Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu
borncity.com
borncity.com
It now takes 2 seconds to start on an 8-core computer with a PCIe 4 NVMe SSD.
Oh, and a tab indent and four spaces are almost… but not identically aligned.
They’re like… one or two pixels off. With a fixed width font!
This is just sad: https://paste.pics/aacb91eda1bfb46f968bed2004ad2328
Notepad can also no longer open large text files in under a minute, whereas the Electron-based VS Code does it nearly instantly!
Where is Raymond Chen when you need him? https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180521-00/?p=98...
And I could swear RaymondC owned it at some point.
The same is true of the snipping tool, which I find truly astounding.
Microsoft is really staying on track for alternating good and bad OSes.
In what scenario would you want them to be aligned? Surely any scenario would be improper use?
100% agree with the rest of course, it's always been a shock to me how little love the essential tooling gets in Windows. You'd think with all the budgets and the fat salaries they'd simply have a competent engineer or two on every (category of) tools. But then you hear about stuff like this or the Terminal debacle and it's like they're not even trying.
Not being able to visually line up indents made out of spaces vs tabs (in any mix) breaks a very basic usability/interaction pattern, and is really rather bad. :(
The number of spaces in tabs is not a debate, that's just personal preference in your editor. The debate is if tabs should be used at all.
That tabs are not a multiple of the character width in a fixed width font is insane of course. But if any character should have that property as a feature, it would be the tab.
You are trying to create your own debate. Nobody raised that here.
The parent is only asking why fixed-width fonts are not rendered with proper alignment (my assumption – on something that was probably already aligned before).
Each pipe character is the same width, right?
Monospace characters are unaffected by their surrounding characters, right? Unless they're ligatures, in that case their width is a multiple of the single character width.
The only possible way for "\t|" on consecutive lines to be misaligned is either for tab not to have a constant width, or any of the axioms above to be wrong.
I don't get how is this defensible. You don't have to be Steve Jobs to see this and ask "what is this crap?"
> Each pipe character is the same width, right?
> Monospace characters are unaffected by their surrounding characters, right? Unless they're ligatures, in that case their width is a multiple of the single character width.
Yes, but not in Microsoft products.
But that's not a very interesting discussion. If any editor I ever would write would have a fancy feature to mess with the sort of idiot that would use tabs for alignment, maybe I'd make tabs be off by a couple pixels. If it was intentional I would applaud them.
That is a joke, right? I have for years and years had problems to get the start menu search to work properly. It doesn't know about new programs until the following day, it doesn't remember frequently used programs, it can't find basic settings which it used to find fine, and worst of all is that it is _incredibly_ precise with it's recommedation. Typing "tea<RET>" gets you teams, "team<RET>" gets you steam. The next day (or hour, or 15 min) it is the other way around. It doesn't auto clear expired shortcuts, instead opting to ask about it when searching. Windows store apps sometimes don't appear, and if they do, the right click menu doesn't let you see it's path ( sometimes, I believe I had that working once?)
"Flagship user experience". And now the problem is that he can't find chrome in it? Seriously, that is a suprise? Never mind the fact that indexing takes an extremely long time perhaps he has chrome installed and forgot about it- windows has, too.
Contrast this with the apple experience with spotlight, and its night and day. Ateast with powertoys you get a spotlight esque replacement, but that's the irony of it: to get basic shit to work in windows, you have to install third party programs anyway and sometimes even work with regedit.
As Tom Lehrer said: 'Я иду туда, куда сам царь идёт пешком - It stinks.'
Naive take, at best. Why would a desktop OS monopoly like Microsoft look at user experience as a top priority? All they need to do is not make something that's so atrocious, that users leave in droves. And they got that position, so, other priorities have taken over, and I'm sure the start menu serves those purpuses well.
For example, I am using 7zip for compression. In file explorer I right click a file/directory I want to compress, but the option to compress with 7zip is missing from the context menu. So I choose "more options" at the bottom of the menu, and what I get is the Win10 context menu in the old layout (different background, different font+size, etc.) - which has everything the Win11 menu has + some more stuff (including "compress with 7zip").
facepalm
Nanazip is a "7-Zip derivative intended for the modern Windows experience" available on store/winget with the right hooks in place for Win11 context menus.
Old menu is also available with Shift+Rightclick, or reverted entirely via registry tweak
(Also, it's wild how much better macOS's .zip file handling is.)
