Take a look at these new screenshots on Paul Thurott’s site and also at the new .Net Show video, mainly the section between 00:52:24 and 01:19:50. This is a discussion of how XAML is being used to develop the presentation of the UI, separating it from the development of programming code and making it possible for designers to be more integral to the development of the UI itself.
Avalon and the Future of the Longhorn UI
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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There is some pretty cool ideas, but you can really tell that it is still pre-alpha. There is no consistency between the apps, they all seem to have different layouts to do similar things. I will give them that it is not alpha so they could just be experimenting right now. But it is worrisome to see experimentation in mainstream builds since now all of the different variations are in there by default.
I would rather see an experimentation branch to do the prototyping required to find a good look and feel, then when that is decided change the apps in the branch to have this look and feel. Once the development team thinks they are finished they pass it to a qa team that specializes in checking for look and feel bugs. Only when this team has approved the app as being look and feel compliant should it be moved into mainstream build.
This would help avoid messes like windows xp, where the look and feel is only partially applied. The amount off apps that ship with widows xp that use old icons, old dialogs, or old widgets is disgusting.
It would also be neat to see how an app built with older tech like System.Windows.Forms will integrate with their new looks and feel.
And what will MacOS X and Linux be offering by the time Longhorn makes its appearance? We’re probably only 6 months or so from 10.4 and Apple would be on 10.5, possibly 10.6 by the time these “revolutionary” features of Longhorn sees the light of day.
It’s so amusing to hear how vaporware years in the future will kill products that are shipping today (as if everyone but Microsoft has decided to take a 2 year development hiatus until Longhorn ships). And Microsoft is taking so long to build Longhorn, it gives Apple plenty of time to rip of all the best concepts, too!
Now that’s irony.
It looks like OS X. When it comes out, they will kill Apple again like they did with Windows 95.
And when OS X 10.4 comes out it will kill windows 98. KILL IT! Does that make any sense? It makes as much sense as your comparison of slivers and rumors about an OS that is years away with one that is current. OS X, like all other active OSes, continues to evolve. Longhorn’s feature set is far, far from solidified and it is not possible to adequately project how it will compare to what other OSes will be at its time of release.
Well you’re saying that your own set of Vaporware (whatever linux might be doing, and osx 10.5 or 10.06) is going to be as good as someone elses set of vaproware pretty much invalidates anything you’ve said.
Now that’s irony.
The bottom line is, no one knows, at least MS isn’t afraid to throw out stuff like this to the public, where as what are you seeing that apple or linux have planned for 2 to 3 years down the line?
“at least MS isn’t afraid to throw out stuff like this to the public”
They are very afraid… that’s why they’re throwing this out… they need as much hype as they can get… they want people to wait for them to catch up… oooo… look at what we’re GOING to be doing in a few years… rather than what have we done for you lately or what are we doing for you NOW… SP2 for XPp MUST be kick asx or else many corps will look at linux a bit mo’ seriously…
IMHO
Do like me instead,go directly to the comment section and avoid all those articles who are just trolling. I don’t know how many of those MS logos per day passes by on the web,all of them just talking about what is going to happen in a few years time.(trolling)
1. Longhorn will not kill OS X. It was easy for Win95 to kill MacOS before, because MacOS sucked so bad back then. There are no gaping holes in Mac OS X right now for Longhorn to take advantage.
2. Apple doesn’t announce what they are doing 2 yrs from now because they are busy putting out product today. Also, they don’t announce anything that they are working on, making for an entertaining rumors culture.
3. I’m pretty fond of how some of those screenshots look. I’m also a big fan of the heavy use of dark grey and green. Also, while it looks alot like OS X, I’m getting just a bit tired of the constant blue.
– Kelson
bear in mind that most of the [consumer] windows crowd has no idea what “Longhorn” is…in order to drum up hype, you have to have an audience; in this case, the main audience for the pre-alphas is the development crowd. it’s a smart move by MS to expose developers as early as possible to the radically different API’s shipping with Longhorn. Mono made similar moves with pre-releases to get the developers involved as early as possible.
it doesn’t matter what it *looks* like right now, if all consumers wanted was eye candy, then yes, OSX would be a good candidate. also, MS is not out to squash OSX, first of all it’s such a small market share (akin to an elephant stepping on an ant), and secondly MS makes quite a bit of money off of software they develop for the Mac.
