

Why Windows Explorer in Windows 8 rocks - carusen
http://www.7tutorials.com/12-reasons-why-windows-explorer-windows-8-rocks

======
yogsototh
It took me some time to be sure it wasn't a satirical article.

I believe it might be nice for Linux users. But most "feature" are wrong for
standard user and even more for beginners.

=== my feelings:

Reason 1: contextual ribbon. Without talking about the visual attractiveness
it is a complete loss of space. It is like someone saying: "Hey, you know you
could do this!" "Would you want to open this image?". "Hey would you want to
see the size of you hard drive?". "Hey would you want to launch your movie
inside Windows Media Player given by you by Microsoft(c) for the unique and
incredibly user friendly Windows 8?"

Hey losing so much space for annoying possibilities. I don't know for whom it
will be useful? Annoying for power users. Noisy for new ones.

Reason 2 - Copy: ??? Incredible I can have a screen displaying how I copy a
file! I confess the ability to pause the copy can be nice for very huge files.

Reason 3 - Copy path button? Yes if you are a geek and want to use the command
line.

Reason 4 - Up button! Whoa!

Reason 5 - Customizing How To View Files & Folders is Dead Easy!: Just look at
the screenshot! There are at least 20 different widget! _EASY_? I don't think
so.

Reason 6: The Quick Access Toolbar! Yes, we didn't had enought button!

Reason 7: Searching is fixed in windows 8? Good news! Just some years after
Mac and Linux.

Reason 8: Open "cmd" on the current location. Great my son and my wife will
feel like "UB3R 1337!".

Reason 9: Mount ISO Disc Image. You're kidding, it wasn't here before?

Reason 10: Multile instance in multiple processes. Incredible, when the five
firsts windows will be stuck I could also stuck a new one :-).

Reason 11: Easy management of Favorite folder. Incredible! I should buy
windows 8 just for this incredible new feature! On XP I used ie6 to mark my
favorite folders.

Reason 12: Easy copying and moving files and folders. Super! I can now click
on another buttons! I love button! Give me more! Yeah, drag and drop is
boring.

\------

Sorry, for the general ambiance of this comment. I didn't want to hurt
anybody. But seriously, it is a joke. I only hope it was really a satirical
article in the end and I was trolled.

The only positives point are Reason 2, 7, 9 and Reason 10 which are bug fixes,
not features.

"Make It Simple! Stupid!".

Seriously, most of these feature are anti pattern for standard user even if
they seems good for many power users. Please, rename your finder: "pro-finder"
and in the name of everything good in this world make a "nice, simple, minimal
finder for the rest of the world!"

~~~
JonoW
"Make It Simple! Stupid!" - they have such an UI - Metro.

If you read out all these new features, does it not strike you that they ARE
building this for power users? I reckon Windows 8 is the transition OS, in the
future MS will try get standard home users off the traditional desktop and
onto Metro. There you probably won't even be able to see the file system at
all...

~~~
kenjackson
Right.

Classic dekstop : Metro as DOS : Windows

~~~
JonoW
In English?

~~~
kenjackson
I was just kind of doing a shorthand version of what you were saying, but in a
different way.

DOS was the power users shell, and Windows was the easy to use simple shell.

Now the classic desktop is the power users shell, and Metro is the easy to use
simple shell.

Very similar transitions.

------
larrik
I went in thinking "Yeah right", and came out thinking "whoa! that's pretty
cool!"

Some of these features I regularly add to Ubuntu (Terminal session here, or
mounting ISO's, for instance), and others I think are insanely important (what
is with OS X having no Up Folder button? I still have such a hard time getting
around without it.)

~~~
generalk
Several ways to achieve "up a folder" effect, if you're curious:

1\. Right click on the folder (so-called "proxy") icon in the titlebar, which
will give you links to all the folders up to the root

2\. Assuming you drilled-down into this folder from its parent, click the back
button or (with a multitouch trackpad) three-finger swipe to the left.

~~~
mattmanser
The up button was removed in Vista/Windows 7 and has now been re-added. It's
not a new feature it's just that most windows users moaned about its removal
so much they've finally caved.

All the functionality you're describing is available in Vista/Windows 7.

But the up button? It's just better. You don't know what you're missing.

------
sausagefeet
A lot of these options are going in the absolute wrong direction, I think.
They are cool for power users, but that is such a small portion of the
population. My grandma can use a Mac specifically because there are like 2
buttons for her to press on any window.

~~~
dorian-graph
Why is it going in the absolute wrong direction if they are good for power
users? Also, why must we continue to treat the normal user as _dumb_? My mum
now uses tabs in web browsers, knows a couple of shortcuts, etc. Let's promote
this and not pretend they are unable to progress past using a one-button
mouse. ;)

My Grandma gets along fine using Windows.

~~~
Meai
Because what you call dumb is in reality just complete lack of interest.
Having that many buttons on the default view just adds to the feeling of "what
in the world is all this shit"

------
huntero
"Reason 10: Can Run Multiple Instances in Different Processes"

I'm not sure "open new window in a new process" really belongs in a windows
menu. It's just more junk that only a tiny percentage of their users will
understand.

