All the transparency in Vista


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Can someone please explain to me what the point of transparent active borders and toolbars? I must be thick, but I don't think it looks great or serves a purpose beyond the "wow" factor, and that wears off pretty quickly.

I :wub: the new icons and the start menu though :D

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There's most likely going to be other graphical options... but I agree, they have gone a little OTT on transparency :D

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It seems that at the time they began to implement it, it was a "Compete with Macs" feature, which is silly (for numerous reasons, one being wrong type of market, the other is noted in the post under this one.)

Aeasthetically Macs are very nice, and so they should be for what and whom they are aimed at, but MS make workhorses and putting bells on those gives the wrong impression. I'm not saying Vista should look like ****, i'm just saying the resources necessary to make it all pretty should be directed somewhere else.

Edited to make a little more sense :p

Edited by Makeshift Hammer
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MS aren't for doing things right the first time

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They must be learning though. The first BETA of Vista is more stable and secure than the first RETAIL of XP. :p

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It seems that at the time they began to implement it, it was a "Compete with Macs" feature, which is silly (for numerous reasons, one being wrong type of market, the other is noted in the post under this one.)

Aeasthetically Macs are very nice, and so they should be for what and whom  they are aimed at, but MS make workhorses and putting bells on those gives the wrong impression.  I'm not saying Vista should look like ****, i'm just saying the resources necessary to make it all pretty should be directed somewhere else.

Edited to make a little more sense :p

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No no. You make perfect sense. (Y)

I mean sure there are a ton of excellent and well thought out changes in the Vista Interface. Even though I realise the theme "Aero" is just a placeholder. But I just can't grasp why a transparent border or toolbar is so important. :D I guess I'm just not hip or cool? :unsure:

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I've been trying to figure out what all the hoopla is about with this kind of crap from the beginning. First thing I'd do is disable all that junk eye candy anyway. Just as I did in XP. What a waste!! :blink:

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I've been trying to figure out what all the hoopla is about with this kind of crap from the beginning. First thing I'd do is disable all that junk eye candy anyway. Just as I did in XP. What a waste!!  :blink:

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Same here. My xp "eye candy" consists of "show window contents while dragging" and "use visual styles on windows and buttons" :p

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Its a beta. Don't forget that. I'm sure there are real testers who are giving this exact feedback to MS. You are using a beta version, that you no doubt obtained illegally, so you are in no position to complain and state "MS is never for doing things right"

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Regardless of how he obtained it, he's still entitled to a fecking opinion regardless of whether it can be considered official or not.

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When you say they're aiming at the wrong type of market, thats not entirely correct. Soemtimes businness's decide to appeal to a broader market or sometimes change their market.

I don't see whats wrong with them adding all these extra graphical features. It will attract the people who like graphicy stuff and the people who just use a computer for work can turn this off.

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Instead on focusing on transparency because it looks cool, maybe MS shold try and make things a little more productive and consistent.

It seems to me the only thing MS has done so far is make the inconsistent windows interface even worse. I really hate it how they try to "hide" the features that the majority of people use just because it looks simpler. examples:

The new explorer/Internet explorer - the file menus are about 1/3 of the way down the toolbar - this is completely different to how all current apps have been written. And in the new explorer, they are hidden by default! How is that productive. Its about as useless as the transparency. Sure it looks cool, but it really serves no purpose, and needs to be toned back and used in certain situations. Drop shadows behind windows do kind of help with things as you can more clearly distinguish windows from one another.

Ive never liked the "Category view" in control panel, it just confuses things further, and hides custom things you may have - Nvidia settings etc. Be like Apple's system prefs, and just show all the options as normal icons (like the classic view) but divide them under categories. Have an "other" section for any other things that may get installed.

Msn messenger/Media player - the toolbars can be hidden to make the window look "that much better". It just makes the window look worse when you have them shown all the time because you actually have to use them. And for some reason, msn windows are dragabble all over, whereas all other MS apps need to be dragged from the titlebar.

"Customisable menus" - in word and in the start menu, how it tries to be smart by hiding the things you "dont normally use" and show you your common apps/choices. This is counter-productive, considering most of the time you end up expanding the menu to full menus because its not showing the choice you really want - also, you spend time searching for the right choice in these so-called smart menus, because the location of your choices is dynamic so they wont always be at the same place on the list.

Also, the annoying pop ups from the notification area kill me. The second i log into windows, it tells me "Take a tour.." "Clean up your desktop" "Wireless network unavailable" "Lan Connected" "lan unavailable..". I could see how these could be useful (ie software updates), but microsoft really needs to cut back on them and use them more sparingly. its became worse with SP2, the security center always seems to be bugging me. I even try to hide some tray icons (set them to "Always hide"), and when i turn on the computer it gives me the liberty of telling me "Hiding your tray icons.." even though i should already know because all my options were either "Hide" or "Show", nothing even remotely close to "Hide when inactive".

</rant>

I hope MS think about what they are doing. They have the chance to greatly simplify windows - And theyre heading in the wrong direction from what ive seen so far.

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i think its great its something new to look at instead of the same basics since 95, sure we have skinning in xp but this just feels more up to date

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The point is the that the window manager now draws in 3D. The transparency and pixel shader blurring are demos of that fact.

Wait until the UI design team has their go, maybe by Beta 2, but there's no sense debating looks until the final product is out.

There are plenty of new things going on under the hood, scrutinze them.

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People complain that Windows is meant to be "a workhorse" etc. That may be true, and thats why they will let you go back to Windows Classic grey. End of.

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i swear, its crazy how people whine about how it looks like $%# and then when they try to make it a little nicer they say its $#%# that they did it..

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i swear, its crazy how people whine about how it looks like $%# and then when they try to make it a little nicer they say its $#%# that they did it..

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It's not like they are going the Apple way of forcing users to get they eye candy, Windows XP offered "Classic" and Longhorn will offer 4 graphical states so you can't complain.

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just want png alpha transparecy or w/e for vista...

EDIT:

in visual styles I mean

just wait till next beta

cool stuff will roll out then

hoping for the real "next gen" future stuff that longhorn was supposed to have

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lol my bad

was a bit sharp

wasn't complaining

was just stating a use those transparecy things might do

I actually like it but it does get overdone in some places

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Its just eye candy, and I think it looks pretty cool. Computers are evolving to be able to handle so much more graphically, and I think the OS should evolve to handle that as well. Grated a little transparency effect isn't exactly breathtaking or revolutionary, but it is a start. It doesn't get in the way of things either, from what I've seen so far. I also imagine there will be an option to disable it if one so chooses, so it really doesn't matter.

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