“And what will MacOS X and Linux be offering by the time Longhorn makes its appearance? We’re probably only 6 months or so from 10.4 and Apple would be on 10.5, possibly 10.6 by the time these “revolutionary” features of Longhorn sees the light of day.”
Let’s not hope that they sinks to such ridiculous trolling.
I don’t think that Longhorn and OS X will really be competing. It is obvious that Microsoft is only worried about Linux. Not that Apple is irrelevant, but it is not threatening Microsofts position. For now i think that Longhorn as a consumer/desktop OS will be worth the premium price that you pay in comparison to the free Linux desktops. (the same applies to MacOS X btw.) The server side is a different story. Microsoft could loose much of that segment to commodity Linux/BSD servers.
Quote:
“it’s a smart move by MS to expose developers as early as possible to the radically different API’s shipping with Longhorn”
Yes and no.
Yes, because of the reason you stated; developers can learn and get used to the new api’s.
No, because these programmers have to create programs that need to sell in the current time. And no because the API can change, maybe a lot.
So, I think, but am not sure, that if it’s going to be reviewed, it’s done by very few people.
Therefore, it is an incredible good marketing strategy to spread as much information in the open. “Lets see how people react”, “What do people like”, “What do people not like”, etc…
To be honnest, looking at some of the PIM features…
If longhorn would have been ready last year, I think it would have set back other OS’s for a long time.
But time is catching up…
It looks like OS X. When it comes out, they will kill Apple again like they did with Windows 95. It may not be as good, but it is good enough when you already dominate the market.
Remember that the man, Rob Enderle himself, said that Apple and Mac OS was still ahead of Windows.
However, I think Microsoft are probably going to be a bit disappointed with the takeup of some of these technologies. There are millions of VB apps out there, some of them fairly critical, and no one has got the desire to re-write them no matter how good the technology. Remember 30 year old mainframes and COBOL programs? People are still using them, and in many organisations they are vital.
well, the VB code can easily be ported to VB.Net can compiled to the CLI and then be native for longhorn fairly easily.
I don’t think Microsoft will be competing with Mac OS X– Mac’s marketshare is so small it poses no threat to Windows at all (no¸I’m not saying that that is a good thing).
The only thing MS is really competing with are the older Windows versions. People still run Windows 98/2000 because they do what they want them to do. The same will be when Longhorn comes out; the greatest competitor to Longhorn will be XP.
Will WCS use ICC? If so, then why the new name?
Windows everything…
The PIM features looks really good though. Nothing revolutionary, but nicely done.
Did anyone notice that there are some BeOS icons on some of the screenshots?
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/longhorn_winhec_proto.asp
On the Color Management screenshots, you can see the “blocks” icon from Beos
“well, the VB code can easily be ported to VB.Net can compiled to the CLI and then be native for longhorn fairly easily”
there is no need to rewrite legacy apps, MS has made it quite simple for legacy COM and .Net to happily coexist together.
anything more than a trivial application in VB would require a complete rewrite to VB.NET…it’s not as easy as just copy/paste/compile. from my experience, it’s more feasible to just interop to legacy COM components — which means that really no rewriting would be necessary in all but the most extreme cases. and if not interop, it’s quite easy to wrap up legacy business/data layers and expose them as webservices/remoted components. yes, you take a performance hit, but in the end it’s more economical for companies to use one of these approaches than rewriting applications.
the comment about MS’s biggest competitor being itself is so very true. Longhorn is a compelling reason for developers to ramp up, however it will be up to the devs to deliver “killer” apps that make it compelling for the masses to upgrade IMO.
and? Not sure what all the excitement is about.
The only thing that isn’t be discussed about is price which is probably going to be beyond the realm of the average user judging by XP prices.
“the comment about MS’s biggest competitor being itself is so very true”
I don’t know if you also are trolling but this is so wrong,so wrong.
Did you watch the .Net Show video? There is a very cool XAML demo where the UI is developed seperately from the underlying code. I think what you might be seeing the beginnings of the way Longhorn can be skinned. If this is the case than it’s going to be very cool.
