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New Windows Search Interface Borrows Heavily From MacOS (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Press clover-space on a Mac (aka apple-space or command-space to Apple users) and you get a search box slap bang in the middle of the screen; type things into it and it'll show you all the things it can find that match. On Windows, you can do the same kind of thing -- hit the Windows key and then start typing -- but the results are shown in the bottom left of your screen, in the Start menu or Cortana pane. The latest insider build of Windows, build 17040 from last week, has a secret new search interface that looks a lot more Mac-like. Discovered by Italian blog Aggiornamenti Lumia, set a particular registry key and the search box appears in the middle of the screen. The registry key calls it "ImmersiveSearch" -- hit the dedicated key, and it shows a simple Fluent-designed search box and results. This solution looks and feels a lot like Spotlight on macOS.
The thing I don't get about Windows 10 is its continual upgrade. This means there is always changes to the UI, which can get annoying... Sure I like a change in UI for my home system, but that is me and I like trying new things, but I have seen users stop in Panic because I have changed the background from #3366CC to #0033CC just so the white text would be easier to see. I had to deal with many angry emails from this change.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It looks like shit. What is wrong with the search on the start menu. Nothing once you disable Cortana. Fuck this and this OS. Has Linux improved any in the 'having games worth playing' front?
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Srsly?
There is not a single element of the Windows UI that does not borrow heavily from Mac. What is Apple going to do, sue them? They already tried.
Instead of focusing on this stuff, Apple should instead focus on making a decent piece of hardware: like a keyboard that doesn't suck. I'm sure someone in the world likes that keyboard, but there don't seem to be many.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Copying Apple has worked for 30 years. Why quit now?
http://applemuseum.bott.org/se...
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
This is nice and all but maybe the could fix search first so it actually works? The damn thing breaks every other time I use it and I've yet to find a better fix than rebooting and hoping.
Scooby says "Can you say lawsuit?"
It's worth noting that Apple copied Spotlight's current interface from an app called Quicksilver. Sherlock, Apple's previous search interface (also cribbed by Windows), was taken from an app called Watson. While I'm at it, don't forget that iBooks was copied from Delicious Library and then later reproduced across with Windows ecosystem.
It's the circle of life.
I'd turn off and never use...
It's mentioned on the 2nd page of search-results and it, erm... points directly back to this article.
Anyway, I guess we all finally learned what "CMD" means after all these years.
This has been part of KDE (KRunner) for at least a decade.
Like that Cortana bitch.
Uh, keyboard launchers have done this forever on both Linux and Windows. Let's not make this another thing we falsely believe to be an Apple invention.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
4...3...2...
Off the top of my head I can think of Alfred on the Mac.
I'm pretty sure there were probably other apps before that one too...
Breaking news! The ghost of Steve Jobs has been secretly running Apple via an Italian what-I-imagine formerly Lumia/Windows Phone focused blog. More at 11.
that is known since the 80s as the "splat" key. n00b5, anyway....
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
What the hell? Press Start button on any Windows PC, start typing, it does the same thing as Spotlight and it has done so for as long as I can recall.
Welcome to the current year, where despite having access to the INTERNET, the amount of ignorance from FAGs is so rampant, it's spreading into everyday life. Moving from Mac OS to Windows was the best thing I could have done, as it's at least a clear separation from all the FAGs that still masturbate to their ignorance about OSs in general.
If you want to have a Windows versus Mac OS discussion, where as who borrowed from you, you're 20 years too late you! FAGs!!!
Yeah, but you don't though, do you?
QuickSilver started off in 2003, and is a knockoff of LaunchBar, which has been around for NeXSTEP since 1996.
Launchy started ~2007 or so.
To say nothing of the dozens of others for Linux, Windows, and Mac.
It's a useful (and popular) enough interface that both Apple and Microsoft baked it into their OS.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Even "everything" isn't particularly good compared to it.
Why can't people develop a powerful search? I want to include an exclude file types, search within size ranges, specify a path to search, etc.
Locate32 still does this, I think the latest build is 3.1 RC3m 11.7100 - it's sadly abandoned but does the job flawlessly..
I'd bet dollars to donuts, without even looking, that the Microsoft search looks flashy and 'clean' with very little tweakability to it. (example, I index my NAS drives)
Copy. That's what innovation amounts to in MS. So, no news here.
