Gustav Brock
gustav at cactus.dk
Sun Nov 25 02:55:52 CST 2012
Hi Shamil Yes: - you open one or more apps - switch to any of these - move the mouse to the top-left corner. A Desktop miniature is shown - right-click on the miniature - choose from the pop-up menu: Pin to left (or similar, it's localized) Now the running Windows desktop apps are vertically listed to the left and the RT app at the right. If you double-click the divider bar, it moves to the right maximizing the desktop app with only the right vertical band of the RT app visible. Pull the divider bar to the right or left screen edge to exit the mixed display mode. Based on what I've read and watched and my meeting with some of the Metro design people at a meeting here some months ago, I for once think you are wrong. I'm convinced that heavy research following the "glass look" Avalon interface of Vista and Win7 and how to design a reinvented Windows Phone interface, the bright Metro team came to the conclusion that the aera of skeuomorphs in computer interface starting with the NeXT computer, OS/2 and Windows 3.0 and evolved into the absurd with the iCalendar and the Bookshelf as prime examples, has come to an end. It has to stop, if for nothing else because children and young people will not understand it. On the other side, graphical designers have for decades known how to communicate fast and efficiently with people at any level. Given the very conservative computer users and the extremely conservative corporate users, this is a brave and aggressive decision done by Microsoft. This is not just a smart move to be different. The five design principles just seem so right and up-to-date that you may wonder why they haven't been pulled forward before. Of course, your two arguments are not false, they are just spin-offs. And yes, I do remember the surface table. It looks funny today but can be seen as one of the steps taken to get where we are today. /gustav >>> mcp2004 at mail.ru 23-11-12 16:31 >>> Hi Gustav -- Good to know you're an advanced Win8 user. I will keep consulting about "hit the corners" and other tricks with you here, OK? BTW, did you find a way to put several Win9 "Metro-style" UI running apps *windows* tiles on a big 23 inches screen? Jensen Harris presented an example with Twitter window tiled on the left side of the screen and the "main" app tile on the right and occupying the whole rest part of the screen. May I put three Win9 "Metro style"/WinRT running apps this way? If Yes, how can I do that by using a regular notebook "armored" with touchpad only? <<< The reference to 1992 is very good and explains why a GUI in 2012 cannot be based on a 1992 environment ... it's 20 years ago. >>> Yes... and No. In fact, in my opinion (I can be wrong), the main reasons to design and build "Metro-style" interface were: - 1. Legal - they (MS) wanted to avoid by any means "copycatting" Apple UI ideas introduced in iPhone and iPad; - 2. Technical - they (MS) needed to put "new Windows UI" running on relatively "weak" ARM processors. Do you remember "Windows Surface Table" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYoCmPKqHoY*- that was year 2009, the year Jensen Harris tells in his presentation MS started to design and develop new "Metro-style" UI, the year when *iPhone 3GS was released. Do you see any "Win 9 marks" in the past "Windows Surface Tablet"? It looks more like Apply taskbar put in the middle of the "Windows Surface Table" screen... Yes, MS did a very good job in the given context - still "In Windows 8, Metro is not complete" - one can expect it will get rather significant improvements in the coming years as it always happened in the past with MS products.. Thank you. -- Shamil Fri 23 Nov 2012 14:18:56 от "Gustav Brock" <gustav at cactus.dk>: >Hi Shamil > > Well, I've used Windows 8 from the beta and haven't missed the Start menu for a second. Of course, you have to learn to "hit the corners" but that comes quickly. One thing to learn, however, is not to switch off the computer, just touch the power button and it falls to sleep - touch again and it is ready in a few seconds. > > The reference to 1992 is very good and explains why a GUI in 2012 cannot be based on a 1992 environment ... it's 20 years ago. > > /gustav