Vista: things I like [modified]

Warren Stevens

Windows Key + number (i.e. 1 to 9) to start programs off the "quick launch" task bar. (most people use less than 10 programs on a daily basis anyway) and other windows key shortcuts[^] The Kernel Transaction Manager[^] :-D (in all seriousness, once this catches on, it will be great for the robustness of Windows software)

www.IconsReview.com[^] Huge list of stock icon collections (both free and commercial)

123 0

Let's just take one of these.

Chris Maunder wrote:

Hit F2 to rename a file and only the name, not the extension, is selected.

How would any normal person even discover such a "feature"? The correct solution is to do away with the file extension requirement altogether - let the system examine a file to determine its type. Then we can not only get rid of this new "feature", but the hide/show extensions option (wherever it now resides) as well. Not to mention eliminating ugly file names where the first part looks like normal text but the ending looks like something from the DOS era: "My normal file name.TXT". Oh wait - that is something from the DOS era! There's little virtue in praising a "feature" that shouldn't be required in the first place! With each new release, the operating system should do more for us, not give us more ways of doing the same old onerous things! Then it would be something we could recommend to friends and family.

WillemM

Chris Maunder wrote:

The concept of UAC. Not the implementation, though.

UAC is indeed a bit weird in the way they implemented it. And it gets weirder, microsoft stated that it isn't a security feature. This strikes me as they haven't found a 100% good working solution yet. Last wednesday at info support I attended a presentation in which they explained what UAC and MIC do in Windows Vista. It was rather hilarious to see how MS implemented their setup program detection.

WM. What about weapons of mass-construction? "What? Its an Apple MacBook Pro. They are sexy!" - Paul Watson

Shog9 0

While i agree with that... It's really a dead issue. File contents can be and often are ambiguous - some piece of metadata is needed to explicitly indicate what sort of a file it is. The file name itself is probably the most stable and universal metadata available. So extensions remain, for pragmatic reasons. And yeah, it's down-right amusing to see praise for a feature that would have been considered "minor" even in the days of DOS file managers... But, at least Microsoft's finally borrowing a few features from the better DOS file managers. Maybe they'll work their way up to "batch rename"... :rolleyes:

---- Scripts i’ve known... CPhog 1.8.2 - make CP better. Forum Bookmark 0.2.5 - bookmark forum posts on Pensieve Print forum 0.1.2 - printer-friendly forums Expand all 1.0 - Expand all messages In-place Delete 1.0 - AJAX-style post delete Syntax 0.3 - Syntax highlighting for code blocks in the forums

123 0

Shog9 wrote:

While i agree with that... It's really a dead issue.

I strongly disagree - it's the way of the future. People are already demanding file recognition systems in two very important places: recognizing spam, and recognizing viruses. In the former, it's a convenience; in the latter, it's a necessity. If a system can recognize spam and viruses, recognizing executables and documents should be a trivial matter. Our development system, for example, does not require file extensions and ignores those that appear. As a "proof of concept" we handle source files, documents created with our page editor, and various kinds of graphics files; all others are treated as "other". The files are examined to determine the appropriate actions to be taken.

Shog9 wrote:

some piece of metadata is needed to explicitly indicate what sort of a file it is. The file name itself is probably the most stable and universal metadata available.

I'm amazed that an intelligent programmer like you has so little understanding (or respect) for the concept of orthogonality. The proper name of something, and its kind, are not directly related; using the one to indicate the other is simply bad practice. If you insist on metadata for file types, at least keep it out of the name - put it in a "type" field. Okay, "Shog male person gold status sitebuilder member"?

Member 96

I like the right click on the taskbar to bring up the task manager without having to hit ctrl-alt-delete and I also like the shift right click on the explorer window to open a command prompt at that folder. There are a *ton* of things buried in there that are pretty slick but not immediately apparent. I've just become confident enough in that start menu search box to start using it instead of hunting for buried programs. I like typing calc and hitting enter to open the calculator or word and enter etc for word. It's pretty slick: every program is one click and an enter key away without having to hunt through the start menu.

Shog9 0

The Grand Negus wrote:

I'm amazed that an intelligent programmer like you has so little understanding (or respect) for the concept of orthogonality.

It's not that i don't understand and respect it. It's that i've seen so many people actively working against it. On a Windows system, you can have as much metadata as you want... the OS and most apps just ignore it. Send it through HTTP, you can have a MIME type (and limited format negotiation)... however, the vast number of systems with broken webservers and broken browsers make this unreliable. Head over to *nix, and you're back to file extensions (except for executables, which rely on a special attribute and the OS's ability to examine the file and determine its type). Even if one of these systems implemented a reliable metadata system, it'd be lost when transferring files. That's what i mean when i say the filename is stable - it's the only thing (apart from the file contents) that's actually preserved. It's the lowest-common denominator. That said, i love to see a system working to overcome this limitation. Using file analysis, MIME types, and extensions as hints, tagging files locally with the derived types. In their usual half-assed manner, Microsoft has taken various steps in this direction, and each time has been forced to backtrack, as lack of communication with the user - or even other parts of the system - resulted in mistakes, confusion, and security holes (telling the user that a file is an image or plain text, while treating it as an executable...) So, until there is a coordinated effort on the part of system designers to address this problem, i'd just as soon see them stick with what works - the lowest-common denominator of filenames - than stab ineffectually at a more intelligent system.

