Reply 100 of 317, by SirNickity
wrote:wrote:The UI elements are inconsistent
Not really. Windows is just using two design philosophies at the moment - their flat "Metro style" applications that are pushed through the store and are available in light or dark color schemes and the legacy Win32 applications we've been used to since at least Windows 95.
Uh, so, did we just say the same thing just then? I don't mind having a BC layer, but when they can't even be bothered to make the OS itself follow a unified design philosophy, then it's not ready to be thrust upon innocent bystanders yet. It just reeks of an attitude of "eh, who cares anyway.."
And then there's stuff like this:
wrote:There are certain system configuration options that are accessed through the modern UI, and then some that are accessed through the legacy UI.
wrote:That is really annoying! As much as I like Windows 10, Microsoft had so much time to put everything in one place by now and they just didn't do it! It looks like they abandoned this approach after copying over most of the settings and just left it that way.
Every time I install Windows 10 on a new PC I always have to look for the option to put the My Computer icon back on the desktop. I know it's somewhere in the Appearances setting, hidden in a small text link on the right sidebar. But it's so stupidly placed, I always forget where it is.
A complaint I have as well. Where did it go? Does it even exist anymore? Can I not be trusted to change things like that now, or is it just buried in some "legacy" settings dialog fifteen related-item clicks from here?
I know liking the aesthetics of an environment you use for 8 hours a day is superficial and all, but there are things about the UI I would really like to tweak. And AFAICT, you just can't. You get backgrounds, screensavers, and your choice of "accent color." I guess that's progress..?
And there's stuff like this:
wrote:What I'm more worried about is when mmc snapins get dropped like with Exchange. Then the noobs have to use the shitty web interface or be advanced enough to use powershell whereas at least MMC was familiar enough for point and click.
Taking away features is NOT an improvement. If you can't think of a better way to design it, maybe just don't redesign it. Often, their decision is to just nix it entirely. Uhm, I was using that....
I had a client ask me once if I could help them with a mail problem. I'm not a MS enterprise software guru, but I've admin'd Windows systems in the past, so I figured... sure.. I'll take a look and see if I can help. Nope. It's all 100% PowerShell now. The one thing Windows had going for it over Unix systems was that at least you can crawl around a GUI and maybe find what you need to change. Now, you have to know the clumsy "everything is an object" metaphor and noun/verb syntax of PS. That put a huge learning curve in front of what should have been... I dunno, a quick change of MX records or whatever it was.
wrote:What I see is that more and more of these arguments boil down to people just defending what they're used to.
I find it interesting that technology follows more the fashion methodology, than the tool methodology. Nobody is out there trying to redefine the screwdriver. But polka-dots and a defining border around a clickable element were soooo last season. I was really puzzled why the W10 Explorer window had two identical icons with a file folder in the top left corner, until I figured out that one was the control menu icon (forgot about those, since they only exist in about 50% of the applications anymore) and the other was New Folder. Right next to it, which is... I guess(?) a logical place for a commonly accessed function?
I've been a lot more comfortable since moving to OS X for my day-to-day work, because the UI doesn't get in the way. I don't have to guess what something does. Settings are nearby, they're generally not hidden in a way I have to go looking for them (unless it's truly the kind of stuff you ought not to be fiddling with, without a good think beforehand -- in which case it's probably a CLI thing or in a preferences file. Fair enough.) And interestingly, despite that High Sierra (what I'm using at the moment) feels fresh and new, it's not really that big a departure from Cheetah... 10.0... released something like 20 years ago. You could pretty much upgrade from 10.0 to 10.14 and it wouldn't take any time at all to adapt, because it's fundamentally the exact same. Sans brushed metal and bubbly buttons.
Meanwhile, Microsoft can't figure out if my computer is a wristwatch or a conference room presentation board or a desktop PC, and so the interface is stretched like taffy to be all things to all people... ending up being a poor touch UI, and a not very well optimized mouse / KB interface. I could get used to it, but after half an hour in the toilet you get used to the smell of poo. That doesn't make it a desirable scent.