

The overlooked issue of Windows 8 - daniel_t
http://www.binarypassion.net/2013/04/the-overlooked-issue-of-windows-8.html

======
brudgers
The overlooked issue with Windows 8 is that it is fucking awesome. I've got
the desktop for clutter and the black background for reading and other focused
tasks...when I need them. All just a single keypress apart.

I still spend most of my time on the desktop, but when I want something all it
takes is a single keypress and to start typing. No navigating an arbitrary
hierarchy of menus where how things are filed made sense at the time they were
filed. It just finds the damn thing.

It is better Windows, but change is hard.

~~~
rammark
_when I want something all it takes is a single keypress and to start typing.
No navigating an arbitrary hierarchy of menus where how things are filed made
sense at the time they were filed. It just finds the damn thing_

Wasn't this available in the Win7 (and maybe Vista) start menu?

~~~
LeonidasXIV
This is also available in GNOME 3 (and previously you could use tools like
Gnome-Do, Quicksilver or Kupfer). Quite useful, I think.

------
bornhuetter
Metro apps are entirely optional, and the desktop is not going away. I don't
like Metro apps, but I just don't get it when people seem to think that their
very existence is a big problem. Windows 8 on x86 has almost exactly the same
desktop paradigm as Win95-Win7, but with the added ability to run mobile apps
if you really want them.

Widgets in Vista sucked, but everyone just ignored them. Why not just ignore
Metro apps if you don't like them, and wait and see if they get better?

~~~
RyanMcGreal
It's hard to ignore something when you are forced to click past it every time
you start up your computer.

~~~
bornhuetter
It takes about 20-30 seconds to remove all the preinstalled metro apps from
the start screen. By the time you have installed the usual programs like VLC
they will grab all the file associations and you will never see Metro again,
unless you want to.

~~~
shocks
As I understand it, this is not true.

Personally, I like to hit the windows key, type "fi", and hit enter to start
Firefox. On Win7 this is a pleasant experience, on Win8 I feel like I'm being
punched in the face by a wall of colour.

~~~
bornhuetter
I almost exclusively launch programs in Windows 7 and 8 by pressing the start
button and typing the name of the program. I've found Windows 8 to be better
at finding the right program, and a lot better at finding settings when I want
to change them (although I would prefer it if they displayed apps and settings
on the same page).

I can see how some people would prefer the old menu in the corner to the full
screen, but personally I think the full screen is better.

I'm not sure what part of my comment you are saying isn't true?

~~~
mscrivo
> (although I would prefer it if they displayed apps and settings on the same
> page)

this is coming in 8.1, thankfully.

~~~
manojlds
Source?

~~~
mscrivo
[http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/blue-s-clues-new-search-
ex...](http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/blue-s-clues-new-search-experience)

------
bentcorner
One of the comments after the article points to one of my gripes with modern
services: increasing pervasiveness of single sign-on.

I don't mind signing into Win8 with my live id, in fact it makes migrating
settings and such really easy. The problems arise when I want to use an
application with a different account than the one that I'm currently signed in
as. It just doesn't exist.

This bit me hard when I was trying to set up Metro Skype (on a surface rt) to
be a standalone auto-webcam, and as far as I could tell there wasn't a way to
log into Skype with an account different than the one I used to log into
Windows. I had to create a new Windows Live account just for this task.

This issue isn't isolated to Win8 (I imagine I would run into similar problems
with Chrome OS). It's becoming more common and very, very annoying to deal
with.

------
teach
Amen. It bothers me more than I would like to admit that I can't tell how many
applications are currently running on my Android phone. Or then when I press
"back", sometimes the application quits and sometimes it doesn't.

~~~
sixbrx
Can't you just hit the little multi-box icon on the bottom right always (to
the right of the home icon)? Then swipe an app away to kill it.

~~~
gardarh
My understanding is that this does not kill the app, merely removes it from
the list.

~~~
bornhuetter
It kills the app on my phone (Nexus 4 Cyanogenmod). If I ever get a slowdown I
open up the switcher and swipe away all my recent apps to close them.

------
Ralz
I think your point on application management is a bit weak. I have several
applications/services running on Windows 7 without any visible windows present
( i.e Apache, Adobe Service Management, spotify web helper etc..). For a lot
of these I had no choice if they were installed, I frankly don't even know how
some of them were installed. A suspended Windows 8 app isn't much different
than these and at least Win 8 apps consume zero CPU cycles while suspended.

