Navigating nightmare.

[Spaisekraft]

I don't know why they'd think people will buy the apps either way. I like the metro UI, but I don't plan on buying apps. I hardly ever see the metro UI and when I do, it's enjoyable for the most part. Doesn't make me want to buy apps though lol

"Gotta play "Angry Birds", lol."

I also think it'd be a good idea to allow people to use the default Windows 7 UI just like how Ubuntu lets you switch to Gnome at the log in screen.

It is incomprehensible to me, that MS's professional developers can't make a "stand-alone GUI" for Windows, but a bunch of non-professional developers can do it for Linux distros.

That is one of the best features of Linux distros.
If you hate the GUI, you can customise/replace it.

I'd only use Linux if I weren't a gamer. :/

 

[davehc]

Well. I am getting there, still needs some cleaning up. I have got most of my programs now in folder names that I am used to.

I have to say, you did cover your whole display area with icons.

You may have misunderstood what I was about. In previous OSs, I arrange my start menu in folders. I have, over the years, got accustomed to the names of those folders and their contents. My picture was of the Metro start, not my desktop. I have created my old folders in the start, and put the old known contents into those folders. I am now trying to find a more convenient way to show thos folders closed when I open the Metro Start.

 

[crawfish]

In previous OSs, I arrange my start menu in folders. I have, over the years, got accustomed to the names of those folders and their contents. My picture was of the Metro start, not my desktop. I have created my old folders in the start, and put the old known contents into those folders. I am now trying to find a more convenient way to show thos folders closed when I open the Metro Start.

I understood perfectly it was the "Metro" screen.

Again, someone is emphasizing the Windows 7 Start Menu. All I can say is that the Start Menu should not be your primary interface for organizing and launching programs. Read my original reply to you for a much better approach. To me, the Start Menu is an infrequently accessed dumping ground where programs install shortcuts that I pin to more convenient, more accessible locations on my taskbar, with the vast majority I use regularly (about 50) always available and visible on my three-row taskbar. The second-tier programs I still want to be able to launch from the desktop (ETA: by "desktop" I mean "through the UI" by double-clicking an icon; I don't store any program icons on the desktop, and in fact I rarely see the desktop background) are only one click removed from the primary ones in a toolbar located in between the taskbar program icons and the notification area, with the toolbar containing a 4 x 3 grid of folder shortcuts, the top six of which are dedicated to things like "Multimedia" programs, "Developer" tools, etc, and the bottom six are file folder shortcuts for things like "Manuals", "Downloads", etc.

The Start Menu is terrible because it's a pain to navigate, and it GOES AWAY when you click on something inside it, making it super painful to open several things in succession. And it's redundant for your most used programs which should all be pinned to the taskbar, where they benefit tremendously from the combination of the program launcher/window switcher concepts. Maybe a lot of people don't realize you can resize the taskbar. Mine holds three rows of program icons, about 50 total, with space left over for 5 transient unpinned programs, and the folder toolbar docked inside it fits 4 rows of folders, hence the 4x3 grid I mentioned. If it's still not clear, it's organized like this:

Start Button --- Pinned icons (3 rows, no text) --- Folder toolbar, 4x3 grid (names + icons) --- Notification area

Windows is smart enough to stack the notification icons and full date display vertically, and the widths of these areas are roughly 5%, 65%, 20%, and 10%, respectively. Windows makes good use of the vertical space, and it's all stable; none of this stuff moves around, which really pleased me as Windows has a history of losing things like icon positions. Windows hasn't lost my taskbar arrangement in the 3 years I've been using Windows 7.

I've never used the Start Menu as a program launcher, and I'm always surprised to hear that others do. Before Windows 7, I used a program called Jet Toolbar, which was a tabbed program launcher. Its window held a set of tabs that contained program and folder shortcuts. Windows 7 totally obsoleted that program with its redesigned taskbar which combines program launcher with window switching, progress updating, jump lists, etc, and it's easily the most brilliant thing Microsoft has ever done in Windows UI design. OTOH, this Windows 8 "Metro" thing is like a full-screen, flattened Jet Toolbar (i.e. with tabs laid out end to end in a long scrolling mess) or DOS menu system. I just don't get it.

