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Microsoft Sees the Future of Windows 10 as Sets, Ditching Windows For a Tabbed App Interface (pcworld.com)

Posted by msmash on from the up-next dept.

Microsoft said Tuesday that it plans to overhaul Windows 10, with a browser-like, tabbed application view dubbed "Sets" that groups apps and files by project. From a report: Think of Sets as a mashup of existing and emerging Windows 10 technologies. Take Windows Explorer and the little-used Task View within Windows 10, mix in the newer "Pick up where you left off" and "Timeline" features, and wrap it all into a single-window experience. The idea is that every task requires a set of apps -- Mail, a browser, PowerPoint, even Win32 apps like Photoshop -- and those apps will be optionally organized as tabs along a single window. But that's not all. Microsoft knows that one of the most difficult things to remember isn't what you were working on a week or so ago -- browser histories help with that. It's remembering all of the associated apps and documents that went with it: a particular PowerPoint document, that budget spreadsheet, the context an Edge tab provided. The idea is that the delayed Timeline feature will eventually group and associate all of these into a Set, so that when you open one, Windows will suggest the others, too.

14 of 302 comments (clear)

  1. Haha by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Funny

    You mean like this? https://d2.alternativeto.net/d...

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    1. Re:Haha by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      More like multiple desktops, which I thought Windows 10 was supposed to support anyway. Every free desktop certainly does.

      Multiple desktops sounds better than this in every way. Just needs some updates to better support multiple monitors and it would be perfect.

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      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Haha by Rob+Y. · · Score: 5, Informative

      Or like 'Activities' in KDE, which is like multiple desktops - but much more. So much more that nobody understands it or uses it. But hey, it's really powerful. Too bad I only use my KDE-based system to browse the Internet.

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      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
  2. Re:WTF? by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It sounds to me like they want to turn everything into a browser.

    --
    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
  3. Reinventing the Taskbar by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From a caption in the featured article:

    This is the traditional (and effective) way of working with multiple documents within Windows 10: Snap View. Sets would slim this down to just one window.

    I'm not sure how cutting this down to one window would help. If I'm reading a document and taking notes on what I read, I want to have the document and my notes and side by side, each in a 960-pixel-wide window on my 1920-pixel-wide PC monitor. So unless Sets offers a similar option for a side-by-side view, I don't see how I could adjust myself to its workflow.

    Essentially, Microsoft is reworking the Desktop Windows Manager within Windows 10 to enable app switching via tabs, versus more traditional windows.

    I thought Windows already had that since Windows 95 and Windows NT 4, and it was called the Taskbar. Keeping a particular task's windows together is part of multiple virtual desktops, which GNU/Linux has had for well over a decade and Windows recently gained.

    1. Re:Reinventing the Taskbar by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Keeping a particular task's windows together is part of multiple virtual desktops, which GNU/Linux has had for well over a decade and Windows recently gained.

      Comparing Linux/Unix X windows work spaces with Win10 workspaces is patently unfair. Win10 workspace has absolutely no customization, no discernable different between work spaces. Does not have "sticky" windows. Can not relocate a window from one work space to another.

      Back in 1994 when I got my first HP-UX, I set it up with SIX work spaces, each with its own wall paper, its own name. The sticky dock at the bottom would let me switch to any desktop directly without cycling through all desktops.

      I am currently using some ancient window manager xfwm that has more ability and customization and fast response than win10.

      Win10 workspaces is the perfect example of too little too late.

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  4. From the people... by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...who brought you the Ribbon. And Windows 8's "Tablet interface for desktops".

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    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re:From the people... by CaptainDork · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This.

      The first thing people do is go for the old Windows 7 desktop look and feel.

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      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  5. Can they let me move the tabs to the bottom? by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe let me customize the tab bar with some quick access buttons. Make one of the icons the Windows logo. Then put a clock on the bar, and make it blue. And add some more quick access icons next to the clock. Oh, and make all the tabs icons so I can fit a lot of them on the screen. It'll really be the future.

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  6. iPadification by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's funny how iPadificaton of the desktop OS seems to be a threat constantly looming over the Mac, yet always lands on Windows...

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    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  7. Dumbing down for the lowest-common denominator by sremick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because people apparently are too stupid to handle "windows" and can't handle seeing more than one app at once?

    R.I.P. productivity. At least for businesses. There's a reason I kicked Windows off my workstations at home 15+ years ago and have been running FreeBSD (yes) and Linux ever since.

  8. Re:Reinventing the wheel? by Entropius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, because it's already been in use for 20 years, and thus can't be a Bold New Thing for some team at Microsoft that needs to justify its existence to management.

  9. Welcome to OS/2 WARP by ArhcAngel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OS/2 had a task folder option that let you create a folder on the desktop and drop shortcuts of any apps or files you wanted to open when that folder opened. This sounds like they are going to merge the ChromeOS desktop with OS/2 task folders.

    --
    "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
  10. Ah, the mating cry of the "UX expert" by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Funny

    "You know how to use it! We have to change that immediately!"