As for price, I don’t think the prices for XP upgrades were out of line and keep in mind that most people get a copy of XP when they purchase a new PC.
not trolling at all, agreeing w/ the general consensus that MS biggest competitor is indeed itself. actually, let me clarify…on the _desktop_ OS market. as Longhorn is a desktop OS release, this holds true for the release of Longhorn. i don’t have the numbers in front of me (not that they would be accurate, i am sure that someone would find totally different numbers from their reputable source), but MS by far and away owns the desktop market share. therefore, they will have to provide some very compelling reasons to move their already installed user base to a new OS. by nature alone, most consumers aren’t going to just run out and upgrade, not to mention pre win2k hardware might not support Longhorn. most of the initial sales will be OEM sales of new computers. as far as pricing goes, how is ~100 bucks for an OS upgrade beyond the realm of the average user?
for the first time in a long while im interested in a windows version! even more so if some tablet pc builder can make a docking station so that i can tilt the screen around, slide it into the holder and it becomes a stationary pc with all the trappings (external keyboard and mouse ++)…
that external display thing and the fact that you most likely can not only check the computers status but control windows media player (alltho i hope they allow other software to tie into it so that i can still use mozilla and winamp to check mail and play music) and this becomes even more interesting. looks like ms is betting the farm here and pulling out all the stops. new way to thinking from the ground up. this is the stuff that xp should have been (instead of a win2k with a reskin). its like when they talked about win95 all over again (alltho i hope it will prove to be a equal in stability)…
xaml = what mozilla does but on the entire ui. nuts!
i just hope, realy hope that they open up stuff like the contact system and so on so that other softwares can tie into it…
I know that MS owns the OEM sales today.
But linux is coming fast now. In sweden it’s up to 4% of the corporate desktop sales. I know 4% sounds like nothing but you got to be living on the northpole if you don’t see what’s going to happened.
Even if Longhorn is a totally blasting OS where is the hardware to run it on. CPU’s don’t seem to getting any faster lately.
Sorry for my bad english it’s bedtime for me now I think.
None of those hardware specs is official and was taken from a comment in an opinion piece written by a complete moron. No one from Microsoft has released hardware specs because they aren’t entirely sure themselves as Longhorn is still a very early alpha. But in true Internet tech news site fashion, it was strained down to just the stats simply because it was negative towards Microsoft. I doubt you are going to need a very fast processor simply because the UI will be handled by the GPU on your video card. If you don’t have a higher-end video card you won’t get the new Avalon GUI. I’ll put good money down on my 2.8GHz P4 running Longhorn just fine and my nVidia card will run the Avalon GUI at a nice snappy pace.
vaporware? give me a break… ( u 13 years od or what?)
os x killer or not? when longhorn is out apple will still say they are comfortable for wat they are by then…
or people will only care about itunes music store
no matter what they do, MS is getting stronger & stronger.
im a linux user and a powerbook owner.
vaporware…
Yeah, those icons has been noted befor (many months ago). Though I still don’t know why they used them. It seems a bit odd, they could at least used the nicer SVG-version
As a sidenote, I think longhorn will include a lot of stuff that BeOS would have had today if it hadn’t been discounted. The whole PIM thing feels very beosish only further developed. Or perhaps I’m the only one noticing it.
And the 3d-chip accelerated desktop would probably have been finished a couple of years ago along with a nicer theme engine. It would have had a lot more pro quality apps, a modular tracker. Oh, it makes me sad to think about it.
“The same will be when Longhorn comes out; the greatest competitor to Longhorn will be XP.”
I have a feeling that convincing people to upgrade to Longhorn will be a bit easier than going to XP. Windows 2000 was really well done, and XP just seemed like a minor freshening of Windows 2000. For the home user on Windows 98, there was a pretty good reason to upgrade. On the business side, Windows XP doesnt offer much more to really justify the cost of the upgrade (unless you gotta have the fruity interface). Longhorn, on the other hand, is more than just a refreshening. I wasnt really up to speed at the time, but I dont think Microsoft had a hard time getting people to go from Windows 3.1 to 95.
Like others have said, part of the job does have to do with the developers. Maybe more programs that only run on Longhorn and not XP/2000 will be the key? I can only think of a few programs that right now only will run on XP/2000 and not on 98/ME.
Did anyone notice that there are some BeOS icons on some of the screenshots?
Yep, I did. I have to admit, I used the colored BeOS blocks a few times in my apps at work, but I later always changed them – too obvious. I suppose this is what MS guys are doing.
I don’t know, there is just something about those classic BeOS icons – especially the Blocks.
IIRC, Aero Glass was announced before Sun’s Project Looking Glass. As for the rest of your comment, what’s wrong with MS catching up?
