Microsoft’s Build keynote is ongoing, and there’s so much news coming out for Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox One, that it’s hard to keep up. The biggest announcement? Universal Windows applications – a single application that runs on phones, tablets, PCs, and yes, even the Xbox One. Of course, developers can still optimise the user interface per device, but it will be one single application binary.
Another piece of news is that several versions of Windows will be available for free: Windows for smartphones, tablets smaller than 9″, and the new Windows for the internet of things will all be free. This is, of course, an inevitable consequence of Android’s dominance.
Microsoft also shed some light on the future of Windows 8 – and the biggest announcement here is that a future update will allow Metro applications to run in windows on the desktop. In addition, Microsoft has unveiled a new Start menu, that looks like the Windows 7 Start menu with a section for live tiles. These two changes further the merger of desktop and Metro that already started with the Windows 8.1 Update.
In addition, Microsoft also gave a small preview of Office for Metro – about time – built as a universal application.
This is just a selection of things that stood out to me during the keynote, and I have to admit this is some seriously cool stuff. It might be too late – I don’t know – but that doesn’t make it any less cool.
So first they accuse Google of dumping through their proxy, FairSearch and now they’ll be giving shit away for free… Rather hypocritical of them eh?
Desperate much MS?
Edited 2014-04-02 18:17 UTC
You mad bro?
Mad as in “angry”? Nope. Quite amused.
You sure? you sound mad.
The sudden concern from “somebody on the internet” is heart-warming
No problem, glad you are not mad any more.
Edited 2014-04-02 18:55 UTC
I think the new start menu looks pretty spiffy. Something MS should have done from day one in Windows 8.
If you cut off the tiles part of the start menu, it looks rather good, i would agree on that.
Once the Start Menu returns, I wonder which straws people will grasp at as to why Windows 8.1 is still worse than Vista and ME combined and why the only people that actually like it and use it by choice are paid Microsoft shills and not to be trusted?
Yeah, lots of people griped about that. If we only could get a proper 2k/xp style control panel again instead of the countless wizards and hidden settings obscured by layers upon layers of complexity.
You know the control panel is bad when most people need to use the search function just to find basic settings.
In defense of the newer Control Panel found in Vista and later, there was already a need for a search function in XP and 2K.
Some of the changes made sense, some of the changes didn’t, but the search feature was needed since probably the Windows 3.1, since there were always settings in spots that didn’t immediately make sense, or made sense at all, making them hard to find.
So a new start menu and the metrofication of Office.
I am sure Office users can´t wait to have Office metrofied.
As far as universal binaries, this will only mean that file size will be larger even for simple things, since you will begin to now carry code for platforms that you don´t even use.
Writing this from my gorgeous KDE destkop, Microsoft´s world just seems boring and out-of-touch with both the home user and the new business environment.
Not to defend MS here but I don’t think gorgeous and KDE can even co-exists in the same sentence, but bloaded, mess, “looks like crap” or “totally un-usable” can.
Edited 2014-04-02 18:44 UTC
I would not agree with you at all on that. KDE SC is rather pretty, and except for plasma-desktop very stable overall.
Pretty, sure, if you come from mars, but any mortal can see the fugly it is.
Hiev, You Mad Bro ?
Why should I?
>Bloated
Not as of KF5 and PD2.
The frameworks are becoming modular, and you’ll only get the precise ones your app needs for functionality.
They’re trying to encourage use of KDE libraries in all Qt applications, meaning KDE-independent usage.
>Mess, “looks like crap”, “totally un-usable”
Not really, but even less so once the KDE VDG are done.
http://wheeldesign.blogspot.com.au/
They’re opening design of KDE up to the community, to get any and every gripe and suggestion.
They’re then taking this collective input, and creating a new theme+icons, fixing app design (the QML port will also help there), reorganising layouts (SystemSettings is a particular example).
The team doing this are all professional artists, too.
They’re working closely with the Nitrux folks.
Just look at some of the mockups. It’s going to be awesome.
Not as of KF5 and PD2
Call me when is finished, we are talking about the current KDE, right?
Not really
You are still talking about the coming KDE, I’m talking about the current one, and btw, all these promises for KDE5 were also promises for KDE4, remember the “Oh, KDE4 is gonna be Gnomies wet dream” and resulted to be KDE3 users worse nightmare.
I’ve seen the mockups, I think they are mediocre but better than what it is KDE now, but saying that the current KDE is gorgeous is so damn ridiculuos.
