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Time:
15:02 EST/20:02 GMT | News Source:
MSNBC |
Posted By: John Quigley |
Perfect? No way. Think of these items as a working to-do list for Windows 8
1. Overall consistency
For a Microsoft product, Windows 7 is quite refined. But it still suffers from needless inconsistency. Why do most of its tools place menus on the left, while Internet Explorer 8 and the help system shove them over to the opposite end? Does the new media-sharing feature (HomeGroup) have zero, one, or two capital letters? Why does Office 2007's Ribbon interface show up only in Paint and WordPad?
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#1 By
17855 (205.167.180.131)
at
10/19/2009 4:29:54 PM
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Honestly I don't know where to start with this, or to laugh or cry that this stuff even gets posted...
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#2 By
236197 (68.225.93.235)
at
10/19/2009 5:02:30 PM
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1. Overall Consistency - Always a work in progress. Even if Microsoft catches all their own stuff up there will always be a myriad of stupid programs following their own quirky UI rules.
2. Shut up.
3. Still needs to know if it can restart when its done installing without you telling it to. Otherwise, set it to update later when you aren't working.
4. Because its a nice feature but not necessarily something that a large percentage of users will take advantage of anyway.
5. Internet.
6. Duplicates - yes. But adds visual preview so its better for managing large numbers of windows.
7. Least Windows doesn't delete your backups...
8. 3 retail versions. Thats not hard.
9. Perfectly adequate. Don't like it, don't use it.
10. Why? They want XPS to catch on. I love XPS. Its so much better than PDF. Adobe is nothing but bloat at this point.
Kthnx.
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#3 By
13997 (68.118.60.164)
at
10/19/2009 6:18:01 PM
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Ok, this is a pretty silly article and list, but there are some major factual errors.
Let's do an easy one....
"6. Flip3D
Press Windows-Tab, and you get Vista's fancy 3D task switcher, which pointlessly requires you to cycle through tasks one by one. This duplicates the functionality of Alt-Tab instead of enabling you to get to any task in a couple of clicks, as Apple's similar Exposé does. "
Actually, when Flip 3D opens, you can click on any Window in the displayed stack to bring it to the front. Just like Expose and just as easy.
Do people really not just click on the Window they want and instead 'Flip' through them? Also you can use the Scroll Wheel on your mouse to spin through the Windows at a rather high speed if you can't see what you want instantly.
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#4 By
23275 (68.117.163.128)
at
10/19/2009 7:09:56 PM
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Ignoring of course that Microsoft had an expose feature that one may still use with its Intellipoint mouse software for years before Apple's "expose" copied it outright.
Similarly, Logitech has copied it with its setpoint software and both existed before Apple added to their OS.
Avenger is quite correct about Flip3D, which departed from the flat appearance of expose so one could fit many more open windows on a screen and click on any one of them is a lot more useful than it has been reported to be - most mouse-ware provides for Flip3D access by pressing down on the mouse wheel - another Microsoft innovation.
Clearly, those in the press that have reviewed the OSes, beginning with Vista, have not used them - or worse, they have and choose to characterize features as they have. They seem to come very close to marketing for others and against Microsoft.
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#5 By
15406 (99.240.77.173)
at
10/19/2009 7:16:36 PM
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#1: I would imagine that these are aimed at the non-expert users. Most of what he complained about was minor stuff for seasoned users.
#2: 7. Least Windows doesn't delete your backups...
Tell that to Windows Home Server. Or have they fixed that backup corruption bug already?
10. Why? They want XPS to catch on. I love XPS. Its so much better than PDF. Adobe is nothing but bloat at this point.
Don't confuse the PDF standard with Adobe's fat reader. Foxit Reader is lean & mean at 5 MB. On the XPS side, is it saddled with the usual sneaky patent hooks? If it doesn't offer a lot more over PDF and has strings attached, there is no incentive for people to use it. MS offered the Community Promise not to use implementations, but I don't know if a promise is legally binding.
#3: If you have to use the mouse as well as Win-Tab, you may as well have just clicked it in the task bar.
This post was edited by Latch on Monday, October 19, 2009 at 19:23.
