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Windows Longhorn Beta Screenshots
An anonymous reader writes "A few screenshots of Windows Longhorn Beta 1 have surfaced on the net showing off many of the new transparency features, Internet Explorer 7 and Avalon or WinFX."
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I can say with complete certainty that the beta is still under development and has not been released internally or to the public.
seriously. Copying, but not doing a very good job on it. It lacks a certain.....um....style to it.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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Um... It was a general jab at Mac OS X being loaded with eye candy. Not so much a jab at Microsoft for copying the Mac UI.
Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
It appears that the closed window button (The ' X ', found in the title bar of each application window) has moved 15 pixels to the left.
Unfortunately none of the screenshots have any maximised windows but if the ' X ' button has moved for maximised windows as well then it will be the worst GUI decision EVER! Gone will be the quick hand flick up and to the right to close a window.
Using the 'infinite' screen real-estate in the corners and edges of the screen is very important but Microsoft continually abuse the said space and assign these areas as no-action spaces.
A truly terrible decision if it is the case.
On a more serious note, one of the screenshots (found here) says "you are here>>/home/". Is it just me, or does that look like Linux to you?
Foxed Design
Well, sometimes eye candy doesn't directly contribute to productivity, but helps reduce overall strain. For example, people used to think that shadowed window edges were "just" eye candy, but as you spend time in WMs that do shadowing, you realize it's a useful visual cue that keeps from obstructing other data on the screen.
Is it leaps and bounds better than a thin window border? No. Is it a small step in the right direction? Definitely.
Personally, I'll encourage all the iCandy that I can, because it drives people to make powerful display architectures. Without all the focus on visual glamour, Mac OS X wouldn't have Exposé, which I use nearly constantly and find to be superior to multiple desktops for many scenarios.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
For example, people used to think that shadowed window edges were "just" eye candy, but as you spend time in WMs that do shadowing, you realize it's a useful visual cue that keeps from obstructing other data on the screen.
Another example is the 'genie' effect when minimizing/restoring windows. At first it looks like a gimmick, but it is in fact a very useful visual cue, it shows you where the window went so you can find it quickly when you need it back. Nowadays, when I use Windows, I get annoyed by windows just disappearing into thin air.
Now, screenshots aren't a fair or accurate way to judge an OS and User Experience... but I have to say, if the article was titled Bored 15 year old creates Yet Another Windows theme, I sure as hell wouldn't know the difference.
... it's the same as XP ... just a few more items thrown in as far as permissions and security. So what exactly has Microsoft been up to for the last few years? This is the mind blowing, paradigm smashing rewrite? This is innovation?
.Net integration. What startles me is that it's taken years to get this far ... that does not bode well at all.
While the UI skin look nicer than XP IMHO, looking at the dialogues and options/settings
What really gets me is the same old tired icons and maze-like system of hierchy-tree gui navigation to be found in all the system level dialogues. That really grabbed me... it seriously gave me the impression that this Longhorn thing was nothing more than a candy shell slapped on top of the same shit MS has been selling for years.
I think it's very telling how seamless the user experience will be when the microsoft.com address in pic #2 is returning a server not found error... but let's pretend that the computer was unplugged from the net and the user typed in the redirect parameters in the url by hand.
So I'm left scratching my head... if this was indeed a complete rewrite from the bottom up as MS promised, then why the complete similarity to XP/2000/98/95???? Perhaps all their energy and focus was on real security considerations? Maybe that explains all the jettisoned features... Or maybe when they meant rewrite, they really meant pushing some code under the mat, swapping some API's out and splashing on a quick paint job oer the whole shebang to make the old look new again?
Of course, Longhorn is just XP with a new UI and added security with tighter
The command prompt shows C:\USERS\ADMINI~1\ . Funny how they still have problems with long file names and case anno 2005.
It's true, they are taking the "My" out of "My Documents" and friends. That "My" in there never looked right to me also.
Also, from the looks of that (still very ugly) command prompt in one of those shots, it looks like they're moving "Documents and Settings" to "Users." Which I think is a good idea also. 'C:\Users\(username)\Documents' is much easier to type than 'C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\My Documents.' Though '~' is still easier than both of those. ;)
I've recently started reading a book called "Emotional Design" by Don Norman - who is some kind of HCI professor. From what I can tell so far, one of the basic tenets of the book is the idea that objects (or software) that are aesthetically pleasing put us (humans) into a better mood while using it, and actually increase our productivity while using them. People will often be happier and more comfortable using something that is actually harder to use than some alternatives if it speaks to them emotionally. Does transparancy fall into this category? Seems likely...