And you know what? KDE5 is going to look like crap too, you know why? because they are making the same mistake they did with KDE4, they are not using a HIG, every developer is migrating KDE4 applications to KDE5 just to compile, but putting buttons in diferent places, crowding the interfaces, there is no organization, just anarchy, there is no direction of how to make it comply with a good usable interface and I can guarantee that w/o a HIG is going to look like crap, you can make plasma to look minimalistic and flat, sure, but plasma is the less you interact with, you use applications mostly and those are not getting a decent facelift.
Edited 2014-04-02 22:01 UTC
KDE4 Can still look quite good so long as you’re only using Qt applications, and you get a decent 3rd-party theme.
http://nitrux.in/software
The Nitrux OS interface there is almost perfect; I’d use it, if I weren’t of the persuasion that prefers dark themes.
As is, I use Qtcurve, and by tweaking that, one can make all Qt applications look flat and modern.
The flexibility Qt offers can’t be underestimated, themeing plasma will vastly improve apps.
You’re right that they need a HIG, but that’s also something being produced by the community in the forums.
Go and add your say, if you like. They’re amalgamating all of the best ideas, and creating a minimalist, flat theme that incorporates everything.
Edited 2014-04-02 23:13 UTC
Are we talking about Nitrux or KDE here?
Nitrux is a diferent desktop, nothing to do with KDE except for Qt, and actually, it looks like they do care about guidelines not like the KDE anarchist.
And all I see in those screenshots is the plain desktop, let’s waith and see the interface of the applications they create.
And about the cooking flat theme is ok, but as I said, they started with the 2 instead of the 1, they should have figured out the HIG before the theme, but these guys are clueless.
And another mistake, you don’t conform a HIG asking in a forum, you use professionals that know what they are doing, use the money you get from donations to hire those people, not to travel to some place in Europe to eat pizza.
Edited 2014-04-02 23:37 UTC
Nitrux *is* KDE.
Their OS is literally Ubuntu with KDE 4.12 and a theme.
Nitrux is a set of icons, wallapapers, themes for GTK and Qt, but Nitrux OS is a new desktop they are developing on top of KDE witch is like putting lipstick on a pig, you can see that the screenshots only show the naked desktop, but not the applications, cause they look ugly, I think their plan is to create their applications and they are hiring developers
Edited 2014-04-03 15:16 UTC
Well, some of their core developers are on the KDE Visual Design Group, which does demonstrate commitment to KDE.
The apps aren’t ugly; they’re fully themeable by Qt.
Dolphin can look great or horrendous, fully depending on the theme.
Some visual problems can’t be fixed with a theme
Edited 2014-04-03 21:09 UTC
Which is why they’re moving to QML with Qt5…
You don’t get it, it doesn’t matter if they use QML, if they keep putting tons of buttons in the same window, with different sizes and alignments then there is no theme or QML trick will make it look good.
Hence button grouping, etc.
It’s better than the most common alternative, which is removing functionality.
At any rate, the KDE VDG isn’t just working on themeing and icons. It’s a total GUI overhaul.
There’s no way a HIG isn’t coming out of it, because they’re even going as far as redesigning the control centre to be more user-friendly without losing features.
Hey now, KDE makes GTK apps look nice, too, at least if you’re using Oxygen and Oxygen-GTK together.
True. I hate using GTK apps because appmenu-gtk isn’t supported on Arch Linux, so my global menubar only works with Qt.
I forgot that most people don’t do that, so GTK stuff looks almost as good as Qt.
I don’t like Oxygen though, and that’s what most of the criticism towards KDE is regarding. QtCurve skins GTK just as well as Oxygen-GTK does.
I doubt you even used KDE recently.
Doubt whatever you want, more power to you.
Edited 2014-04-02 23:55 UTC
It’s a sign that your previous arguments were trolling as well and you simply wasted people’s time.
Edited 2014-04-03 00:21 UTC
Does trolling for you mean “something I don’t agree with?”
Seriously KDE is an awful user experience and it always has looked a bit “wrong”. Stuff doesn’t line up right and there weird transparency affects because they saw it in next Windows RC candidate and all the applications have a K inextricably bolted on.
http://linuxhaters.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/how-to-write-kde-applicat…
It is quite sad that obvious parody blog is sooo close to the mark.
Edited 2014-04-03 06:29 UTC
Nope. It means making false arguments knowing they are false. Just for the sake of either annoying people or wasting their time.
Well pity you are unable to recognise it. You consistently claim something is trolling when someone disagrees with you, it is quite sad to be honest.
Edited 2014-04-03 18:20 UTC
KDE reminds me of Windows. At first looks nice. But then the UX is driven by habit, not intuition.
That comment can be said about any desktop OS and be valid. At least OSX, Windows and Gnome has usability guidelines.
