IE9 UI

[Jamushroom Veteran]

@martinDTanderson: I'm 100% positive that they'd still use Aero as in IE9. They'll probably use even loads of things that are currently in Windows 7/IE8. There are also hints of what the UI will look like. Just look at the screenshots of IE9 with the Add-on bar at the bottom and the one with the download manager which are posted on Neowin. There are no hints of Metro at all but more hints of Windows 7 UI features..

It's more likely for them to make IE9 even more consistent with Windows 7 then IE8.

[agifal]

I for one doubt that Microsoft will ditch Aero anytime soon, Windows 8 or not. Windows 7 finally made Aero accepted relatively widespread and Windows 7 has a very good reputation, we've seen what a media fiasco Vista was because it seemed people couldn't handle a larger change from XP. If we now go Metro-ish towards Windows 8 people might not accept it again and it will end up the same as Vista.

Plus it seems like the engine behind Aero was never used to it's true potential yet but that's just me^^

Don't believe that the UI elements of Aero are the same thing as the graphic engine that powers it.

You can use the same engine for the Metro "style" and Microsoft might very likely go in that direction for Windows 8.

Zune software is an amazing piece of software in regard of the UI, it's just beautiful, elegant, smart, accessible, touch friendly and the list can go on and on...

There might be an initial resistance from some users that are kind of shocked by such a beauty... it happens even between human beings, if someone is too beautiful others might not accept him/her because of that... its understandable... but when you put your emotion apart and you "study" the idea behind the Metro style you can only say one thing: that's genius ;)

BTW I'm not a member of the "Metro team" (I wish!) but I develop software professionally and I admire who produced such a great piece of art ;)

[JonathanMarston]

I'd like to see them go the "Aero with Metro elements" direction, similar to Live Messenger 2011. As much as I love the look of the Zune software, IE9 should integrate better with the rest of Windows 7. I think Live Messenger hit just about the right balance. I'm not sure exactly how this would apply to a browser though...

[vraev]

I have tried to combine Office, Metro (simplicity) and the regular Aero style of Windows...the result (maybe someone likes it):

Superb! I love it.

[SkyDX]

Don't believe that the UI elements of Aero are the same thing as the graphic engine that powers it.

You can use the same engine for the Metro "style" and Microsoft might very likely go in that direction for Windows 8.

Zune software is an amazing piece of software in regard of the UI, it's just beautiful, elegant, smart, accessible, touch friendly and the list can go on and on...

There might be an initial resistance from some users that are kind of shocked by such a beauty... it happens even between human beings, if someone is too beautiful others might not accept him/her because of that... its understandable... but when you put your emotion apart and you "study" the idea behind the Metro style you can only say one thing: that's genius ;)

BTW I'm not a member of the "Metro team" (I wish!) but I develop software professionally and I admire who produced such a great piece of art ;)

I know the engine is not tied to Aero but it was made and laid out for Aero in the first place. Plus Microsoft has to keep up the good imagine they build with Windows 7.

I don't want to say Metro is ugly by any means but "beauty" is pretty much a subjective thing, when I look and use the Zune software for example I see a nice UI as you describe, still for me it's not what I would call beautiful ;)

Everyone has their own sense of things^^

[agifal]

Everyone has their own sense of things^^

We all know that ;)

And we also know that we can like something even if we know that is not beautiful or we can not like something even if it's beautiful... that's the human nature...

But then there's art and art has it's own "rules"... even if you don't like some work of art... it still art and has beauty in it... so does Zune software that is quite a unique piece of software/art and it's objectively a beauty indead even if you don't think so ;)

[DrJens]

? I'm calling this one Fugly... and so can you. It was a quick mock-up I did in PS ?(took me about 30-40 minutes). I decided to go my own way GUI-wise. It is pretty rough as it is - but the general idea is visible, I guess. Also I didn't bother to make new icons to fit the style.

[revanmj]

It would be nice if favorites window had view like this:

(it's based on bluefisch200 mockup)

[hdood]

? I'm calling this one Fugly... and so can you. It was a quick mock-up I did in PS ?(took me about 30-40 minutes). I decided to go my own way GUI-wise. It is pretty rough as it is - but the general idea is visible, I guess. Also I didn't bother to make new icons to fit the style.

Oh god, it's the return of MSN Explorer.

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

I AM SOLD!!!..

AWESOME..

so professional.

really looks like IE9

im sure microsoft will be copying your design !!!.. :)

I agree, that design looks very well done. Probably not enough to make me switch browsers, but very very clean

[thartist]

? I'm calling this one Fugly... and so can you...