 

[Spaisekraft]

In previous OSs, I arrange my start menu in folders. I have, over the years, got accustomed to the names of those folders and their contents. My picture was of the Metro start, not my desktop. I have created my old folders in the start, and put the old known contents into those folders. I am now trying to find a more convenient way to show thos folders closed when I open the Metro Start.

I understood perfectly it was the "Metro" screen.

Again, someone is emphasizing the Windows 7 Start Menu. All I can say is that the Start Menu should not be your primary interface for organizing and launching programs. Read my original reply to you for a much better approach. To me, the Start Menu is an infrequently accessed dumping ground where programs install shortcuts that I pin to more convenient, more accessible locations on my taskbar, with the vast majority I use regularly (about 50) always available and visible on my three-row taskbar. The second-tier programs I still want to be able to launch from the desktop (ETA: by "desktop" I mean "through the UI" by double-clicking an icon; I don't store any program icons on the desktop, and in fact I rarely see the desktop background) are only one click removed from the primary ones in a toolbar located in between the taskbar program icons and the notification area, with the toolbar containing a 4 x 3 grid of folder shortcuts, the top six of which are dedicated to things like "Multimedia" programs, "Developer" tools, etc, and the bottom six are file folder shortcuts for things like "Manuals", "Downloads", etc.

The Start Menu is terrible because it's a pain to navigate, and it GOES AWAY when you click on something inside it, making it super painful to open several things in succession. And it's redundant for your most used programs which should all be pinned to the taskbar, where they benefit tremendously from the combination of the program launcher/window switcher concepts. Maybe a lot of people don't realize you can resize the taskbar. Mine holds three rows of program icons, about 50 total, with space left over for 5 transient unpinned programs, and the folder toolbar docked inside it fits 4 rows of folders, hence the 4x3 grid I mentioned. If it's still not clear, it's organized like this:

Start Button --- Pinned icons (3 rows, no text) --- Folder toolbar, 4x3 grid (names + icons) --- Notification area

Windows is smart enough to stack the notification icons and full date display vertically, and the widths of these areas are roughly 5%, 65%, 20%, and 10%, respectively. Windows makes good use of the vertical space, and it's all stable; none of this stuff moves around, which really pleased me as Windows has a history of losing things like icon positions. Windows hasn't lost my taskbar arrangement in the 3 years I've been using Windows 7.

I've never used the Start Menu as a program launcher, and I'm always surprised to hear that others do. Before Windows 7, I used a program called Jet Toolbar, which was a tabbed program launcher. Its window held a set of tabs that contained program and folder shortcuts. Windows 7 totally obsoleted that program with its redesigned taskbar which combines program launcher with window switching, progress updating, jump lists, etc, and it's easily the most brilliant thing Microsoft has ever done in Windows UI design. OTOH, this Windows 8 "Metro" thing is like a full-screen, flattened Jet Toolbar (i.e. with tabs laid out end to end in a long scrolling mess) or DOS menu system. I just don't get it.

Sounds like you have a very specific method of organizing your applications and such. That's all very good, but you're using the desktop in a different (note: not bad) way than most people.

Personally I like to keep my taskbar clear or to one row, to maximize desktop real estate. I also don't like having icons on my desktop. So if I'm able to keep those both clear and have any application open within a few very fast key clicks, then I'm happy and I think the UI serves it's purpose well. Yeah there's a couple of things that need changing, and I agree that it's annoying that you can only launch one application while the menu is open.

Honestly I'm not rapidly opening applications all day so that doesn't bother me.

Oh and I can't find it, but I think it was you or someone else that said W8 taskbar items don't have the progress bar background in the button, and the jump lists don't work. For me both of those work exactly like they do in W7. Actually, the taskbar seems 100% identical except for the start button to the taskbar in W7.

I don't feel like trying to pin 50 or so icons to the taskbar to see if it works like you described, but it seems like it should work.