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#6 By
23275 (68.117.163.128)
at
10/19/2009 8:03:05 PM
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If you have to use the mouse as well as Win-Tab, you may as well have just clicked it in the task bar
One need not. For the last time.... click the wheel on the mouse and then click the window you want brought to the front and use.
All need to stop confusing others about how to use the feature. it is very fast and easy.
Flip3D is easy and a feature. It is not eye-candy. It is used to manage open windows.
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#7 By
23275 (68.117.163.128)
at
10/19/2009 8:08:38 PM
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The Windows Home Server BUG was very different and impacted a small number of users under specific circumstances. It was fixed over a year ago - after clear guidance was published about how to avoid it.
OS Snow Leopard's guest account BUG is deleting all user profile data. It is a more serious matter.
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#8 By
13997 (68.118.60.164)
at
10/19/2009 11:37:09 PM
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#5 "Don't confuse the PDF standard with Adobe's fat reader. "
True some people confuse the 'viewer' with the specification. However, there is some bloat in how PDFs work by nature.
The real argument against PDF and for XPS is rendering fidelity, and this is where you find companies like Xerox and others that work in the 'print' and 'press' industry still working on moving to XPS for these reasons.
For example, XPS is far richer in what it is capable of rendering and displaying in terms of native content, especially when it comes to advanced Vector handling. For example, XPS can define and display VERY COMPLEX vector based content that PDF has to resort to rendering to a Bitmap to uphold the intended visual content.
Even Adobe's Illustrator can't truely use native PDF for even what limited advanced vector and layering features Illustrator supports. (i.e. The PDF adherence is also a reason why Illustrator falls behind other illustration packages becaue it tries to adhere to what PDF can do.)
If you go back to when XPS was developed and search for some of the Xerox and other videos talking about what XPS brings to the printing industry, the list of features it can render and do with higher quality and also color fidelity is quite impressive.
XPS is based on the WPF/XAML display system developed for Vista, and what is ironic, when you look at what you can render in a PDF natively without turning content into rastered images, it is virtually equivalent to GDI or more specifically GDI+ which is a very old rendering system.
This is also why advanced rendering on OS X can't use native Display PDF, and instead has to render to a bitmap/raster image to display properly on the screen. Just as Illustration programs have had to do on Windows when using the GDI/GDI+ system to render the content created.
Now on Windows, WPF applications that use XAML/XPS can pretty much leave all elements in native vector format and render directly to the Vector based Composer in Vista and Win7 in constrast. (MS Expression Design and Blend are two good examples of consumer level applications.)
PDF needs a major overhaul, as it is just an extended version of the original Postscript, which is very much dated in graphic terms of today. When dealing with multipath layering and transparency masks, these are really lost when trying to define them in a PDF, thus why these complex images are rasterized.
The printing and press industry that deals with PDF compliant devices really are tired of the PDF problems and lack of consistency in rendering. So they have invested in high cost devices, and yet are left to rasterizing the entire PDF content before sending it to the device to avoid rendering issues, clipping problems, etc.
So this is why PDF is not so much 'bloated', but seriously lacking in features the specification can handle. If you end up rendering 60-100% of the PDF content to a rasterized embedded TIFF, why not just use a TIFF and ensure pixel for pixel fidelity?
Take Care...
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#9 By
230538 (74.219.160.9)
at
10/20/2009 7:18:36 AM
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One issue which I've found with Win7 is that if you have windows explorer open and you're browsing a cd/dvd, if you take out that cd/dvd, windows explorer will close. With XP, it'll switch to a different folder instead of closing.
Kinda annoying when you're going through a lot of old unlabeled cd/dvds.
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#10 By
89249 (64.207.240.90)
at
10/20/2009 10:30:19 AM
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#8 Spot on
I was about to write a post regarding that in response to Latch. I've been in the digital printing industry for 10 years working closely with PostScript & PDF's. PPML was the industry's attempt to subvert PDF since it is notoriously buggy when it comes to rips etc. WPF/XAML/XPS is going to become a mainstay in the industry because it does everything they've wanted to do and Microsoft's printer driver requirement will get everybody to dip their toe in the pond.
Hell we actually have resorted to rendering a pdf in a layout program, cutting an eps/tiff and placing just that in a pdf for portability. XPS should change that after the industry has time to digest it.
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