OMG, FuuuUGLY it is!

[fbsduser]

It does look great on a Desktop. Zune & Metrotwit are both a testament to that. There is nothing inherently mobile specific about Metro's design philosophy. Keep in mind Metro isn't a rigid design element like the Ribbon UI (or iOS) - it's a design philosophy, a set of guidelines for you to follow, and interpret into your own needs to create beautiful applications.

Metro is about simplicity, and focus' on beautiful typography and user content above all else. It's about clean, light and open design -? letting content be the UI, and stripping away everything else. It's also about fast, smooth and natural animation/motion. All of those things work perfectly fine on the desktop and mobile, and they look amazing on both when done properly.

I would like to see the Metro UI in a full screen browser-based OS (ala ChromeOS) on a tablet slate (ala iPad). But on my Linux laptop I want my Gnome/KDE4 desktop's with full glassy compiz-fusion and no "proffessionallized" Metro UI.

There are some excellent ideas on this thread.

I created the below concept/mockup a months back which would make use of the current design and take elements from the Ribbon and Metro UIs. However from what I am hearing IE9 will not feature any Ribbon or Metro UI elements so is very unlikely to look much like my idea.

I also wrote some accompanying text to explain some of the elements of what I thought IE9 could look like.

Since we are playing the mock-up game. Here is my IE9 Metro idea. Everything is a little too big, but it is a mock-up after all...

A slightly more polished version of my IE9 metro/zune mockup...

As I said. Cool for a Tablet-slate OS. Not for my laptop OS.

[adriann]

Here are bigger screenshots of my entry in the IE9 Neowin Mockup competition in case anyone is interested. I didn't have time to do mockups of the backstage view. Luckily, another entry in the competition covered that, so I don't need to. In the design, all of IE9's buttons are in the quick access toolbar with the option to choose which buttons you want visible. The favorites bar and third-party toolbars are displayed in the ribbon content area as they are displayed in IE8. The RSS icon has been moved to the right side of the address bar. The address bar and search bar are in the header so that they are still visible when the ribbon is collapsed. Since the title of the webpage is on the tab, it is unnecessary to have it in the header too. When the ribbon is collapsed, the favorites bar and third-party toolbars are hidden, making the ribbon take up the minimum amount of vertical space, while still making all the main options accessible. The arrow on the far right lets you collapse and expand the ribbon. Clicking the File tab opens an Office 2010-style Backstage view with options to save the current page in various formats and print preview the current page. The tab with the four squares displays the "Quick tabs" view in a similar style to the backstage view. The + tab opens a new tab.

[Neowinuser1991]

It would be nice if favorites window had view like this:

(it's based on bluefisch200 mockup)

Damn, I hate how it is in office, but that would be nice in IE9.

[datastick]

It will look pretty much like this:

If it doesn't, I'll put this in my sig for a year to mock myself for being wrong.

I hope you are preparing that sig :)

[JaykeBird]

Here are bigger screenshots of my entry in the IE9 Neowin Mockup competition in case anyone is interested. I didn't have time to do mockups of the backstage view. Luckily, another entry in the competition covered that, so I don't need to. In the design, all of IE9's buttons are in the quick access toolbar with the option to choose which buttons you want visible. The favorites bar and third-party toolbars are displayed in the ribbon content area as they are displayed in IE8. The RSS icon has been moved to the right side of the address bar. The address bar and search bar are in the header so that they are still visible when the ribbon is collapsed. Since the title of the webpage is on the tab, it is unnecessary to have it in the header too. When the ribbon is collapsed, the favorites bar and third-party toolbars are hidden, making the ribbon take up the minimum amount of vertical space, while still making all the main options accessible. The arrow on the far right lets you collapse and expand the ribbon. Clicking the File tab opens an Office 2010-style Backstage view with options to save the current page in various formats and print preview the current page. The tab with the four squares displays the "Quick tabs" view in a similar style to the backstage view. The + tab opens a new tab.

You know what? That one looks really good. The only problem I have (and I bet others would) is that there is no space between the address/search bar and the top of the window. How could you move the window (Other than dragging the top-left corner)? In fact, they just take up the entire title bar. The point of a title bar to have a title.

I would squeeze the address and search bars between the title bar and the tabs. It might make the UI a bit wider but it'll be fine.

