- Messages
- 219
Having now used Windows 8 for about a day, here is what I think is working, and what I think still needs to be improved before release.
The Metro start menu is growing on me, but it still has a ways to go. Most of my critique is going to focus on this, as this seems to be the main thing that is different. From my perspective, more customization options are badly needed. I think if folks had more room to make their start menu their own, they would complain a lot less. Let the end user have some fun with look and function. Here are some thoughts:
-I am not a fan of the colorful fruity colors that appear to be the only options available for the icons, and I think giving us the option to customize the color of our icons, not to mention more options with the color of the background, would be a big win. Not everyone wants their home page to look like Rainbow bright.
-Heck, let us customize our icons on the start page in general. I can see a whole new crop of development centered around start menu icon development. Instead, there are the basic crop of apps that come with the release, and every other program I run is just a hollow box with the name of the program pasted on it. Let me use a custom photo instead, or even a custom animation...
- Let us customize the background of the start menu. The OS so far gives us the choice between about 5-10 different nearly identical backgrounds, the only difference being a pattern of squiggly lines. Boring. Let me use my own custom picture please. How hard can this be?
-Please let me show the date/time on the start menu. This too cannot be that hard, and is important imo.
Now on to some of what works.
-I can actually see some nice potential with the start menu apps that come with the OS. Some of them are nice, and actually might get used by me, once they are a bit less buggy... I can see developers creating more apps, even better apps to replace, enhance the field, and I see the potential this will give the end user. If the apps were a bit better, if we had an easy way to exit out of them without having to open the task manager (maybe an x in the upper right corner, that hides until we mouse over), I can see this being a big hit, once people start making use of it.
Now some more suggestions.
-Need an easier way to exit out of apps that does not involve the task manager.
-More room to customize the apps themselves. The weather app defaults to a town that is about 10 miles east of my home location, and I have no way to change my home location as near as I can tell. I can add it as an additional location, but cannot find a way to make it home.
-I still think the start menu needs to be left in the OS as an option for those who cannot stand the metro start page. I also think the start button should still be in the bottom right of the task bar, even if its only function is to bring up the start page. I cannot see an easy way to get back to the start page with the mouse if I am on the desktop, and this seems silly. I think a lot of the haters would come around to liking the metro start page if the suggestions I listed above were implemented. If I was able to customize the size, look, and feel of what displayed on my start page, I can see myself really getting into it, and liking it far more than the start menu of old..
That is about all I have for now.
The Metro start menu is growing on me, but it still has a ways to go. Most of my critique is going to focus on this, as this seems to be the main thing that is different. From my perspective, more customization options are badly needed. I think if folks had more room to make their start menu their own, they would complain a lot less. Let the end user have some fun with look and function. Here are some thoughts:
-I am not a fan of the colorful fruity colors that appear to be the only options available for the icons, and I think giving us the option to customize the color of our icons, not to mention more options with the color of the background, would be a big win. Not everyone wants their home page to look like Rainbow bright.
-Heck, let us customize our icons on the start page in general. I can see a whole new crop of development centered around start menu icon development. Instead, there are the basic crop of apps that come with the release, and every other program I run is just a hollow box with the name of the program pasted on it. Let me use a custom photo instead, or even a custom animation...
- Let us customize the background of the start menu. The OS so far gives us the choice between about 5-10 different nearly identical backgrounds, the only difference being a pattern of squiggly lines. Boring. Let me use my own custom picture please. How hard can this be?
-Please let me show the date/time on the start menu. This too cannot be that hard, and is important imo.
Now on to some of what works.
-I can actually see some nice potential with the start menu apps that come with the OS. Some of them are nice, and actually might get used by me, once they are a bit less buggy... I can see developers creating more apps, even better apps to replace, enhance the field, and I see the potential this will give the end user. If the apps were a bit better, if we had an easy way to exit out of them without having to open the task manager (maybe an x in the upper right corner, that hides until we mouse over), I can see this being a big hit, once people start making use of it.
Now some more suggestions.
-Need an easier way to exit out of apps that does not involve the task manager.
-More room to customize the apps themselves. The weather app defaults to a town that is about 10 miles east of my home location, and I have no way to change my home location as near as I can tell. I can add it as an additional location, but cannot find a way to make it home.
-I still think the start menu needs to be left in the OS as an option for those who cannot stand the metro start page. I also think the start button should still be in the bottom right of the task bar, even if its only function is to bring up the start page. I cannot see an easy way to get back to the start page with the mouse if I am on the desktop, and this seems silly. I think a lot of the haters would come around to liking the metro start page if the suggestions I listed above were implemented. If I was able to customize the size, look, and feel of what displayed on my start page, I can see myself really getting into it, and liking it far more than the start menu of old..
That is about all I have for now.
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8.1 Pro 64 Bit
- CPU
- Processor AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 635 Processor, 2800 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
- Memory
- 8gb
- Graphics Card(s)
- Nvidia GTX 460