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What's Different About Vista's GUI?
jcatcw writes "Paul McFedries, author of Windows Vista Unveiled, thinks that an operating system should be thought of as more than just its user interface, but then again that interface should work well for the user. He thinks the Vista interface rates 'pretty darned good.' The Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) results in positive changes for both developers and users. Developers can do 2-D, 3-D, animation, imaging, video, audio, special effects and text rendering using a single API. The use of vector graphics and offloading work to the GPU result in better animations, improved scaling, transparency, and smooth motion."
Then why are the CPU requirements for Aero so high?
I think you hit it on the nose. I'm not particularly fond of KDE/Gnome, but they seem years ahead of the Explorer desktop. For various reasons I've had to use an XP desktop and laptop recently. Some of the more annoying things:
1) Right clicking the desktop brings up a menu with some useless entries such as "Arrange Icons By" and "Refresh". Sure, those can be useful, but not for me. Problem is that I can't modify it to be more useful. E.g., have it launch a command prompt, an editor, browser, etc.. This is particularly onerous on an extended desktop with large displays. You can't use the mouse effectively to get to the Start menu since you may need to cross (at worst) two whole desktops. Someone suggested moving the menu to the rightmost display to halve the distance, but this is a kludge. Sure, you can also use the Windows key... But wait, this keyboard doesn't have one...
2) One desktop... You can't easily segregate tasks with a single desktop. The Powertools can add this, but it's broken for lots of apps, including Microsoft's own Excel which has problems when you move from window to window when Excel is maximized or minimized.
3) File explorer doesn't have tabs. I've gotten so used to tabs in Konqueror and Firefox that this is painful on Windows. They caught on with IE7 and did a decent job of it, but when oh when will this be available elsewhere?
4) CMD.EXE is very limited in resize capability. You can put in arbitrary row/columns, but this requires menu entries rather than a drag resize.
5) Every once in a while (say once a month), the window gets shifted *above* the active desktop. You can't alt-drag the window though and have to resort to some control key madness to bring it back. If it happened more often I would remember the key sequence... but it doesn't.
6) What rhyme or reason is there in where new windows pop up? For example, double click on My Computer and it may or may not appear on your primart display. Sometimes it's on the second head, sometimes on the first. If I move the window to the primary and then launch another one it appears -- heh, sometimes on the second, sometimes on the first.
And I could go on... But the XP desktop seems to 1996'ish.
Don't believe these articles--Vista's interface sucks. Weirdly, it gives you a headache after a while and you begin to long for the simplicity of XP, and switching to the Windows Classic theme doesn't completely alleviate it.
By default, windows actually "fly in" to view. EVERY SINGLE WINDOW. You will be annoyed after 30 seconds.
Every window border has a gigantic window border with an ugly blurring effect, giving everything a weird camouflage look. Microsoft didn't know how else to deal with overlaying text on top of this, so they just put a white haze behind letters which look utterly bizarre and actually makes it difficult to read.
Vista still takes a ton of mouse clicks to accomplish tasks that take only one in competitors like Mac OS X. In the properties dialog of my wireless network connection, there are actually TWO properties buttons--one labeled "Wireless Properties" and one below that named "Properties." Nice!
Vista also stole several Apple-isms, like the monochrome motif of the system tray icons that has been a staple of Mac OS for quite a long time. The speaker is actually the very same sideways speaker with three sound waves coming out the right, increasing and decreasing with volume. What a strange thing to clone directly from OS X.
You'll also laugh at the ridiculous replacement for the busy cursor. Microsoft has attempted to copy Apple's radial progress bar in the past (using eight segments instead of the doubled amount Apple uses...bizarre), but they couldn't pull it off. So they came up with something else that attempts to rip off both the radial progress bar and the spinning beach ball, which is a goofy blue ring. Seriously, a blue ring with a little sparkle spinning around and around.
And you'd better get used to the color blue. If you thought Luna was hilariously bad (I still don't get how Windows fans defend that theme), wait until you come across the puke-worthy blue and seagreen EVERYWHERE in the Vista interface, complete with a 1980s-style animated ribbon swoosh in the corners of the windows. Does Microsoft even hire graphic designers anymore? This company has enough money to buy the best designers in the world, so why do their interfaces consistently suck so much?
The sidebar is just stupid, and you'll turn it off immediately because it actually slows startup time. Dashboard, on the other hand, doesn't load itself until you actually initiate Dashboard for the first time.
And UAC...ah, UAC. I'll just let you get to know UAC for yourself. You'll see.
On the contrary, Apple is several iterations ahead of where Microsoft finally is (by six years, to be precise), and they've been moving steadily away from the translucencies and highlights toward a very clean, minimalist appearance. When OS X Leopard comes out, it will look very professional when placed side-by-side with Vista, which looks like a toy. I'm looking forward to the comparison reviews in the major mainstream publications.
"Sufferin' succotash."
On the contrary, Apple is several iterations ahead of where Microsoft finally is (by six years, to be precise), and they've been moving steadily away from the translucencies and highlights toward a very clean, minimalist appearance.
This is a very good point and one that I often think of. I remember when the OSX beta came out (yup, I bought a copy) and I thought that the translucency was over done in the drop down menus but I didn't worry because it was a beta and they had a new model to play with. Of course over time they realised the translucency wasn't helping and successively toned it down so that now it's pretty near exactly right. Everything I've seen of Vista reminds me of the OSX beta which puts them 6 years behind. And with no graphic design skillz. I just don't think the punters are that stupid anymore - they are not going to be impressed by Vista.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"