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
I still cannot stand that default ms typeface, Trebuchet/Verdana? maybe? For some reason, it just doesn't fit, even with anti-aliasing and everything, just plain goofy. There has to be at least one UI designer over there who needs to speak up on the sloppiness/consistency of their UI.
When I first watched the Keynote where this OS was shown live, and now looking at the screenshots, I can't help but wonder: Won't these windows be impractical and ugly when maximized? I know I tend to do nearly all of my work in maximized windows, especially web browsing, and I don't think I could take surrendering the top fifth of my screen to some blurry amalgam of my desktop and ten underlying windows, each blurring the next, while the remaining 4/5ths are opaque.
This is to say nothing of how so many companies love using your boot-time to copy things into memory so that their load time appears fast. I'm looking right at Adobe, here. Microsoft is doing those companies a favor by requiring hardware good enough that their somewhat evil deceptions of speed are forgivable.
On the other hand, the learning curve for various linux distributions has changed in the last few years. Get yourself another hard drive, nothing fancy, even 20 gigs would be way more than enough. An old 8gig drive, even a 4gig, is sufficient. Swap out the hard drive, and install Debian. Instructions for getting the installation data are here, and instructions for installation are here.
There's only three tricky steps. First, you have to partition the drive correctly. For simplicity, make around 5% of the drive the swap space. Second, during the install process, you have to tell it what network card you have. This means loading the module for the right card. Generally, you can just try each module, and if it autodetects correctly and the name isn't obviously the wrong card, you're good. Third, when you are asked for packages to install, pick the simple method and choose the x-windows install. You will need to know what graphics card you have for this.
If all of that works, congratulations, you have one of the most powerful OSes on your machine now. Use 'aptitude' to pick more packages to install. For someone familiar with Windows, KDE might be a good idea. OpenOffice.org is a good alternative to MS Office.
The beauty of this is, if you screw up, fine. You've got some old harddrive screwed up. You didn't have to back up, and you didn't lose anything, because your windows installation is ready and waiting on your first hard drive. It was not even connected to the computer, so there's no chance of hurting it.
Of course, I'm paranoid, so I would say that you should make backups regularly as a matter of course.
I wouldn't throw all that Windows stuff out, as some of it can be useful, and the games are fun, of course. On the other hand, I dual boot, and I only use the Windows side for games. One of these days, I'm going to see if Guild Wars will work with WINE.
I wish we could get to other planets. Currently I'm following Richard Branson's funding for commercial space flight. But if you want to make the best use of your hardware, and not get screwed by software companies demanding more from you, try Debian. Now to find a spare hard drive to demonstrate for some friends...
Playing pornographics games during the day is evil! Play at night!
One of the things I'm expecting from Longhorn can't be seen in screenshots.
I'd expect a significant drop in UI latency due to the new minimal standards for video hardware, much like Panther. (OS X 10.3).
(for the ones that missed that, Geforce3+ or comparative ATI required. From that, it seems that programmable T&L is what they are after)
Anybody has any hands on info? Does LH feel faster than XP?
It's a hit or miss thing; I liked Aqua (it's getting kinda old, too many bad clones etc., but it was really cool when it came out), I hate brushed metal the widget style, but adore brushed metal the iPod style (i.e. iPod Minis rock) while I think that normal iPods look like cheap mice (Microsoft sold shiny white mice about ten years ago. Afaik they stopped doing that and that's a good thing). Mac Mini, Powerbooks good; iBook, iMac bad, etc.
With Windows even if I get bored of the shiny new looks I can switch back to Windows Classic which is perhaps the most unobtrusive look in existance.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
That's not plain transparency, did no one notice? There 's a smoothing filter applied to the items in the background, which allows for much more transparency to be used, without disturbing. Look at the first picture here (which is a mirror by the way) http://www.phoenixrealm.com/wp-gal/index.php?dir=. /longhorn
"xen: sure. Microsoft has something similar. So does Novell and IBM."
.NET CLR has been out for five, and it actually works."
.NET have that?
They do? You don't even know what xen is do you?
"postgres: A great database. Show me the innovation over MS SQL, Oracle, DB2 or Sybase."
