Discussions

"C07ft5Y" is related to SafeDisk copy protection. Mine has a bunch of games that I have installed listed under it, as well as "WinXP".

Tom Servo wrote:

Take a look at the shell in classic mode in Vista.

Classic mode is only skin deep. You still have the new UI layout and behaviors to contend with.

New search integration and file management

File management? ... Didn't they also REMOVE most of these features, which were part of their new file system?   If you were paying the least bit of attention, you'd notice that video was from last September. Yes, those features are still in Vista.

Adobe.

They took a very useful file format and free reader for the format and turned it into a bloated, nagging, buggy, bundleware crapfest.

Any company that came forward to take its place in that market would be on notice not to follow the same path lest they be struck down in turn.

Apple had a Human Interface Group (HIG) at one time that I believe functioned much as you describe, but Jobs disbanded it almost 10 years ago when he retook Apple.

Apple still has some Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), but judging by their wanton application of brushed metal over the years, and constant revamping of other UI features with every OS version, I don't think they pay it much mind when they feel like making something look "cool".

I was under the impression that each product at MS has its own UI design team.

prog_dotnet wrote:

what about object serialisation

Where are you going to store it?

C'mon, Apple doesn't screw consumers, it screws its own ISVs!

They've released a new easy to use template based web site editor called iWeb. Sounds great!. It also appears to be a near exact clone of Karelia's Sandvox! Some may remember that Apple did the same thing with Karelia's earlier product Watson, releasing a clone called Sherlock.

They could have at least had the decency to buy Karelia. It makes one wonder why anyone would write software for Mac OS, as if there weren't enough other obstacles.

TiAdiMundo wrote:

This isnt about personal taste i think. Vista feels like professional developers created the interface and not designers. Because good interface designers know that an interface must be in the background, focus is on the content. Best interface is no interface!

The whole thing is black and gray. How more in the background can you get? If you've followed the blogs and interviews of the Aero designers you'd know that what you describe is one of their core goals.

TiAdiMundo wrote:

And if you look at the new Media Player 11 interface than you can see, that this is a very bad design. The big blue Play button dominates the whole screen and there could be more room for the content.

I think the play button is too small in WMP10 and is hard to read becuase of the "glare" of the reflection across the middle of each button. That button is probably the mostly commonly pressed button in the WMP UI. It makes sense to make it bigger.

TiAdiMundo wrote:

There are also big failures in Aero Glass: look at the buttons in the corners like the Close Window button in full screen mode or the round Start button: one big fundamental rule in good ui design is to put important functions in the corners of the screen but they arn't exactly there. There is little space beside the start button and the X button to the screen corners and you could click in that space!!! How terrible is that?

I was worried about that with the start orb, but you can click the area to the left all the way into the corner of the screen, so no problem. I agree about the close button not being active in the corner. I don't know if they fixed this in that last build.

TiAdiMundo wrote:

And from a graphic design and ci perspective: Aero Glass has nothing to do with previous MS designs but with Apple's interface. Why not make an evolutional step? And not such a sleazy retro stylish copy of Apple's Aqua designs? It's embarrassing! (by the way its funny that Apple reduces many of the aquaesque style elements in the last 4 years and MS overdraws all of them now).

I like the new look for the most part, and while I don't think the look is a ripoff of Aqua as you claim, I do think that MS is making some of the same mistakes that Apple did with the first versions of Mac OS X. One that comes to mind is the translucent titlebars. Mac OS X had these orginally, and users bitched and moaned about them being unreadable when you had multiple overlapping windows. That translucency has since been reduced or eliminated completely in subsequent versions. I think Aero has the same problem, though the frost effect alleviates it somewhat.

TiAdiMundo wrote:

So i can't believe that this is the final user interface because it is the badest microsoft ever released (if we forget BOB). And that after such brilliant designs like Windows 95 and Luna? I don't think MS managers are so stupid. But if this is true, i have to switch (and i am not an Apple fan!)

Well, I think it looks pretty good. I didn't like Luna at first, but I like it now. I think Windows 95 looks like &*$# these days, but I liked it fine back then. Mabye it really does come down to personal preference (and familiarity) after all.

It can never keep enough vid buffered for me.

It looks like ASUS has one too that's a bit more portable.