You may not be interested in reading Longhorn articles, but many people are and no-one forces you to read it.
It is still interesting to see a preview of a product that won’t be finished for another two years, it gives developers a chance to become familiar with the product. I downloaded the longhorn build from MSDN (Legally) along with the developer kit and XAML is just as impressive as it sounds, even in these early builds. My own gripe is the sidebar, It is huge and a waste of a space and will probably be the first thing to switched off (even if I have a high-res monitor).
[flamebait]
So, XAML is a way to easily create interfaces, but its real purpose is to instantiate objects and bind them toghether…
Why does it sound to me exactly like .nib files on NeXT/OS X? The only real difference is that .nibs are proprietary format files (they’re directories actually), while XAML is XML and can be written/read by applications that aren’t Interface Builder (though you CAN read a Nib using the system-provided NSNib, if you need so).
– infinity ?
I wouldn’t call it a ripoff. The same techniques have been used in a lot of places, including skinning toolkits for windows.
I must say it looks very nice, at least compared to what XP is now. The one thing that looks weird is the huge space at the top of each window, is this necessary? Do you think they will optimize the space a little bit better in the future? I do agree that they are playing catch up with OSX on a lot of fronts but I don’t care because I plan on using both OSes in the future. If they look more alike and act more alike then that is great for me and my family.
IIRC, Aero Glass was announced before Sun’s Project Looking Glass.
Aero Glass was announced in WinHEC 2004. Prior to this there was only thought to be Aero. Looking glass has been known since last year.
http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/42580/Windows_42…
“There will be two discrete levels of user experience in Longhorn. As graphics hardware becomes more powerful, the user experience becomes richer in discrete steps.”
These levels, or tiers, are currently called Aero and Aero Glass; last year, Microsoft simply referred to them as the Tier 1 and Tier 2 user experiences. “
If Microsoft “gets it right”, Apple will be out of the desktop market. Linux will survive because many desktop linux uses are using it on principle, not because it is better or worse.
Frankly the best case for Microsoft is to tell users that “upgrading” is not recommended and they would be better off wiping their disks.
“If Microsoft “gets it right”, Apple will be out of the desktop market. Linux will survive because many desktop linux uses are using it on principle, not because it is better or worse.”
I highly doubt Apple is going anywhere in the desktop market. Granted, they will probably never gain huge market share but they have an already huge following that would never stop buying their products (as long as they are competive in the market and get the job done.)
I don’t really get the attitude of “You either beat Microsoft or you’re a failure and will die off.” There is room for more than one platform, I feel if Apple embraces Linux a little more their marketshare will grow and their profits will soar!
well, the VB code can easily be ported to VB.Net can compiled to the CLI and then be native for longhorn fairly easily.
I was talking about VB5/VB6 apps, and all of the COM/ActiveX stuff in its various incarnations. That’s the trouble with some people. They talk about the latest and greatest thing, and say “Hey, you can port that.” No you can’t, and there are many difficulties, especially for many organisations who have a great many systems dotted around.
Are all Longhorn applications going to be “menuless” (without menu’s)? On every screenshot i’ve seen of it the apps have no menu… well, i actually find it cute.
Victor.
I can’t believe the auxiliary display for portables will be that useful. Maybe I am working in the wrong office but I don’t see people carrying unprotected laptops around. And if the laptop is in a case/sleeve the auxiliary display is useless.
This is a problem with a much better solution: bluetooth and palm
For some reason whenever I see “Internet Explorer,” I always think it’s spelt wrong for a second, and it seems it is:
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/showcase/lh_winhec_proto_12.jpg
(Bottom right, top Quick Link)
Just wanted to point out that the future Contact List and the Jaguar address book have the identical layout and fonts. It even has the same ‘Me’ in the list too (There are a few differences of course).
It looks like MSoft has most important stuff from OsX Jaguar already implemented-probably needs to make sure that it works seamlessly as in OsX. MSoft will not try to kill off Apple, as they have Apple doing all their UI research. Since Apple has such a low market share, most Windows users will have no clue that most of the stuff in Longhorn has come from Os X from several years ago. Unfortunately, MS is trying to catch up with the fast development cycles of Apple which seems to be speeding away-Tiger is being previewed next month!
If you really like Longhorn you should get OsX today since it delivers what Longhorn promises several years from now. Don’t believe me?-just play with an OsX machine or ask Eugenia- she has used both Windows and OsX.