Personally pretty much every Linux DE has something missing that I really like in Windows or something just doesn’t feel right.
You mad bro?.
There won’t be a single binary. It’ll be multiple binaries with common code written in a portable library. The only difference is that actual UI code is now portable between the platforms.
That, and this isn’t a scenario for everyone. Apps aren’t universal by default.
I was wondering how this was going to be accomplished and didn’t see any mention of it anywhere.
Thank you for the explanation.
Office (and VisualStudio) have already been “Metrofied” and it’s awful. Glaring white everywhere, no contrast, nothing to distinguish controls from background, UPPER CASE MENUS, bah!
I feel like an old guy yelling at kids to get off his lawn, but… remember the old days, before mobile, when GUIs had style guides designed by human-interface experts instead of the art department?
It’s a decent strategy really. I if there is a way to ensure they’d get applications built for their mobile OS, this is it.
Until they’ll enable OpenGL on Xbox and Windows Phone / RT all this will still remain a nasty lock-in.
Looks like you weren’t paying attention, but they are including WebGL in Xbox.
WebGL is relevant for browsers and in browser running code only. It’s useless for all other applications.
Edited 2014-04-02 19:01 UTC
Not completly, anyone can now code games on WebGL and they will work on the XBox.
Not really. See my answer below.
Or WinJS apps. Or basically any HTML5 app, which would in turn make the app even LESS locked in.
WebGL will work across all of those devices, free at last 🙂
Of course you neglect to mention Microsoft open sourcing the WinJS libraries, which is pretty much the antithesis of lock in.
WebGL is good of course. But it’s not all that’s needed. It still introduces an overhead in comparison with closer to hardware pure OpenGL. Games developers try to reduce overhead as much as possible. For less demanding games it may be more acceptable, but for very demanding ones it becomes a bottleneck, especially on the mobile hardware which is still rather limited in comparison with PC.
Edited 2014-04-02 19:05 UTC
Yeah know, I’d also like to have a flyng pink ponny too, but some times you can’t, but there are framewoks lik Unity that will do that for you.
That’s my point. Not that “you can’t”. MS are just jerks and don’t let you, because they want to retain their DX lock-in. WebGL is a poor excuse for that.
You sound as bitter as my very anti-ms teacher in my old university.
More power to you.
Not bitter. Just pointing out that all this “MS is changing into the new age” thing isn’t really true yet. When they’ll drop their lock-in nastiness, then it would be a sign of serious change.
Edited 2014-04-02 19:15 UTC
Well, you are the “expert”, more power to you..
Developers have no direct power over this. That’s why if they target those platforms they need to implement different backends (i.e. to include DX one in addition).
Power over this is really in competition. The same thing you mentioned above about WebGL didn’t come out of their goodwill towards developers. It came from the fact that they were beaten into the dust in the browser wars. Competition forced them. With OpenGL it didn’t happen yet. But it looks like Valve is preparing a serious blow for them with Steam Machines. So it’s coming.
Edited 2014-04-02 19:22 UTC
Looks like you already have everythng figured out mister psychic, more power to you.
Hiev: Repeating “more power to you” isn’t changing the current situation. MS as usual prevents competition on merit when they have their lock-in. That was my point above, I don’t think you argued with that so far.
The current situation is that you speculate to much, go see a doctor.
Trolling much?
Yep, more power to you.
Steam Machines. Yeah, right. That Linux port of Portal must’ve really gotten to your head.
Time will tell. IE was also practically the only browser out therew with all its ActiveX garbage. Now they enabled WebGL in it. Surprise? No. Competition.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/43160/ –> metro last light says hi also available on linux.
http://steamdb.info/linux/ –> 457 games so far including portal 2 team fortress 2 metro last light, half life 2, left 4 dead 2
also not forgetting this:
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/33438/dice-says-it-will-support-linux…
Dice is seriously looking at porting battlefield 4 to Linux. Linux as a gaming platform is very real, lets see what you say this time next year, because I bet there will be a tonne more games for steam and for linux and probably origin for linux as well.
I remember a dude that was laughing off the iPhone not too long ago. You sound just like him
Hint: he’s been known to throw chairs when angered.
Cool story, so basically your original comment needs to be revised with an asterisk.
* Only if you’re a hardcore game developer writing his own rendering engine and not using the much more affordable middleware technology, and it only applies to a small portion of the overall game engine.
FFS, you will complain whatever they do.
Maybe for you, we, we just use engines.
There are engines, but not all cases use other engines. Enough games develop their own because others don’t suit their needs fully. And the same point applies to engine developers themselves by the way. The burden falls on them (to support more APIs). Engine users just don’t see that burden, but it doesn’t go away.