The Windows 10/11 "settings" are a hole pile of shit. It seems like Microsoft almost purposefully took the 10 things you would most often use, and nested them so deep that you cant even memorize how to find them anymore. So you get forced into using the god awful search, which returns results FROM THE GOD DAMN INTERNET. If I am in Windows setting, or hell even on just the normal Start Menu, I DON'T WANT any Windows search returning anything from the internet. Ever. If I want to search the internet, I will open a god damn web browser. FFS Microsoft, stop trying to turn yourself into some Frankenstein of iOS/Chromebook.
No one wants that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Application_Markup_...
The issue is with their newer UI toolkit (WinUI) and the brain-dead design language they've been using along with that.
This famous tirade is as real as it's ever been.
It's a perspective. This bit was interesting:
> Think of the history of data access strategies to come out of Microsoft. ODBC, RDO, DAO, ADO, OLEDB, now ADO.NET – All New! Are these technological imperatives? The result of an incompetent design group that needs to reinvent data access every goddamn year? (That’s probably it, actually.) But the end result is just cover fire.
So what's happened to the start menu is cover fire. And the point is to create illusion of progress, progress your competitors feel they have to match(?)
I guess all those database access strategies cost little more than the effort to create them, because they were all thrown away in the end. But cover fire coming from the start menu has come at a cost. It's the Start Menu what finally made me decide Windows wasn't worth revisiting. Like any GUI oriented OS, you have to use the Start Menu repeatedly to get anything done. Which means it has to be fast. Yet sometimes it was taking seconds to respond.
I guess that's what happens to something that gets more and more features added to it to create cover fire. It gets slow, and so bloated that most people wont' use a fraction of what it provides. Yet even though they don't use them, the features still extract their cost.
Hear, hear. Every time I want to do something with my networks, I have to guess which settings window I need. Win 10 settings window? Network and Sharing Center? Change adapter settings, aka Network Connections? Hyper-V Manager? Wrong! If you want to make your Hyper-V virtual Ethernet switch a private network, you have to bust out PowerShell!
For quite some time when you set a fixed IP in the Contol Panel that's still what you got, but in Settings it still indicated DHCP.
Eventually they got it right in Windows 10.
But it's defective again in Windows 11.
https://nerdschalk.com/how-to-disable-web-results-in-windows...
did you actually read the article? Even if its possible, I shouldn't have to break my OS to make it happen.
Search is not a good UI, because you never get muscle memory with a search.
I've had the same problem; Microsoft has been changing the keyword that triggers the audio input/output control panel, but the official and unchanging (so far) name of the panel is "Change system sounds" and "sys" in start menu search returns that as the 1st or second result.
I feel like I do though... I often get in a pattern of just searching for the same few characters I know will bring up the right thing. Though Windows has a habit of deciding to change around the ordering on you.
Experiences like this just feels user hostile and plentiful when using Windows.
The newer Start Menus causes stress any time I use them, as I have no idea how much data it will end up leaking, and because it is more likely to yield a random internet search than showing me a locally installed program.
It's not perfect of course, but it's the best one so far imo, and it keeps getting better. I really like the new way to connect and manage Bluetooth devices from the taskbar that was recently added.
But then again, it's Windows, so when you look underneath the shiny new surface and realize e.g there's no way to add seconds to the watch display due to performance issues - the facade starts to slowly peel away.
Basically better to keep using Forms, WPF and Win32 for sanity, or the Web, thus Windows 11 doesn't matter at all.
But anyplace that forces machine config on devs? They don't really want devs. Even Ballmer valued developers (developers . . . developers). And he was a tragically engineering-impaired human being.
Every new version of windows seems to provide less of this than the previous version. More ads, more being forced into things, more telemetry, more updates reverting settings I made, less respect for my express commands, less useful feedback on what the OS is actually doing and why.
That said, I think its not the best UI either. But the POLA here is "don't be surprised if people who replace you try to put their mark on things they control"
They have no business making some tools harder or easier to install than others, the same as a hammer has no business favoring some nails over others.
W10 was a scourge with this... Rebooting overnight even though I tried everything to disable auto reboots.
There is no way to delay it indefinitely.
I tried editing the registry, the parameters, everything... Literally everything I could find online.
The other non Home edition may allow to disable them.
Anyway, they're both free, so for personal use might as well use the Pro, instead of limiting yourself to the pesky Home Edition.
You wouldn't want Richard Nixon (if he was alive) commenting on Obama's term would you? Even if Harris is 100% right, its just tone deaf and in bad taste. No one want to hear his opinion on Microsoft products. Hes done enough already.
Lebron James, is that you? Only you could reach like that!
For example, had I said "Barry designed the new start UI. He also has received several speeding tickets" you could make the claim that I am making an ad hominem attack on Barry, since the only reason I would bring up the speeding ticket is to make Barry seem less responsible. His speeding does not affect his ability to design a start menu nor does it influence his design decisions.
