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UI Features That Didn't Make It Into Windows 7
TRNick writes "TechRadar talks to Windows 7's Senior User Experience Designer and discovers the interface ideas the Windows 7 team almost, but didn't put into Windows 7, and the stages various UI features went through to their final form. Quoting: '... The next prototype, in February 2007, was called the Bat Signal; when you moved your mouse over an icon in the taskbar, the full window would pop up on screen, highlighted by beams of light (a little like the Batman signal projected over Gotham City). Bat Signal made it easy to find the right window but it caused other problems: 'sometimes people toss the mouse down to the bottom of the screen when they're typing because they don't care where the mouse is and the Bat Signal pops up and that's really intrusive in their flow.' Bat Signal evolved into Aero Peek in Windows 7; you can hover over an icon to get thumbnails and hover over a thumbnail to get a preview of the window."
It makes me nervous enough to have miniature popups of certain windows....
KDE 4. This is where Microsoft apparently borrowed their ideas this time.
Want to hear the voice of GOD? cat
Yes,
thumbnail previews.
Hover over task to get preview.
Click once to get a full size, fully interactive preview.
Click again to hide it.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
KDE 4. This is where Microsoft apparently stole their ideas this time.
Fixed that for you.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The recycle bin was changed to a chair icon, and whenever users would hover their mouse over it furniture would start flying around the room at random and howler monkey screams would emit from the computer speakers. This caused way too many worker's comp complaints, not to mention growing hostility in the work place.
KDE 4. Microsoft saw it was incredibly pretty and also didn't bloody work and thought, "I gotta get me some o' that!"
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I use Cygwin. In an xterm. Antialiased fonts are the work of Satan!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Should be -1 Troll.
Wow, nobody has any sense of humor today....
as Microsoft has a well paid legal team at their disposal which would most likely prevent unauthorized usage of patented ideas.
Yeah, when would Microsoft ever violate patents?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Gone off our meds, have we?
The new Fuschia Screen Of Death was left out after they determined that it would *not* require users purchase new FSOD-Ready video cards and monitors.
Bash screens. Macros. Feh.
I wire 75 baud 20 ma current loop leads directly into the muscles of my left forearm. I use slightly rusty safety pins to pierce my "insulation". I key Baudot by flexing my left index finger and decode Baudot from the computer by feeling the twitches of my left pinky finger.
Yes, half-duplex. It's a luxury, but you gotta treat yourself right sometimes.
Oh, yeah, I use csh too. Because sometimes you gotta treat yourself badly to compensate for the luxuries of things like half-duplex.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
macros?? feh. I've 8 flip switch and a enter button to enter ascii characters - a la altair.
Aero Peek isn't totally new. Vista has had Aero Peek all along. The difference is that in Vista's Aero Peek, you weren't able to see ALL the peek preview windows by hovering over the taskbar stack. You had to open the taskbar stack's context window that showed all the different items, then you could peek at each item.
Oh wait, I forgot. Vista doesn't exist. Sorry about that. I must be new here.
Unless you're Google. Then the beta is the shipping product. ;)
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
Remote cockpunch feature still unimplemented
First things first. We need to invent a device that remotely stabs people in the face, first.