 

[crawfish]

Sounds like you have a very specific method of organizing your applications and such. That's all very good, but you're using the desktop in a different (note: not bad) way than most people.

What I have is a very effective way of organizing applications and such, and I think it's all a pretty obvious idea. If what you say is true, most people aren't using the Windows 7 taskbar effectively and are suffering unnecessarily with the Start Menu. The Start Menu has always been completely unusable as the primary program organizer and launcher for the reasons I gave, and that was apparent to me when I first installed a Windows NT4 beta back in 95-96. The Windows 7 Start Menu is still fundamentally horrible. OTOH, the Windows 7 taskbar is truly excellent when you take advantage of its new capabilities. That was also immediately obvious to me when I first ran the Windows 7 beta.

Personally I like to keep my taskbar clear or to one row, to maximize desktop real estate.

That's fair. That was my initial concern as well, but I had to use two rows to make it feasible to get rid of Jet Toolbar, which had been abandonware for years and couldn't handle the funky Windows Installer shortcuts Microsoft introduced in Office and other programs. Two rows turned out to be a non-issue. I eventually upped it to three rows to cover a dead pixel that was ticking me off, and I did that with even more apprehension. It turns out, three rows was ideal. It gave me enough room to pin all the program icons I wanted in the primary area of my taskbar, it let me add a few more folder shortcuts to the docked secondary toolbar, and the loss of the screen real estate again turned out to be a non-issue on my 1680x1050 primary monitor. I don't miss the vertical space at all, which was kind of surprising, because as a software developer, I've always considered it of extreme importance. I can still get 45 lines in a Visual Studio text editor window when maximized, and I guess that's enough. When it isn't enough, many of the programs I use offer a full-screen mode anyway which obscures the taskbar, but it's rare that I use that feature.

I also don't like having icons on my desktop.

What is it with this "desktop" fixation? For at least the third time, I don't keep any program icons on the desktop, and I rarely even see the desktop. The taskbar is not the same thing as the desktop. OK?

Oh and I can't find it, but I think it was you or someone else that said W8 taskbar items don't have the progress bar background in the button, and the jump lists don't work. For me both of those work exactly like they do in W7. Actually, the taskbar seems 100% identical except for the start button to the taskbar in W7.

If I said anything like that, it was concerning my impression of using "Metro" apps, which appear to be completely "other" WRT normal desktop programs. IOW, when you're using a "Metro" app, the taskbar isn't visible, and with it go all the great advancements implemented by Windows 7.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
It's actually much easier than that
From the Metro start just RIGHT click on the application

at the bottom of the screen it will now say Open File Location
From there you can open the file and right mouse click can move to task bar / desktop short cut or whatever

There you can design your own shortcuts or whatever,

I prefer stuff on the taskbar -- I'm not in favour of cluttered work spaces either.


This type of stuff doesn't actually need a lot of "geekdom"

Took me about 5 mins to find it and I'm only a "Bog standard User"

Cheers
jimbo

 

[kado897]

This is my current Windows 7 desktop developed to the way I work. I'm pretty sure that I could reproduce this in Windows 8. The only thing I use the start menu for daily is to shut down the computer. I agree it is a pain to dig through the start menu to find anything so I only do it to get at something obscure.

 

[Night Hawk]

I went right through the system32 folder looking for the executables for NotePad, mspaint, Disk Management, Defrag, you name it and dragged the shortcuts into a few folders to make addon toolbars for the taskbar.

Those include the msconfig, Run command line, command prompt, and anything else I want to throw in as well.

For bringing some things up like the search or Run where you see the Start screen image appear in the lower left conrner right click in there to bring up a menu of options. Don't except to find the usual Accessories under All Programs since that has been done away with in the W8 CP in it's present form.

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

Why cant you exit apps without using task manager? This is crazy! This is in no way making production easier. How are you supposed to use say Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Word and Outlook all at the same time?

According to MS you don't need to close apps any more. I'm assuming the OS now manages this, just like on an Android device. You can still close them if you really want to, but you don't have to.