I don't think the idea of a process is anywhere in the technical vocabulary of
a typical windows user.

~~~
nolok
Worse than that tt's actually an option since windows 2000 and every windows
version since then, so it's nothing new he just didn't know about it. Most of
the other "power user" things like "open command prompt here" have been
available through power toys or such.

~~~
kenjackson
How do you do that in Windows 7? It would actually be useful for me on
occassion, but it never even crossed my mind that I could have a new window
open up in a new explorer process.

~~~
kprobst
Tools -> Folder options -> View tab -> Launch folder windows in a separate
process

~~~
kenjackson
Thanks. Not very easy to use, since I'd typically like to just use it on
occassion. But at least I know it's there now.

------
streptomycin
It looks incredibly complicated.

------
jvm
These are nice looking features. I don't always use a graphical file manager,
but when I do...

...but seriously, the thing I'm the most struck by is how ugly this thing is.
I guess MS blew all the design money on Metro.

------
drv
Several of these features are already available in current Windows versions
(perhaps less discoverable, but there nonetheless):

\- "Add to favorites" is an option in the right click menu on Favorites in the
left panel, works the same way as the new one on the ribbon shown in the
article \- "Run each window in a new process" has been around since at least
XP \- "Open command window here" is in the shift-right click menu already

On the other hand, several of the new features do look nice; (re)adding the Up
button is good, and "Copy path" sounds very handy.

------
contextfree
My favorite feature, which he didn't mention, is that you can now copy/move
items to ancestors of the current directory by dragging and dropping into the
relevant section of the breadcrumb bar.

~~~
kentchen
Yes, that's a very cool feature.

~~~
contextfree
I remember trying it in Vista and being disappointed that it didn't work.
There were a lot of times in my old job it would've been useful.

------
teamlaft
I still use WinXP - I'm partly change averse, and partly find some things in
Win7 (which I have on my laptop) more clunky than WinXP.

I happen to be in windows explorer a lot between everything I'm up to, and all
of these features linked look terrific and will make me much more productive.
So count me in as excited for a new Windows launch for the first time in a
while.

~~~
wvenable
I added Classic shell ( <http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/features.html> )
to Windows 7 to fix some of the clunkiness. With classic shell you can fix
some of the weirdness/newest of Windows 7 explorer while getting to use some
of the new features.

I'm so change averse that I still use the classic start menu (+1 for muscle
memory) but Windows 7 is such an improvement over XP that's it worth moving
to.

------
ethank
I wager "Finder" is gone by the next iteration of OSX. I think the file
paradigm is on its last legs, and of all the things I wish, it is that
Microsoft shored up their gumption to implement WinFS and the Cairo OOP file
system work.

The fact that we're still dealing with tree/branch file systems (for the lay
person) is kind of insane.

~~~
podperson
I think that "Finder" can become task / app / project centric with relatively
little effort without losing the _ability_ to view things in a File-centric
way.

That said, Apple doesn't do things in half-measures, so what I expect would be
Finder to be deprecated ("hey, it's in Utilities") and replaced with something
launchpad-like.

------
RexRollman
I don't have a problem with Windows Explorer in Windows 8, in itself, except
for the way it is so jarringly different than Metro. IMO, it is recreating the
X11 problem of too many UI tool kits.

Personally, I think Microsoft should consider creating a Metro based file
management system.

~~~
ajryan
Metro is content- and context- oriented. It will present a file browser when
you need one, containing the kind of content you care about. For example, add
a picture to a tweet in your Twitter app and get an image gallery. The idea is
for you not to have to care where files are located.

~~~
RexRollman
The problem with that is many people DO care where their files are. And to
have to use a jarringly different interface to manage them is asinine.

(Of course, if Microsoft doesn't do it, someone will; giving rise to 3rd party
file managers just like we had back in the Windows 3.1 days.)

------
mwill
Straight up these mostly seem like power user features, which has no place in
an interface for every day users. I feel like they might maybe be onto
something with Metro, but the new explorer is two steps backwards.

------
kijin
> Uninstall or change a program

That's a terribly long label for an icon. This and other unnecessarily long
labels are probably responsible for at least half of the "It looks cluttered"
complaints.

I generally don't mind the ribbon interface -- I've gotten used to it somewhat
-- but MS should really try to make the Explorer ribbon _appear_ less
cluttered. In Word 2010, few of the labels take up more than one line,
especially in the most commonly used tabs.

In other words, make the other ribbons look more like the "Search" ribbon
(Reason 7). It just looks much better organized.

------
vasco
It will rock when I can have tabs in my explorer

------
TwistedWeasel
Maybe windows power users might find all that stuff awesome, but I worry about
having to explain it all to my dad over the phone

------
Greg12x
[Reason 1: The Contextual Ribbon]

Your joking. Right?

------
cincinnatus
Most of this is in Win 7

------
swah
A a lot of buttons on those designs. One gets used to the opposite in OSX...

~~~
beedogs
Yes, but you also need to get used to the complete lack of useful file
management features in Finder.

~~~
zephjc
What missing features are those?

------
newobj
I read through the whole thing and honestly couldn't tell if it was being
sarcastic or not. Just the name Explorer alone is all wrong... most users
don't want to explore, they want to find. Maybe they should call it a Finder
instead. Oh, wait...

