JrDZ13 Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 I understand what you mean by the current theme supplied with the Longhorn Alpha builds being shoddy. It's a fact. What I don't understand is why Microsoft wastes valuable development time on producing such a, if you don't mind me saying so, half-assed theme? They are going to be hard pushed to get Longhorn finished by 2005 with all the features they claim it will have in it. So why don't they just forget about the UI (at least in the Alpha Builds) and concentrate on the core components such as WinFS (and so on). People don't buy Microsofts OS's for the way they look, if people did that then we would all buy Macs. So my message to Microsoft is, pull your finger out of your ass and get some real work done. i dunno, i'd rather see a some gui enhancements as well, and if i'm going to wait 4 years for an upgrade, i want a GUI upgrade... also, as far as i know, WINFS isn't ever a NEW filing system, more of a service correct me if i'm wrong of course Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y_notm Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 plex is in longhorn right now because they are testing the new skinning engine, which has features the XP skins don't utilize, including menu and menu bar skinning, as well as the sidebar and animation effects. So they aren't exactly wasting development time, they're still testing what they can do with the skinning engine, which though may evolve with DCE, isn't going anywhere. and because it is being integrated with the DCE, it IS a core component of the OS. and yes, DCE is a core component because the entire GUI will be based on it. and I would consider, from that viewpoint, that to be more important than WinFS, which is just a service to organize data. not only that, these projects are being worked on simultaneously by different groups within the windows development team. So while Lab 6 is responsible for the DCE and such, Lab 2 might be responsible for WinFS. And from this standpoint, Microsoft would be wasting specialized programmers by waiting to work on the skinning engine and DCE. you have to look at the parts as well as the whole, and then everything makes sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emon Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 I understand what you mean by the current theme supplied with the Longhorn Alpha builds being shoddy. It's a fact. What I don't understand is why Microsoft wastes valuable development time on producing such a, if you don't mind me saying so, half-assed theme? They are going to be hard pushed to get Longhorn finished by 2005 with all the features they claim it will have in it. So why don't they just forget about the UI (at least in the Alpha Builds) and concentrate on the core components such as WinFS (and so on). People don't buy Microsofts OS's for the way they look, if people did that then we would all buy Macs. So my message to Microsoft is, pull your finger out of your ass and get some real work done. I guess you don't have any experience with programing ... have your ever though that there might be several groups at MS working in different parts of the Longhorn. For example the "theme" group is only making themes for longhorn and they just got done making "Plex". So the other groups don't really have any other choice than to use the available theme. What am I saying here is .. the production process is phased out in different groups and they have their own time lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knight' Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 I understand what you mean by the current theme supplied with the Longhorn Alpha builds being shoddy. It's a fact. What I don't understand is why Microsoft wastes valuable development time on producing such a, if you don't mind me saying so, half-assed theme? They are going to be hard pushed to get Longhorn finished by 2005 with all the features they claim it will have in it. So why don't they just forget about the UI (at least in the Alpha Builds) and concentrate on the core components such as WinFS (and so on). People don't buy Microsofts OS's for the way they look, if people did that then we would all buy Macs. So my message to Microsoft is, pull your finger out of your ass and get some real work done. i dunno, i'd rather see a some gui enhancements as well, and if i'm going to wait 4 years for an upgrade, i want a GUI upgrade... also, as far as i know, WINFS isn't ever a NEW filing system, more of a service correct me if i'm wrong of course Yes, I'm all for GUI enhancements, but I disagree with Microsoft making a 'temporary' theme just so it will be replaced later. I can only see it leading to developers wasting their time. What I would suggest is build all that 3D UI first, then skin it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+primortal Subscriber² Posted May 16, 2003 Subscriber² Share Posted May 16, 2003 i think the temporary theme is just for the alpha's, when longhorn goes into public beta it will have the new interface. We just have to wait and see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knight' Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 I understand what you mean by the current theme supplied with the Longhorn Alpha builds being shoddy. It's a fact. What I don't understand is why Microsoft wastes valuable development time on producing such a, if you don't mind me saying so, half-assed theme? They are going to be hard pushed to get Longhorn finished by 2005 with all the features they claim it will have in it. So why don't they just forget about the UI (at least in the Alpha Builds) and concentrate on the core components such as WinFS (and so on). People don't buy Microsofts OS's for the way they look, if people did that then we would all buy Macs. So my message to Microsoft is, pull your finger out of your ass and get some real work done. I guess you don't have any experience with programing ... have your ever though that there might be several groups at MS working in different parts of the Longhorn. For example the "theme" group is only making themes for longhorn and they just got done making "Plex". So the other groups don't really have any other choice than to use the available theme. What am I saying here is .. the production process is phased out in different groups and they have their own time lines. Yes, I fully admit not having any experience in any Windows OS coding, so I was unaware that Microsoft would have a group soley to do skins for Longhorn Alpha builds. But, I do have programing 'experience' if you count PHP, HTML and CSS? I would really hate to start arguement, so please don't many any speculative unsubstantiated comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knight' Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 plex is in longhorn right now because they are testing the new skinning engine, which has features the XP skins don't utilize, including menu and menu bar skinning, as well as the sidebar and animation effects. So they aren't exactly wasting development time, they're still testing what they can do with the skinning engine, which though may evolve with DCE, isn't going anywhere. and because it is being integrated with the DCE, it IS a core component of the OS.and yes, DCE is a core component because the entire GUI will be based on it. and I would consider, from that viewpoint, that to be more important than WinFS, which is just a service to organize data. not only that, these projects are being worked on simultaneously by different groups within the windows development team. So while Lab 6 is responsible for the DCE and such, Lab 2 might be responsible for WinFS. And from this standpoint, Microsoft would be wasting specialized programmers by waiting to work on the skinning engine and DCE. you have to look at the parts as well as the whole, and then everything makes sense. For all those unaware of Longhorns new features (including the 'Aero' interface) click here Yeah, I suppose you're right, but still, designing a whole new skin seems silly to me. Couldn't they just modify the Luna theme to take advantage of the dropshadow and 3D effects? :huh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y_notm Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 they could, but then part of the alpha/beta test is trying out new things, and seeing which works best. Obviously they tried plex but MS figured out its not the way to go, and now development on it is pretty stagnant as they shift to the new Aero interface. at this point in time though, there's no need for them to remove it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knight' Posted May 16, 2003 Share Posted May 16, 2003 they could, but then part of the alpha/beta test is trying out new things, and seeing which works best. Obviously they tried plex but MS figured out its not the way to go, and now development on it is pretty stagnant as they shift to the new Aero interface. at this point in time though, there's no need for them to remove it. Yeah, I suppose. :rolleyes: Anyways, let's hope the Aero UI is better than Plex eh? :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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