To exit apps go to the upper left corner of the screen...right click the app you want to close....hit the close button that appears

 

[whs]

This is my current Windows 7 desktop developed to the way I work. I'm pretty sure that I could reproduce this in Windows 8. The only thing I use the start menu for daily is to shut down the computer. I agree it is a pain to dig through the start menu to find anything so I only do it to get at something obscure.

View attachment 3725

You are right Keith. We normally have all our shortcuts stuffed away somewhere - toolbar and Rocket Dock in my case. But I could not yet find an equivalent for the Search field of the Start menu. The new search field does not do e.g. a shell:system or other shell commands.

PS: What is that nifty snipping tool you are using. Did you do that with PAINT ??

 

[tseven]

I hope they do fix it but I have a feeling they might not. Even on a mobile device navigating the desktop would be difficult. I don't understand what they were thinking when they added ribbons and removed one of a more useful aspects of windows user-interface. I really hope they just re-think their design ideas. It's making things more difficult to navigate and use not easier. Which is a huge problem. On top of that they manage to make the desktop look even worse with the ribbon and other ugly user-interface designs they've added since windows 7. I don't mind them removing the round corners but they could have really just made the round corners look better without all those glow, gloss, shiny, shadow effects all rolled into one. I hope they fix it so that you don't have to hunt to navigate and that you don't have to switch between metro and desktop interface to get to certain areas. Also why can't they just give you an option to only load to desktop and not even turn on metro. It's so annoying that this feature is not included(or at least we can't see it) and they keep talking about we can have it one way or the other.

 

[kado897]

This is my current Windows 7 desktop developed to the way I work. I'm pretty sure that I could reproduce this in Windows 8. The only thing I use the start menu for daily is to shut down the computer. I agree it is a pain to dig through the start menu to find anything so I only do it to get at something obscure.

View attachment 3725

You are right Keith. We normally have all our shortcuts stuffed away somewhere - toolbar and Rocket Dock in my case. But I could not yet find an equivalent for the Search field of the Start menu. The new search field does not do e.g. a shell:system or other shell commands.

PS: What is that nifty snipping tool you are using. Did you do that with PAINT ??

Hi Wolfgang. Its SnapDraw Free. Print Screen Capture Software with Special Effects, Annotation Tools and support for Windows 7, Vista and XP Alpha Transparency (Translucency).

 

[whs]

Thanks Keith. That looks good. I will try it out.

 

[bmwbiker]

To kill an app: Alt-f4

 

[JimBoyJohnson]

This is my current Windows 7 desktop developed to the way I work. I'm pretty sure that I could reproduce this in Windows 8. The only thing I use the start menu for daily is to shut down the computer. I agree it is a pain to dig through the start menu to find anything so I only do it to get at something obscure.

View attachment 3725

that gmail tab, where exactly does that take you?
theres no standalone gmail app is there?

 

[kado897]

This is my current Windows 7 desktop developed to the way I work. I'm pretty sure that I could reproduce this in Windows 8. The only thing I use the start menu for daily is to shut down the computer. I agree it is a pain to dig through the start menu to find anything so I only do it to get at something obscure.

View attachment 3725

that gmail tab, where exactly does that take you?
theres no standalone gmail app is there?

Yes and No. It is a Google Chrome App which in this case is a browser window with no address bar.

 

[Dave76]

Why cant you exit apps without using task manager? This is crazy! This is in no way making production easier. How are you supposed to use say Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Word and Outlook all at the same time?

According to MS you don't need to close apps any more. I'm assuming the OS now manages this, just like on an Android device. You can still close them if you really want to, but you don't have to.

To exit apps go to the upper left corner of the screen...right click the app you want to close....hit the close button that appears

That's the one I found a couple of days ago, easy to use.

Also, in the Metro start page you can drag one of the app icons to the lower part of the screen and the whole page will shrink down just like Ctrl + scroll down.
Drag the app to a group and it all comes back to full size. Makes it easy to move apps around.

Thanks for all the tips and shortcuts, I'm finding the Metro UI much easier to use now.
This will be an easy one to get productive on, for desktop and/or Metro.