Modern UI redefines the apps design for Apple and for Droid. I really do believe now they’re on to something. It’s not them, the Modern UI that’s lacking in finishes, it’s us, the users, lacking a bit of knowledge and experience.

38

The WinKey hard button. The Start screen is your home screen.

Actually, this is what I believe to be the biggest shift in concept old Win users have to make, coming to Win8.
Desktop is just a regular, self contained, full screen Win8 app!

In each app, there is a back button at the top of the screen, for inside app use.

If you want to leave the app open and get to the Start screen, press the WinKey hard button. The app will remain open but hidden. Use the left screen edge to look it up in the Task Manager Bar to revert to it or close it.

If you want to leave the app open and present on screen, drag it to sides. It’ll take something like 1/5 or 1/6 of the screen. Use the WinKey+. to carousel between docked apps. You can still close the screen resident apps by “throwing them down” when they are docked to the sides.

If you want to close the app, drag it way down by its top. This will “throw down” the app, closing it. You’ll be directed to the Start screen.

39

I return to this.

The apps run full screen.
How to close them, when there is not software close button.

On touch screen devices, is simple: swipe the app to the bottom of the screen.

On machines without a touch screen I feel I haven’t made my self perfectly clear on the closing process: drag it the whole way down.

  1. Moving the mouse cursor to the top edge of the screen will change the pointer to a hand.
  2. Keeping the left mouse button pressed, move down the mouse cursor. It’s like draging a window using its title bar in classic Win. The app screen will shrink in size.
  3. Move the mouse cursor all the way down to the bottom edge of the screen.
  4. At some point a ghost of the app’s small screen will appear. It’s time to let go of the mouse button.

The app is closed. You’ll be redirected to the Start screen.

40

More Win8 stuff. This time: the bootloader.

After install, the Win8 bootloader takes over. It starts with a nice Modern UI list of previously installed OSs.

Bellow that, a “Change defaults or choose other options” entry. Click that and you enter a number of screen options. I believe there are a bit too much, too many screens that is, when they could have opted in for same screen submenus. I guess they wanted to be on the safe side regarding smaller screen size devices.

In the first screen there are three choices: Change the timer, Choose a default OS, Choose other options. Click on Choose a default OS and you can choose which bootloader replaces Win8 bootloader.

This is a good thing. As I’ve said before, after the first install, the machine really starts up with Win8, not just a bootloader for Win8. I guess is to improve the Win8 start up time. Choosing another OS means a restart. Which may not be so great to some. But the bootloader for Win8 makes it really easy to for the user to choose among bootloaders, it’s a bootloader manager in itself, and a pretty good one, I might add.

The one downside is the number of screens I have to travel until I find the option I’m looking for. It’s not confusing, the options are pretty clear, it’s just that, for example, to perform a Safe mode, you have to travel like this:


Change defaults or choose other options
|
 --> Choose other options
     |
      --> Troubleshoot
            |
             --> Advanced options
                   |
                     --> Startup settings
                           |
                             --> [list of options]
                                    Restart [to enable list of options, like Enable Safe mode]

A bit lengthy, but I can live with that.