Okay Windows guy, it's command-space on the Mac (aka apple-space or clover-space to Apple users).
There were Apples before Macs; show some respect for your elders. And get off my lawn.
It's time to talk hidden planet theory because nothing is working with this company that should have it all. There are bad dudes in charge of Microsoft who are tearing it down because it's located outside Silicon Valley and that whole CIA power nexus. Anal exam their board of directors for the culprits. The whole company is being dumbed down and flooded with SJWs who do nothing on Channel 9 but talk nonsense and giggles. Nobody trusts UWP because it's almost completely undocumented and hokey. Office looks trapped in time. Bill Gates said so himself. Microsoft needs to be purged of everyone but devtools and OS. The rest have just lost their way or never had it. Azure is all they produce and it's used for bots to harass political speech online. LinkedIn is a pathetic surveillance grab. Microsoft is going in a bad bad direction. Evil like Google.
That explains why it's fucking awful.
If you search for 'documents' on an OSX machine it take you to documents on your computer. If you search 'documents' on a windows computer, it will open a non-default web browser, a substandard search engine and start searching for your local files on the web
Microsoft search is broken. It was okish in Win7. But something changed and now trying to search the pc for basic features like ‘accounts’ or ‘user’ will confuse the fuck out of me.
Spotlight is fucking amazing, quick and packed full of useful OS features. The two are just not the same at all.
Quicksilver on OSX with its extensiblity and key learning is still better than spotlight.
Please put the Spotlight search box back in the upper-right corner of the monitor.
Exactly
Search is for retards who don't know where they put their shit. Like Mac users.
Want to cripple a computer's performance? Don't disable search indexing. No fucking thank you.
I know exactly where I put my shit.
Apple's search indexing is completely unobtrusive, except in the first couple of days after a major rev. OS upgrade.
So apples crappy software doesnt slow down your machine unless it is slowing down your machine. Good to know
Nope, when I hit Windows and search for Documents I get my Documents folder. Oh, I'm using Windows 7, not that pile of shit they're shipping now.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
except in the first couple of days after a major rev. OS upgrade.
So exactly the time where people who care about responsiveness go "This version sucks. Reverting"...
What you guys *don't* know about Spotlight's abilities is amazing.
Ignorance is bliss I guess.
Go ahead and criticize what you don't understand.
Please continue to make false, incomplete and just plain wrong assumptions about how it works and what it can do far, far beyond windows search.
No affordance anywhere. It looks dreadful. The first thing you have to do nowadays when presented with any program interface (because they're almost all 'flat') is read EVERY word on the program and try to work out what is and what isn't a button. It's ridiculous. It's as if a law was passed that said "It is now illegal to use buttons, visible 3D buttons, on programs", so we all have to GUESS what is and what isn't a button, and then memorise it for every screen/dialogue box of every program and website we use. And all because 'it's fashionable'. Ask any of these so-called 'designers' why they have done things this way, and they will say 'clean, uncluttered' etc. Just endless bullshit from idiots who can't design to save their lives - hence they COPY somebody else's bad design, and we have a 'trend'.
1) Windows+S to open search
2) type "documents"
3) press Enter
4) My Documents opens in a file explorer Window
This is on Windows 10. What are you talking about?
Hmmm. I'm on Win7, and when I hit Windows+S, a notification pops up saying, "Microsoft OneNote 2013 - select a region of the screen to create a screen clipping or click anywhere to cancel."
I just did this. I typed Win+S, "documents" (no quotes), and hit enter. The_Revelation is correct.
The top result is "Google Docs, Sheets and Slides". Hit enter and you aren't connected directly to that result. Edge launches with the Bing search in place. Useless.
Searching "thermostat", a word that occurs in almost every significant document on my computer, also gives me a Bing search for thermostats.
It is true that Win 10 has quirks where it's not consistent in using Cortana or local search. Your computer happens/happened to pick correctly for the "documents" query. It's difficult to work around the limitations of an inconsistent interface.
I have typed the same search twice in a row and been given completely different results. It's maddening. Spotlight doesn't do this.
Putting a search textbox in the middle of the screen is hardly borrowing heavily from Apple any more than they tried to pull that shit with anything with a rectangle is Apple. Fuck off with that shit. This is not Wired.