However, if I said "Harry has been seen criticising the new start UI for being inconsistent. Harry previously designed the new Settings menu in Windows, which was also inconsistent", there are some important differences to take account of. Specifically, the fact he was involved in the development of another feature in the Windows product, AND it can also be criticised for the same failing that Harry has now applied to the start menu gives us information ABOUT Harry's criticism.
Now we can say "Harry is going to come at this from the perspective of someone on the team" and "Harry has made the same mistake before". Depending on the details of Harry's comment, that could make his comment less trustworthy, but conversely it can also make it more valid.
Calling that an ad hominem is, in my opinion, excessively reductive, and in the case of contextual data being added that is contextually relevant, not appropriate.
Try spinning Windows 7 up in a VM sometime. Using it is such a wonderous experience. It's almost perfect. I miss it so much. To me, Windows 8/8.1/10/11 have all been massive downgrades to different extents.
It's fast, reliable and highly configurable.
I really really hate the stock Windows taskbar. The design? Whatever, I can live with that. But it constantly refuses to unhide, it drives me crazy.
Plus in Win 11, we lost the ability to put the taskbar vertically on the left or right side of the screen. When coding on a laptop, I want the max vertical screen space. Taskbar at the bottom means I see 10% less source code.
Boo Win11!
These days I'm inclined to agree with you. Windows 7 was the peak, newer versions have gone far downhill with trying to make me accidentally open Bing everywhere and automatically installing Candy Crush products that no one asked for.
When this computer dies, decent odds I replace it with a Steam Deck. Doubly so if they can stuff Thunderbolt into the next one and sell me a GPU dock with it.
But someone made the Bing metrics go up for a few years, so surely that's worth burning any customer goodwill to the ground.
We're talking about moving the whole taskbar to the left (or right) of the screen similar to how Ubuntu looks for example.
You used to be able to move the taskbar to any edge of the screen but that functionality was removed in Windows 11.
While the UIs look bad, the touch and pen UX together in windows 10 is fantastic
There was a time when we used to say the same about Windows Xp. And Windows 2000.
I wonder if each next generation of user prefers the new layouts each time?
I’m sure (or at least, I imagine) MS put a lot of resources into testing these UI overhauls.
Windows Vista wasn't terrible if you had a beefy machine and well-supported hardware. 7 was basically Vista but with newer machines and better hardware support. 8+ has been meh.
So as we differ this clearly in opinion: What makes you appreciate the windows UI more today?
When I search the start menu, it does the weirdest things, e.g searching notepad via bing instead of starting it, or preferring the uninstaller above the real program. So I learned that the start menu is basically broken for search, and became harder to use as a menu. I mostly abandoned it.
Meanwhile, the gui widgets, built in windows and control panels became much worse and dumbed down. It pretends to be a helpfull assistant, but behaves more like an arrogant drunk. I want to do some work on the machine, not be told about some experience it really wants to shove in my face.
Windows 8.1 complemented with StartIsBack (https://www.startisback.com/) was exactly what you're looking for.
Unfortunately Windows 8.1 is very soon to be EOL and Windows 10 is unrecoverable even with StartIsBack.
I'm not paying them shit though. For the gaming system I use, I'm running my own activation emulator and point the system there.
It's like walking into a room and forgetting why you had entered. At that point, maybe you return where you came from and see an unopened package. Then you remember: you were retrieving scissors.
When the motivating context is in front of you, it's easier to remember what your goal is.
Hitting a 2x2 pixel magic corner when not full screen and over a 100ms latency link is simply infuriating.
The special “Windows key” would similarly not make it through KVMs, iLO/DRAC, and most cloud consoles.
It was an exercise in frustration topped by only by this little pop up:
“Swipe here to view this notification.”
Okay, I’m swiping. Still swiping. It’s going to work any minute now…
I can't imagine a great designer like Jonny Ive (not that everything he did was perfect), sinking so low as to shit on Windows's start menu as he probably has bigger fish to fry.
Great people don't need attention from shitting on other people's work because they get enough recognition from the quality of their own work. Only the has-beens with over inflated egos do that.
I find modern Apple software UI/UX design to be really devoid of functionality, information density, etc. I'm not the only one with this opinion (just listen to any Accidental Tech Podcast episode where they talk about it).
It's however, really opinionated about being for listening to music and playing some games
The ribbon is part of the lamentable drift in Windows UI towards intentional dumbing down and not even allowing the power users to do what they could before -- see also the new Windows Settings menu...
Earlier you had Alt + f for file menu and the first letter of the command. But i think that was too easy.