[IDEA] Immersive UI for non-touch devices

[Roger H. Veteran]

As of right now lots of people don't like the way the immersive ui takes over the start menu and such. I don't know how good i'll explain this but maybe someone could throw up a mockup after reading this.

Right now pressing start, starts the new UI. I think it's fine for touch devices but for non-touch (say my laptop), wouldn't it be better if the nice pretty blue wallpaper was replaced with that as a "Active Desktop" - if you can remember Windows 98 and 2000 where you could use a webpage as your wallpaper. I think they were kinda going that way with Gadgets on Vista and 7. This way you have access to tons of information, say latest tweets, facebook, weather, stocks, music or whatever other type of "Live Tile" people would come up with.

Think of it this way, you are at work doing your thing in Word, typing a long 15 page document then you think, so hungry - you hover your mouse over the Windows 7 "Show desktop" thing in the corner by the time which instantly makes all apps transparent. From there you can see on the Weather tile its' now 78F vs 50 this morning when you left for work so no need to bring your jacket (not everyone has a window in their office :D). You see on Facebook tile that some of your friends checked in at a little place you like to visit or you also see recent tweets from other friends saying how hungry they are so you call them up on your way out the door.

To me this is where those Gadgets came in handy, you get a ton of information from several tiles without even closing Microsoft Word and without even opening another application/browser.

[remixedcat]

I made a mockup of something simalar but haveta find it I made it a few years ago actually.

I wanted something like it myself.

[Brian Miller]

Give the man a Medal. The Idiots who get paid $$$$$$$ couldn't even come up with that.

PAtent that idea before M$ steals your idea. At lease you have a time date stamp on this message.

[hougtimo]

Give the man a Medal. The Idiots who get paid $$$$$$$ couldn't even come up with that.

PAtent that idea before M$ steals your idea. At lease you have a time date stamp on this message.

No, I'm fairly sure that's where MS are going with live tiles, anyway.

[Roger H. Veteran]

Well at least i'm not the only one that thinks this way :D

Thanks.

[HyBry]

I was thinking the same way.

I know a few people that take pride if fact they only have a few essential icons on desktop. I like to keep it clean myself, not too good at it though.

Tiles could well do the trick and allow for some useful on the fly info. But MS has to make sure there are enough options for people to choose and I am sure this Dev preview is for that. To get partners on board. Would be great to have Steam tile, where you can see your friends and be one or two clicks away from joining the game.

They really need a tile for drag and drop. When I want to copy something on your PC, I tend to drop it on desktop and sort it later so there needs to be a tile for that.

[Dreamspell]

Great idea! Maybe the same Metro app tiles could be placed on the desktop as gadgets, instead of only being able to access them through the Metro start menu.

[remixedcat]

Great idea! Maybe the same Metro app tiles could be placed on the desktop as gadgets, instead of only being able to access them through the Metro start menu.

like rainmeter....

[ATLien_0]

OS X works sort of the same way with dashboard. I have my hot corners set so the lower right corner brings up the dashboard. In theory with Windows 8 it will be the same way. Press the window key and the start screen shows up with that information. It would be great to be able to hover over the start button or the show desktop button and have that show a slightly transparent start screen