Lazure Posted September 18, 2010 Share Posted September 18, 2010 WPF is a UI framework for .NET, it's not used by anything in Windows (no .NET in Windows.) More specifically, what the desktop window manager (DWM) does is create a big 3D surface that covers the entire screen, and then draws each window as a 3D object (to make a square, you put two triangles next to each other.) This is all transparent to programs, which still use the same drawing APIs that they have for two decades (GDI.) The only difference is internal. Once the program is done drawing, Windows saves this as an image in memory. The window manager then displays this image as the contents of the window, while drawing the window border itself. Since it stores a copy of this image in memory, the program doesn't have to redraw its windows if they're moved or (un)covered. Windows 7 improves things further by updating GDI so that multiple programs can draw at the same time, which eliminates the artifact problem completely. In earlier versions, only a single program could paint at a time. This was true for Vista too, although it was less visible there (because the DWM keeps an image of the window in memory.) Overall this ends up being a performance improvement, although it uses more memory than XP and earlier. ^ What I've been trying to say to the anti-aero people for years. They just don't get it, and continue to disable Aero in Windows 7 even when their hardware specs are top notch to this day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen W Veteran Posted October 19, 2010 Veteran Share Posted October 19, 2010 Some of Longhorn was actually pretty sexy... and had great concepts too. ^ What I've been trying to say to the anti-aero people for years. They just don't get it, and continue to disable Aero in Windows 7 even when their hardware specs are top notch to this day. Yeah, I know right. Tis a pointless argument... I often have this one at work too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen W Veteran Posted October 19, 2010 Veteran Share Posted October 19, 2010 Would have been... It never was and never will be. What are you talking about? It got made, just ditched. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subject Delta Posted October 19, 2010 Share Posted October 19, 2010 am i one of a minority who actually loved plex? Nope, I loved Plex, what a beautiful theme it was. Animations ensure the operating system is much more enjoyable to use, for many of us. I love the fact they're finally incorporating more animations in their software and hope they continue. They're not resource hogging if you use a computer with average hardware. Not to mention that hardware acceleration reduces the performance hit to a minimum. To be honest, if you are worrying about the performance impact of animations, you shouldn't be using 7 on your computer, as even XP has some rudimentary animations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Neo Posted November 21, 2010 Share Posted November 21, 2010 What are you talking about? It got made, just ditched. It got ditched, but not on a voluntarily basis. Microsoft simply couldn't get it to work and that's why the "October 2003" release date slipped all the way to late 2006. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillz Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 It got ditched, but not on a voluntarily basis. Microsoft simply couldn't get it to work and that's why the "October 2003" release date slipped all the way to late 2006. Also several of the things that were going to be in Longhorn, like hardware acceleration and WinFS, ultimately found releases as either new features in a future product or a separate release altogether. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PGHammer Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 Original Longhorn UI is back. Look at Longhorn Video Demo and you will see how similar this IE9 UI is to. Longhorn UI is one of the best ever designed after Windows 2000 Classic. Longhorn had gotten a lot of cues from two early projects back in the days of Windows 9x (only one of which would become a shipping product). 1. There was a predecessor to Memphis (which later became Windows 98) called "Nashville". Two pre-alphas of Nashville would leak; one was shown to Fred Langa (then editor in chief at Windows Magazine) and a later one would leak two months later (and directly off Microsoft's own FTP servers). One feature that both leaks of Nashville had that Memphis/Windows 98 lacked was something that I called "Explore Everything" - Windows Explorer acted as a universal browser (the same way Nautilus and Dolphin act in Linux today, actually), and could not only explore the contents of your drives, but e-mail, newsgroups, and even act as another Web browser. "Explore Everything" would show up again in an alpha of Longhorn, but, as was the case with Nashville, it would not continue on to either beta status or the RTM. 2. The other big feature (one that was in both Memphis and Nashville, and would also carry over into shipping software (in fact, part of this feature is still in Windows today)) is the use of HTML as part of the desktop. Called (at the time) Active Desktop, it would first arrive as part of Windows 95's OEM Service Release 2.5, Internet Explorer 4.0, and Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5. It has remained largely unchanged in every version of Windows since (surprisingly, most of ActiveDesktop's capabilities, though unused/underused, are still in Windows 7 today). While