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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.
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.
It makes me wonder what axe TFA's author has to grind. It's a UI model people liked, and (shocker) Apple added a similar interface to Spotlight. It's far from the first on the Mac, and exactly nobody at Apple would claim otherwise.
The first (that I know of) is LaunchBar, which started on NeXTSTEP; and even that is probably not the first interface (I'll bet Xerox PARC had something similar too...)
There were probably a dozen (at least) LaunchBar and similar launchers in OS X before Apple made their clone.
Bottom line: It's a good interface, and Micorosoft would be crazy not to use it.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
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?
That's your prerogative, to be certain, but why? You prefer to have to click through a bunch of icons and/or menus to get to a search functionality option somewhere in your UI? Do you just memorize the location of everything?
Me? I have 0 icons on my desktop and only a handful on my hidden taskbar and I use the MacOS search to launch just about everything else.
It's fast and easy; like tab-complete on the CLI. Just seems like a no-brainer. To each their own.
'Except they aren't copying Apple...
It's an old UI paradigm. It's been implemented since 1996 (and probably earlier), and has multiple implementations including two in KDE alone (to say nothing of the dozens of others that exist in Windows, Mac and Linux).
The only interesting thing here is that Microsoft is baked one into Windows, just like Apple did; and in both cases, they did it years after third-parties did it...
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
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)
It looks like shit.
... It's good to know that Microsoft has yet to be accused of tasteful UI design.
What is wrong with the search on the start menu.
The only thing I can think of is that the center of the screen is also the center of attention.
LaunchBar (and QuickSilver, Launcy, whatever clone you pick for whatever OS) are useful for a lot more than just launching programs, which is why they're so popular.
Has Linux improved any in the 'having games worth playing' front?
Depends on your tastes, of course. The following is a selection that covers simulations, racing games, FPS games, strategy games, survival horror...
* Anything from Valve
Strategy:
* Civilization 5 & 6
* Civilization Beyond Earth
* XCOM 1 & 2
FPS:
* Borderlands 2 & DLC
* Outlast
* Alien Isolation
* The Metro Series
* Dying Light
* Rust
* ARK: Survival Evolved
Racing/Driving
* GRID Autosport
* DiRT Rally
* F1 2017
* Rocket league
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
There were Apples before Macs; show some respect for your elders. And get off my lawn.
Dude, I am with you on the keyboard. 3 the MacBookPro, especially the touchpad, hate the keyboard (mostly due to lack of keys). I have ranted on this repeatedly. I've been wondering if anyone would be interested in a kickstarter to fabricate a new bottom for the MacBookPro that would feature a full keyboard and be thicker with extra ports. I call it the PhatBook Pro. And while we are on the subject, I refuse to buy anything without at least on old school USB 2.0/3.0 port.
Microsoft is innovating in Software Licensing agreements and cloud lock-ins. I have MS stock and it is rocking!
And, of course, thereâ(TM)s Steamâ(TM)s remote play capability, and NVIDIAâ(TM)s cloud gaming.
I can see remote rendering becoming serious business - no console to buy, no expensive gaming rig. Just stream to an tablet or phone with a Bluetooth controller.
It may not do for latency-sensitive games like multiplayer FPSâ(TM)s, but 40-80 ms of latency isnâ(TM)t an experience killer for an awful lot of games.
Having used remote rendering for games, I can say first-hand: itâ(TM)s not perfect, but not having to buy multiple $1000 GPUâ(TM)s to render at full detail has its charm.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
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
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.
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?