---- Scripts i’ve known... CPhog 1.8.2 - make CP better. Forum Bookmark 0.2.5 - bookmark forum posts on Pensieve Print forum 0.1.2 - printer-friendly forums

Shog9 0

John Cardinal wrote:

I like the right click on the taskbar to bring up the task manager without having to hit ctrl-alt-delete

That's new in Vista? It sure seems to work on every XP system i've used... and i'm pretty sure it was around prior to that... :~

---- Scripts i’ve known... CPhog 1.8.2 - make CP better. Forum Bookmark 0.2.5 - bookmark forum posts on Pensieve Print forum 0.1.2 - printer-friendly forums Expand all 1.0 - Expand all messages In-place Delete 1.0 - AJAX-style post delete Syntax 0.3 - Syntax highlighting for code blocks in the forums

Member 96

Likely true. There's a lot of stuff in windows I never noticed before but do now simply because it's a new OS to me I'm actually looking for stuff I didn't before. Plus when I had XP I had turned off all the "Fisher Price" xp-ness of it and went with the old school look so I keep running into things I think are new but they aren't.

l a u r e n

John Cardinal wrote:

I like typing calc and hitting enter to open the calculator or word and enter etc for word. It's pretty slick

ummmmmmmm isn't that like circa 1978? :wtf:

"there is no spoon" {me}

Member 96

Maybe 1990?

Chris Maunder

Yeah. What he said.

cheers, Chris Maunder

CodeProject.com : C++ MVP

l a u r e n · M Member 96 Maybe 1990?

ummmmmm cp/m?

"there is no spoon" {me}

123 0

Shog9 wrote:

Even if one of these systems implemented a reliable metadata system, it'd be lost when transferring files. That's what i mean when i say the filename is stable - it's the only thing (apart from the file contents) that's actually preserved. It's the lowest-common denominator.

I think you've misunderstood what I'm proposing, Shog beer drinking person. Clearly, the "lowest common denominator" is the content of a file, not its name (which may or may not accurately indicate what's in the file). A system like I'm advocating - based, not on derived metadata but on the file content - should never "get lost"; a file is what it is (regardless of name) and the system either recognizes it or not. For example, our page editor allows the user to import all kinds of graphic images - jpgs, pngs, bitmaps of various types and resolutions, etc; and since we look at the content of the file and not the name, the program will properly import a png with no extension, or a jpg with a bmp extension, etc. It isn't that hard, it eliminates the need for onerous naming conventions, it eliminates the need for the new F2 feature, it eliminates the need for hide/show extensions, it eliminates the need for error messages like "changing a file extension may make it unusable", etc. Less is more.

Chris Maunder

Party pooper mode is actually down the hall, 3 doors on your right.

Marc Clifton wrote:

I find it gives me motion sickness feeling

The expand-from-the-taskbar thing I like. The in place fade-shrink-wobble definitely gives me that motion sick feeling as well. I installed Evolution and it's install Wizard pages aren't the same dialog with different pages, they are different windows. So, as it's flipping through these windows the whole screen seems to be wobbling and dhrinking and bloating and fading and lunch was really not happy about it.

cheers, Chris Maunder

CodeProject.com : C++ MVP

Member 96

I used CP/M in high school circa 1985, so I guess it does go back further than that. It's not so much the blinding obvious about it, it's how they implemented it in Vista that is pretty slick. You can't open a command prompt as quickly and easily and type in the application you want to run in as few letters. Don't despair I'm sure Linux will be copying it soon. ;)

l a u r e n

ummmm it's been in linux for several years now but thats ok i wasn't making a linux / windows issue of it thanks for playing ;)

"there is no spoon" {me}

Member 96

I figured you'd say something like that. :) Ok, how about this, Vista has that fresh new leather upholstery smell of raw capitalism all over it! ;P

l a u r e n

ahhhhhhh now that's a different issue but i do hear that they've made a gnome add-on spray smell that gets very close to that although for patent reasons it can't be exactly the same out of the box ... of course you can download the formula and make your own modifications and redistill it to get that smell :rolleyes:

"there is no spoon" {me}

123 0

Chris Maunder wrote:

Yeah. What he said.

Well, he said let's "stick with what works"; but I'm saying, the current approach doesn't work. It doesn't work for spotting spam, it doesn't work for eliminating viruses, it doesn't work with mis-named files, and it doesn't work for users who want control - full control - over their file names (and who have no interest in learning some DOS programmer's scheme for making the programmer's life easier at the expense of the user). Since we have to look inside files to spot spam and viruses, why not extend this technique to all files, simplifying and beautifying the interface while providing the user with fewer arbitrary restrictions and more freedom to do things naturally. One minute you're sad because you can't recommend a kluge to your friends and family, but the next you're taking sides against something that they could use and understand without effort. "What can I call this file, Chris?" "Anything you want." End of training session.