Beautifying Metro

[fafhrd]

Windows 8 appears retrograde, compared with 7 and Vista, which were both better looking OSs than previous versions, in particular, the Metro front-end which looks like the back end of a container terminal.

So what can be done with more exciting backgrounds, skins and transparency for the tiles, 3-D effects, as well as sounds and animations on mouse-over (finger-over), and visual transitions from Metro to Desktop?

 

[Phone Man]

I agree we need a way to customize the Start screen. Whats available now is limited. I am sure there will be something available in the future. I like the new Start screen and with some beautification it will be better.

Jim

 

[whs]

Hmm, interesting. I am just the opposite. I like my screen plain and simple - and readable. Animations distract me.

 

[Windunce]

Re: quiem? or not?

A scenario.

I work at Microsoft windows division, a mid-level worker bee on the Metro task force.
I browse the web a bit and notice those who understand customization have customized their Start Screen.

Most notable, is that all Metro apps are removed. I sigh, I cry as I think and hope that an old adage comes true.

"All things come, to those who wait?"

 

[whs]

Most notable, is that all Metro apps are removed. I sigh

Most Metro Apps don't work or have a crummy UI. If you make them work properly, I will put them back.

 

[valtonray]

Most notable, is that all Metro apps are removed. I sigh

Most Metro Apps don't work or have a crummy UI. If you make them work properly, I will put them back.

agreed the mail app doesn't seem to be fully compatible with gmail, the people app has poor facebook integration to the point where I can't even make a status update. The calender doesn't seem to work with well anything but itself. In the time it takes most metro apps to load I can be on the website. Now I do like the metro interface but most of the apps seem to be in an early alpha stage. I do imagine this will change as more 3rd party developers release their apps.

 

[ThaiAm]

I am not lucky or unlucky enough to have one of the fancy touch screen devices and for sure unlucky enough to have a slow connection to the internet. So Best looking Metro for me would be a way to have the Windows 7 start screen instead of any Metro at all.

It is hard for me to imagine the value of a very slow connection relating to touch screen and expect to continue using my desktop and my choice.

 

[valtonray]

I am not lucky or unlucky enough to have one of the fancy touch screen devices and for sure unlucky enough to have a slow connection to the internet. So Best looking Metro for me would be a way to have the Windows 7 start screen instead of any Metro at all.

It is hard for me to imagine the value of a very slow connection relating to touch screen and expect to continue using my desktop and my choice.

there has been a way to have this for a long time. stop using Windows 8 and go back to 7. Problem solved. If you have no use for the new features you have no need to upgrade new the newest iteration of a software.

 

[fafhrd]

Here's a screenshot, if you like your apps square and blocky



The program is winver.exe from the original Windows NT v 3.10.

I downloaded it from here:

Index of /reactos/oldexebug

There's a few games there that run rather faster than the XBOX apps too.

 

[ThaiAm]

Of course that is an option and in face I am still using Windows 7 as my main operating system. The capability I am asking for is the same as was released in the original Windows 8 a few months ago. I think there is more to Windows 8 than the Metro interface and do plan to continue to work with Windows 8 until it is functional in my environment.

Thank you for such an enlightened suggestion.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
must be co-incidence or wishful thinking but the app that seems to work AND UPDATE OK is the financial one - updates the stock price of MSFT too !!! -- still not really useful though as it would be better to have an alert to your own choice of stocks.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

I am not lucky or unlucky enough to have one of the fancy touch screen devices and for sure unlucky enough to have a slow connection to the internet. So Best looking Metro for me would be a way to have the Windows 7 start screen instead of any Metro at all.

It is hard for me to imagine the value of a very slow connection relating to touch screen and expect to continue using my desktop and my choice.

ThaiAm just download ViStart, it will give you the Windows 7 start button and feel in Windows cp/dp

 

[Medicted51]

The default colors were just too bright for me. This is my new Metro screen (I only spend about 1 % of my time here)



Charms, Settings, More PC Settings, Personalize, Start Screen then choose the color scheme that suits you a little better.

 

[Mark Phelps]

I am not lucky or unlucky enough to have one of the fancy touch screen devices and for sure unlucky enough to have a slow connection to the internet. So Best looking Metro for me would be a way to have the Windows 7 start screen instead of any Metro at all.

While "don't use it!" is always one response, if you browse the forum sections here, you'll find plenty of other folks that aren't big fans of metro either, and a variety of ways to "return" to a Win7-like desktop but still use Win8.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Most of the problems surrounding Metro would go away if every time you installed a "Standard" application which on W7 would have a lot of sub menus too didn't create 10,000 tiles that need 2 km's worth of left scrolling !!.

A Main tile which could open out other tiles (the sub items) as popups from the main tile would be fine.

A bit of customisation too as tiles generated by standard applications look absolutely HIDEOUS.

I don't mind the idea of metro -- what is so special of searching through a lot of entries and sub entries on a sub menu anyway. The Metro idea is far simpler and you can quickly grab what you want.

For stuff you are always using just pin to task bar.

Just imagine computers 4 times more powerful today when you might have say 1000 or 5,000 options on a classical start screen if you include all the primary entries, sub menus, sub-sub menus etc. installed. A "Classical" start menu becomes incredibly cumbersome at this point while metro if done in the way I suggest could handle this with total simplicity.

Cheers
jimbo