Vista Shell Team now Blogging

davevr writes "Have you ever wanted to ask the people behind the Vista UI exactly what they were thinking when they did things like Flip 3D or the windows that turn black when maximized? Want a last chance to complain directly to the source about your favorite Vista UI glitch before it is foisted on you and the rest of the world? Just wondering what sort of people work on Windows all day? Well, look no further. The Windows Shell team now has a blog site for your reading pleasure. Head over to Shell Revealed and check it out. "

Comments

Eye Candy Good, Need for super computer bad

[corroncho]

I don't mind all the eye candy. Some if it's new, some not. But the thing that baffles me is that Microsoft needs the equivalent of a super computer's worth in graphics processing to make the stuff work. I haven;t seen anyting that I feel warrant that kind of power. Have you seen OpenGL? All the eye candy, and it runs on my old laptop.

___________________________

Free iPods? Its legit. 5 of my friends got theirs. Get yours here!

100% correct

[brunes69]

Have you seen OpenGL? All the eye candy, and it runs on my old laptop.

I think you mean Xgl, but your point is still valid. For anyone who has not seen Xgl in action, head over to YouTube and search up some videos.

I have Xgl running on my Xp1800 computer with a Geforce2MX video card from 2000 in it, and it is *smoking fast*, and the effects are far beyond anything that Vista does. The parent is really 100% correct - why does Microsoft need this much CPU power to do it's (relatively simple) GFX in Vista? Seems like they are a bit behind the times in terms of software here.

Re:100% correct

[Phisbut]

I think you mean Xgl, but your point is still valid. For anyone who has not seen Xgl in action, head over to YouTube and search up some videos.

Yes, I have seen Xgl in action, I have even used Xgl for a while on my box. While the spinning cube and the wobbling windows are nice and all, it is simply hell when you try to simply resize a window. I don't know the inner-workings of Xgl, but how can they make such 3D stuff and wobbling windows so efficient, while totally killing the actual usefulness of managing windows by resizing them? They don't show *that* in the videos.

I'll use Xgl again when I see a video of a window being resized as fast as it is with a regular 2D desktop.

Re:Just forget it

[xiao_haozi]

"A desktop OS should be valued for how good the compiler is, and for how many configurations you can make. Not for the look, the experience and the applications." Even though I pretty much agree that 'I personally' prefer a desktop OS that is about configurations and adaptibility, I have always come to the assumption that quite a number or users look for "experience and the applications" in determining their opinion of the OS they are using on their desktop. Maybe I am incorrect in assuming that, but my experience has tended to be that most users are concerned with the applications side of things for an OS. Isn't that one of the top complaints when people try to convert their peers to OSS alternatives (especially the infamous OS alternatives)..."But I can't use my 'XYZ' applications, or open 'ABC' file formats". This is personally why I like an OS like Ubuntu for my main desktop machine as it has given me personally the best of usability, configuration, power, and looks right of the install DVD. But that is just my personal opinion of my 'desktop' desires.

My Question

[RAMMS EIN]

I haven't really seen a lot of Vista that impressed me enough that I remember it now...but I have one question. What the heck _were_ they thinking when they made that Expose knock-off (I don't know what it's called) that puts the windows _behind_ one another?! I mean, the whole point of Expose is that it arranges windows so that they _don't_ overlap, so you can see everything at once.

Dear Win32 developers, why is the API so ugly?

[master_p]

Dear Win32 developers, why is your API so ugly?

Here is a short temp list of problems:

1) why did you force an object-oriented system on your window system? why each window has to be an object? why didn't you separate the windowing system from the widgets library? the OO system you have adds an additional overhead for languages that want to have their own OO system.

2) why only one message queue? why not multiple message queues? why each windows message can not have an arbitrary amount of data?

3) why do I have to register a windows class? the API could have been much simpler if I simply passed a set of attributes in the creation routine.

4) why the return value of WindowProc is so strange? sometimes the valid return value is 0, sometimes it is 1.

5) why the function GetMessage returns a BOOL which actually has 3 values (TRUE, FALSE and -1)?

6) why your widgets are not autosizing? I have to manually resize each widget when its content changes (for example text or font). Why there isn't geometry negotiation as in MOTIF?

7) why every window has to have a frame? why didn't you separated window frames from windows? all the messages like WM_PAINT, etc are duplicated as WM_NCPAINT etc.

8) why didn't you use a property system for windows and you had to use the problematic 'set values' interface?

9) why the text resources of a GUI app can not be changed on the fly? why text is not a separate file?

There is no doubt that the Windows Shell is and has always been eye-catching...but to program it, one needs to use an API on top of it that abstracts its ugly details. And don't tell me it is because system-level programming of GUIs is difficult, because there are many window systems around that prove you wrong.

Re:Just forget it

[drsmithy]

The main problem with Vista is that "there is nothing new invented here". All of the applications in use today cannot be improved by going to 64 bit (accept a small set of engineering & scientific apps). Nobody can name a single benifit of Vista for Internet usage, playing music or watching movies.

Well, that's largely because there simply isn't anything new that needs to be done for such basic, single-purpose tasks. If all you want is a dumb terminal to run a handful of applications now and then, there haven't been any improvements for ~15 years.

When M$ can invent something new and productive, then it will be good.

There's not really anything "new and productive" that *can* be invented, by the standards you appear to be using.