Active Desktop launched with Windows 9x/NT4, it was Windows 2000 Professional, oddly enough, that made the greatest use of the features that ActiveDesktop brought to the UI. That was because of two features unique to Windows 2000 (that even NT4WS lacked) that have paved the way for several later enhancements (most notably, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop-Virtualization, or MED-V, and Remote Desktop Connection/RDC). Windows 2000 Professional included not only an improved Hardware Abstraction Layer (remember; software could not talk to hardware directly in any NT-based OS), but a Hardware Emulation Layer (HEL) that supported DirectX (specifically, up to DirectX 5) The presence of the HAL/HEL would actually make Active Desktop more robust in Windows 2000 than even Windows 98 Second Edition. The presence of the Hardware Emulation Layer meant there was a base set of capabilities that software could expect from the operating system, despite what the real hardware's capabilities were. Both Neptune (the aborted consumer version of Windows 2000 that never shipped, but did give birth to ReactOS) and Longhorn would enhance the marriage of the HEL and Active Desktop even further. While neither Neptune or Longhorn would carry wholly into shipping products, a lot of their capabilities would carry into Windows beyond 2000/XP, with some of their features appearing in both Vista and Windows 7. So it's entirely possible that some of those features that were "teased" with Longhorn, or even Nashville, could still eventually show up in Windows 8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViperAFK Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 edit: ahhh didn't realize thread was so old Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orange Battery Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 Edit, as above - Old post Really hoping for some extra features in Explorer, dual panes, folder size in detail view, organise the right click menu... dreaming of course, will probably just come with more options removed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjoswald Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 Looks like Windows 7 to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
computerwizkid Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Some minor changes on the Explorer UI were in the Windows 8 CES Build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apreichner Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 I hope it doesn't look like IE9. I personally feel like the UI looks a bit ugly. IMO the worst idea was to stick the tabs to the right of the address bar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sialivi Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 I hope it doesn't look like IE9. I personally feel like the UI looks a bit ugly. IMO the worst idea was to stick the tabs to the right of the address bar. That's optional Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Neo Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Also several of the things that were going to be in Longhorn, like hardware acceleration and WinFS, ultimately found releases as either new features in a future product or a separate release altogether. Only partially though and much later than 2003. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillz Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Only partially though and much later than 2003. And the same thing also happened with Cairo. It's really not unusual for extremely ambitious projects like Cairo and Longhorn to ultimately be broken down into smaller projects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Neo Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 And the same thing also happened with Cairo. It's really not unusual for extremely ambitious projects like Cairo and Longhorn to ultimately be broken down into smaller projects. It goes without saying companies won't throw everything away from failed projects such as Longhorn and Cairo... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillz Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 They were both Microsoft projects. The Apple equivalent would probably be Taligent or Copland. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Neo Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Yeah, sorry I had Copland in my mind: Apple's Longhorn. :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norseman Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 What a horrible design. Microsoft needs to stop trying to imitate Apple and get rid of the annoying, system-hogging, totally useless and unnecesary animation effects and stick with a fast, modern, workable interface. There is absolutely NO need for animations. Personally, I want my folders and Windows to open as fast as possible. I don't care to see ghost or Genie effects or any of that other useless crap. It really isn't slow and I don't mind my resources being used. WHAT GOOD ARE THEY IF THEY AREN'T BEING USED???!! WHO WANTS A BORING MONOCHROMATIC OS? I JUST DON'T ****ING GET IT ANYMORE! Do people even think? *****ed off rant at people with **** computers who don't know what the **** they are talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshie Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I <3 threads about OS concepts. :] Anybody else think the old renderings of Longhorn seemed oddly finger-friendly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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