User definable operators, user definable aggregate functions, user loadable stored procedure languages, user definable types. That's just for starters.
"reiser3: Sun and IBM beat Hans by a mile and a few years."
Really? How do their file systems deal with metadata compared to reiser3?
"ruby on rails: Surely you jest."
Why no I don't jest. Makes ASP look like yesterdays turd.
"parrot: In perpetual alpha for what, 6 years? In the meantime Microsoft's
Even in it's alpha stage it has multiple dispatch and multiple inheritance. When will
"jboss: And Fleury innovates exactly where? By coming up with new and exciting containers that break across J2EE implementations?"
Yes, that's the definition of innovation.
"Well, that was fun."
Yes it was. It's always fun to see somebody who has no argument go into insult mode.
"Of course you don't. You're too busy seeing innovation where there is none."
It's obvious you have no idea what open source products are really like.
evil is as evil does
Yes, you did exactly that. People who wait for miracles...you know what happens to them.
Ok, it sounds more like rant and troll, but I want to explore more of this ground. Actually Microsoft's inability deliver something which they haven't bought from others (or stole) and what could be top quality (not only 'good enough') surprises me. There are lot of smaller companies, yet, they deliver excelent products.
But Microsoft with all that money they have can't deliver at least something which doesn't annoy their users. It is sad to see that people rant about Internet Explorer, Office, yet they are chained to them for various reasons - apps, support, etc.
I have stopped to be angry and annoyed to Microsoft some three years ago when drop them from my active used OS list. I can say - after that, life have never been better.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
You can't take a competitors recipe and hope to change it "just enough" to make it look like your own. Like recipes GUIs involve a balance.
If your making coleslaw decide to cut the amount of mayonaise in half, your probably going to want to cut back on the sugar and vinegar too, unless you want to end up with pickled vegetables instead of coleslaw. This requires understanding what makes coleslaw enjoyable. Someone who has chanced upon coleslaw for the first time and is trying to imitate _and_ tweak it, just so that it doesn't taste too much like the original, will probably end up making something entirely different.
Same goes for GUI design, you can't slap competitor's ideas in there without understanding what made original recipe great, plain and simple. Market surveys may say people are interested in a competing product X, but without an understanding of why, you can only end up with a superficial and inferior imitation.
Microsoft has accelerated what appears to be their old GUI with GPU hardware and the result looks smooth and slick, but this only makes the old thorns look more enticing. It's amazing how much they pigeon-hole into the start menu, when most of the time users go straight for "Programs". Games, Music, and Pictures? Set Program Access and Defaults? Help and Support? Computer?!?! Even Programs is not categorized in terms of user goals, or sometimes not even even by application name, but by meaningless brands.
Like a good chef, MS management needs a vision to work towards, not a mish-mash of market surveys that say what to put in next. I bet there will be a link for MS' new blogging service on the Longhorn desktop, but little UI coherency implicit in the design. That starts with the OS and extends into the applications, where accomplishing most basic user goals should be implicit in the design - that means avoiding unnecessary clutter, and sticking to things that the user will find immediately useful in a given context.
But no, not for Longhorn, which will probably be more like a french onion soup without the sweet onions to temper the hardiness of the beef - with maybe a candybar thrown in there for good measure. Edible or even not bad, but definitely lacking some things and having too much of others.
Let's hope that they do, though if the layout of this desktop is any indication, it looks like a transparency skin for Windows XP and little more.
I wonder how many of the remaining features actually are going to make any difference this time round? Will Windows die-hards have something to brag about when the version one past Longhorn comes out...hard to tell. 8 ball says 'Try again later'.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Firstly, although I'm a Mac OSX user, and don't even have a PC capable of running XP let alone Longhorn, I think these screenshots show that Longhorn has indeed evolved since the first screenshots came out with alpha builds last year where that huge fugly task column/widget bar thingamajig was on the right hand corner taking up almost 20% of the screen.
It seems that since then Microsoft has toned Longhorn down to better fit within an XP user's experience, so as not to overburden upgraders. This is probably fairly important for business users.
Also, I am fairly sure that the transparency seen in these screenshots of window borders is just one of many default skins available and it won't probably be the default.
I am just as sure that the weird UI glitches, such as having the menu bar under the tabs in Explorer, plus the somewhat blocky and unseeming tabs themselves are all still in beta. They will probably change before Longhorn becomes a release candidate.