I especially love the idea of having the favorites and other toolbars take the place of ribbon content. Although it truthfully goes against the design principles of the Ribbon UI, so do all the other Ribbon mock-ups really. :D Anyway, I love it!

[adriann]

You know what? That one looks really good. The only problem I have (and I bet others would) is that there is no space between the address/search bar and the top of the window. How could you move the window (Other than dragging the top-left corner)? In fact, they just take up the entire title bar. The point of a title bar to have a title.

I would squeeze the address and search bars between the title bar and the tabs. It might make the UI a bit wider but it'll be fine.

I especially love the idea of having the favorites and other toolbars take the place of ribbon content. Although it truthfully goes against the design principles of the Ribbon UI, so do all the other Ribbon mock-ups really. :D Anyway, I love it!

Thanks for the feedback. It's a shame Microsoft decided not to go with a ribbon interface for IE9. It seems they've shifted their focus to Metro now.

[Code149]

How would it be if the tab bar among some other controls such as the status bar were semi-transparent when not needed, and would only turn opaque when the mouse moves over the area or if something of note happens, kind of how the scroll bars' up and down and WMP 12 control buttons in Windows 7 function.In my opinion it helps to increase the actual view state of the browser while keeping the controls like tabs at hand, making it a smooth experience.

Mind you I haven't tried the preview versions, so I don't know the affairs.

[Premvik]

How would it be if the tab bar among some other controls such as the status bar were semi-transparent when not needed, and would only turn opaque when the mouse moves over the area or if something of note happens, kind of how the scroll bars' up and down and WMP 12 control buttons in Windows 7 function.In my opinion it helps to increase the actual view state of the browser while keeping the controls like tabs at hand, making it a smooth experience.

Mind you I haven't tried the preview versions, so I don't know the affairs.

see this

http://www.fastcompany.com/1689097/microsoft-brings-apps-to-windows-7-with-internet-explorer-9

[Code149]

^^ That UI is nothing of the sort I suggested.Not saying it's bad, it's rather good.But again the tab bar, it doesn't seem to be placed at the best position; Too small a bar for such a space-demanding task.Is it movable?

Also is it possible to preview pages by hovering the mouse over tabs, like Aero Peek? Edit- i know it's possible with supe bar previews, but implementing it into tabs would be cool too.

I'm yet to download and run the beta as I fear an onboard GPU would make my computer suffer, though my assumption is IE will adjust itself based on specs, right?

[PGHammer]

^^ That UI is nothing of the sort I suggested.Not saying it's bad, it's rather good.But again the tab bar, it doesn't seem to be placed at the best position; Too small a bar for such a space-demanding task.Is it movable?

Also is it possible to preview pages by hovering the mouse over tabs, like Aero Peek? Or something of the sort?

I'm yet to download and run the beta as I fear an onboard GPU would make my computer suffer, though my assumption is IE will adjust itself based on specs, right?

Aero Peek worked with IE 8 (as long as you were running Vista or better); IE 9 beta does not change this. You can still preview (with Aero Peek) every tab up to around ten or so, and I have an HD5450 (not exactly a heavyweight GPU). I have two tabs - one being this one, and the Microsoft IE9 beta page being the other; both are Aero Peekable from the Windows 7 taskbar (same as IE 8). However, I can honestly say that IE 9 is quicker than IE 8, even though I have disabled exactly *none* of my old IE 8 add-ons (namely, the Bing and Yahoo toolbars).

Now I'm getting ready to turn up the heat - multiple Facebook tabs. Other than Flash issues (expected at this stage), the general browser behavior is still quicker than IE 8. No crashes, either.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

It will look pretty much like this:

If it doesn't, I'll put this in my sig for a year to mock myself for being wrong.

Ok then. Change your signature.

[Guest xiphi]

Still waiting on hdood to update his sig.

[George P Global Moderator]

Still waiting on hdood to update his sig.

He's went silent it seems.

On topic though, have the IE9b1 installed, and it's working good, performance is holding up. UI wise it does need a few touches here and there, mostly what everyone seems to be asking for, the ability to move the tabs from next to the address bar to below or above maybe.

The fav bar needs work as well so it can fit better with the rest of the UI. The drop down menu from the back/forward buttons is gone, gotta get that back plz. I'm sure there's other stuff, like the whole Internet Options windows needs to be redone, it's stuck in Win98 mode.

[Code149]

Everybody seems to be disliking the tab bar position, but where should they put it then while preserving page view state? Isn't a semi-transparent tab bar a good solution like I suggested above?