------
RyanMcGreal
One of the things I immediately disliked about the Ubuntu Unity interface was
that it wasn't immediately obvious what applications I had open. The visual
cues have gotten better in more recent releases, but I still don't feel that
Unity is quite usable without also running a dock (I ran Docky for awhile but
more recently run Cairo).

~~~
bornhuetter
I dislike the dock in unity as well - I find it's too in your face, but I've
heard that auto-hide and a few other aspects have been improved in recent
versions, so thinking of giving it another go. I do find it all very dark
though, and generally preferring Mint.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
I decided to stop worrying and love the Unity some time between 12.04 and
12.10, and I've gotten quite used to it. I use the Radiance theme, which is
brighter and cleaner looking than the default Ambiance theme. (And I have my
minimize/maximize/close buttons on the right side - some habits die hard.)

I tried Mint but found it clunky and unstable. For a while I used Ubuntu with
the gnome-classic desktop, but it got harder to make it work with everything
else, which kept changing. I also tried Cinnamon but found it extremely
unstable - my desktop would crash routinely.

Unity is pretty good and keeps getting better. My other main request would be
to make the icons smaller - the smallest default size is 24px.

In unrelated news, I was happy to discover after upgrading to 13.04 that my
phone, a Galaxy S3 running Android 4.1.1, now auto-mounts into the filesystem
via MTP. (It occurs to me that my gratitude for something as basic as plugging
a device into USB and having it Just Work may be a warning sign of Stockholm
Syndrome. Yet it also occurs to me that I haven't paid a penny for Ubuntu
since I first installed version 8.04, so I think on balance that my gratitude
is well-placed.)

~~~
bornhuetter
Thanks for the tip on Radiance - I found Ambiance too dark, but Radiance does
look nicer (more similar to what I like about Mint). I think I'm going to give
13.04 another try tonight.

I used to Ubuntu Tweak to change a few things like making the dock extra
small, but that seems to be discontinued. Do you know of any other utility for
tweaking Unity (such as moving the buttons to the right side)?

------
Kiro
I personally have no problem with this. One of the biggest vexations when I
use Mac at work is that I can't maximize a window without manually adjusting
it by dragging the edges. I always want every single window to take up the
entire screen even if there's "no content" there.

~~~
lucian1900
Why would you want an app to take up more space than strictly necessary?

~~~
sixothree
Because he wants to. That's the exact attitude I hate most about this
industry.

~~~
lucian1900
That is still an option, and various environments have added new features for
doing that better (like OS X's fullscreen mode).

The mini-debate is only about the default.

------
xradionut
The major problem with Windows 8 is that Microsoft shafted developers/admins
with yet another major shift in tools, UI and APIs and system changes. (cha
ching!) Metro Apps aren't rich enough to be decent replacements for desktop
apps, nor are they good enough to match others rich web applications.

As a developer, if I'm having to shift focus, I'm going to explore
alternatives outside the Redmond garden that give me more control and cost
less. As much as I love VS and SQL Server, a growing number of my
clients/projects can do equally well or better with OSS solutions.

------
jiggy2011
The question is what does it mean for application to be "running". In the past
I remember closing applications down when I wasn't using them to save memory,
now if I run an application I generally won't close it until I shutdown the
computer.

Also many applications will make some attempt to start you again from where
you left off last time when they are reloaded and modern OSs will try and
preload common applications into memory at boot.

------
Zigurd
There is a quote I have no attribution for, but I recall seeing it a long time
ago, long before 2650x1440 displays were economical: "The desktop metaphor
works better when your screen is the size of a desk."

Handsets don't need a desktop metaphor. Tablets don't need a desktop metaphor.
So the question is, do you make an operating system for devices that do not
need and should not have a desktop metaphor, or do you try to stuff a mature
operating system imbued with the desktop metaphor into a tablet?

The inappropriateness of the Modern/Metro UI in Windows 8 goes deeper than the
user experience. Modern/Metro UI apps are severely limited in their ability to
communicate with other apps. They are over-sandboxed and crippled compared to
both Windows desktop apps and Android apps. And yet, Modern/Metro UI is the
only way to implement a satisfactory touch UI in Windows 8.

The result is a mess of hardware that enables touch, with dubious ergonomics
and software that is limited but touch-appropriate or powerful but bad at
touch.

~~~
sixothree
I have two 24" monitors and two 17" laptops on my desk right now. Windows 8 is
definitely not for me.

------
kenjackson
What about the app list that is on the left side of the screen (hidden by
default)? Doesn't that show you the list of all running apps?

~~~
brudgers
The author's argument is vacuous. All* versions of Windows allow for
applications to run when their window is minimized. And there's all kinds of
crap that runs as a process or in the systray.

And if anyone wants to know what is "really" running - i.e. using resources -
they use TaskManager or a similar tool.

*O.K., I mean "at least since 3.1."

~~~
kenjackson
Actually that is an excellent point. And if anything, Windows 8 cleans up Task
Manager to make it easier to see what is running and in what context.

I think in summary Win8 provides more views of running processes than Win7.

------
micromarty
If Windows 8.1 gets rid of you having to use metro, it will be awesome. I like
everything about windows 8 minus the metro part, which is were almost all of
the windows 8 complaints go. Hopefully Microsoft will deliver.