Otherwise, I kind of like it. The rounded corners are smaller than those in OSX, which I find good. The Start button is now fully anti-aliased as are all the window icons in the task bar.
How it all performs is imposible to tell from screenshots of course, so time will tell.
Yes, but in a stroke of genius they screwed up that feature when they copied it (unless it's been fixed in later versions of OS X).
Also, didn't they copy user-switching? But it's alright because they gave it a 3D animation, so it was innovative ;-)
And I think that freaking rocks. Seriously. There's zero learning curve, everything's where you expected, just a few differences here and there.
The difference is in the plumbing. Doesnt Windows XP look almost identical to Windows 95? Yet if you suggest both products have the same functionality, you are sadly misinformed.
Longhorn will be to XP what XP was to 95. An in-depth architectural redesign, with the same familiar user interface.
Some folks like to stick with what they know. I'm not ashamed that I still use Sawfish, when there are so many whizbang window managers/DEs/kitchen sinks around. The same is the case with the Windows UI. I've tried almost all themes, visual styles, stardock, etc. but I still stick with Windows classic.
And I think that's the biggest asset of Microsoft. When they ditch the familiar Windows UI, people will eventually start migrating to other platforms..
Yeah, that's something that you have to keep in mind about people. We're only as productive as our state of mind lets us be. There's been a number of articles over the past few weeks on /. about how IT people and programmers are working these ridiculously long work weeks, and how after 60 hrs, your productivity goes down, regardless of how smart you are, or how important your deadline is.
Plainly put, the bottleneck is hardly ever going to be the computer. Unless you're totally in the zone, you've got more stuff distracting you than transparency effects. If you spend so much time "in the zone" that all that is causing you serious time, well, spend one of your bouts of super-efficiency to create the perfect OS for yourself.
Efficiency at all costs is not a particularly natural human goal. I'd rather get 80% of what I'm capable of done and enjoy my life than make myself uncomfortable or even miserable worrying about that last 20%.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
And what would be the problem with that? Every small computer shop I know will sell you a PC without Windows.
If they refuse, refuse to buy/pay and go somewhere else. It's as simple as that.
http://jcsnippets.atspace.com/ - a collection of Java & C# snippets
why is the CD-ROM in red? Because you can't write to it? Doesn't red strike you as being a color that should indicate that something is wrong?
That is a terrible idea. Gray seems like a much more obvious choice, but perhaps that's just me. I wonder if there's any good human-interface text to read about designing this sort of thing.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I'm amused by "that search thingie." Everywhere seems to be going on about desktop search and integrated search and semantic search, when I have had approximately 3 times in my entire computing life been in want of such a feature.
Is it only me that values a sensible directory structure, with descriptive filenames and so on? Because the only time I need to use the find command is if I have a specific file whose location I don't know, or perhaps need to find files newer than x in folder y.
I envisage these searching revolutions as passing completely over my head in terms of increased usability. If I know where something is, then surely it is quicker to go there directly than to ask something where it is, no matter how efficient its algorithm.
im in ur
So it looks exactly the same as XP, only more so (presumably more drilling down in control panel is required to get to anything useful).
Surely what's needed is two sets of settings - an "idiot mode" and a "non-idiot mode". By all means default to idiot mode, but at least allow a common series of changes to be made by non-idiots without having to go through lots of different areas of the system making the same changes (turn off the search puppy, search for all files not just a subset, turn on explorer details view, etc.)
Cars have a similar idea for years, allowing you to turn off ABS, ESP or whatever, if that's what you really want to do.
Linux distributions tend to provide these two levels "out of the box" because in addition to a GUI frontend you've got the config files as well - so if you want to see EXACTLY what changes have been made by an action you can.
Despite not being a fan of Microsoft, I have to admit that the blur filter on their transparent widgets is a really good solution for usability. It'd be nice if I could add a blur to my transparent Terminal window, for example.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The problem is, when you put a nice interface on your computer, eventually you get used to it and it stops being nice. You could use a horrible interface for 6 months, or a great one for 6 months, and in the end you'd be equally happy using either because it's what you're used to. All the pretty interface would be doing is chewing up resources and slowing you down. The only way to keep your computer looking nice (to you) is to keep upgrading the eye candy every few days or so, either with new themes or new special effects.