Edited 2014-04-02 19:27 UTC
Which they seem to be happy to do, look at the uptake MANTLE had, which is lock in taken to an extreme.
Game developers care about performance, not about religious holy wars over rendering API.
And they’ve been doing it pre Mantle too, especially on the PS3 by programming at a much closer level to the GPU.
People aren’t happy about Mantle being AMD only. That’s why developers don’t jump into using it yet. If that would become available cross platform and cross hardware – then why not. So far Mantle can’t replace OpenGL at all. It’s not about APIs. It’s simply business. Try telling your customers who don’t have AMD card to get lost. They will and you will lose your sales.
Edited 2014-04-02 19:32 UTC
Major middleware vendors have already adopted Mantle (and reaped the performance benefits).
The point is that how you engage in the ceremony of talking to the GPU isn’t of grave concern, it isn’t locking anyone in (evidenced by cross platform middleware) and they’re willing to do the leg work to get ports working.
At some point it’d be interested if you elaborated on which theoretical developer you’re talking about. Is it an indie working on a Flappy Bird Clone (no), is it a AAA studio licensing an engine (no), who is it?
You think there aren’t any games with their custom engines? For example CD Projekt Red have their REDengine (used in Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077). Using WebGL for it on Xbox would be a very bad idea, since even as is (native) it already going to push that supposed to be “next generation” (but really just barely up to date) hardware to the brink – overheads are unacceptable there.
Yet they’re releasing on the Xbox One. Some how they didn’t encounter this mythological lock in.
I meant Xbox One. Not encountered as in what? The fact that they use DirectX and not OpenGL comes from their plan to release it for Xbox (One). Otherwise they could go with OpenGL from the beginning even on Windows (which would make it easier to cover all PC platforms). That’s exactly how lock-in by MS here works. They use Xbox as a tool to retain DirectX influence.
Edited 2014-04-02 19:52 UTC
You mean, a locking as the same Google does with Android?
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android…
Being locked in implies that competing platforms aren’t even considered. This isn’t the case.
If Microsoft is locking people in its doing a pretty terrible job.
The point here is that game developers are more than willing to eat the cost, especially when there are performance improvements to be had.
More examples can be provided on request.
I agree, Sony isn’t much better – I never said it is. Sony wasn’t discussed above however, so what was your point?
In contrast, Valve is going to use OpenGL in Steam Machines.
Edited 2014-04-02 21:23 UTC
That everyone bashes Microsoft, when actually all platform vendors do it and professional game studios couldn’t care less.
Not all. MS is just probably the most notorious amongst those who do because of its size.
You can’t claim studios and engine developers “don’t care less”. Supporting multiple graphical APIs is a headache and extra expense, which they undertake if they want to reach more users.
Edited 2014-04-02 23:12 UTC
And Sony and Nintendo aren’t big players? You just hate Microsoft and will complain because it is Microsoft.
This thread was about Microsoft. Writing about Sony or Nintendo here would be off-topic. They have a lot of trash as well, such as DRM and the like. But this was about MS, not about “many companies have bad things they do”.
Edited 2014-04-03 07:12 UTC
It obviously no off-topic if it is a related area.
I can claim it, given that I know people in certain Dutch and German AAA studios, attended a few GDCE and had a foot into the industry during the last decade.
Not it is not. It is rather a business model where a studios focus on their favorite technology stack, while outsourcing ports to companies specialized in porting games to specific platforms.
It works since the industry early days.
Not caring less can someone who has unlimited resources. All others care.
My PC is 16 GB RAM, Haswell i7 and Radeon 270x. Battlefield 4 actually had lower FPS than with Direct-X 11… Not to mention Direct-X 12 is comming with touted closer to the hardware API and it won’t require new GPU, my bet Mantle wil short lived (although, imo, Mantle hasn’t even lived).
So microsoft is creating lock in by enabling developers to write in the most portable 3d graphics language possible? and open sourcing it for increased portability?
I think you need a reality check…
They open sourced Direct3D and released it royalty free? And it even became portable? When did that happen? Source please.
There are of course Wine’s and Valve’s implementation of D3D -> OpenGL translation (not for recent D3D though), but MS has nothing to do with that.
Edited 2014-04-03 04:11 UTC
Gaming, gaming, gaming, gaming. Cripes. Most people don’t use their PCs for serious gaming. It is a subset of users (albeit a very loud subset on sites like this one).
Windows Phone seems to be making major strides for the better. It probably won’t immediately have an effect on market share since Apple and the various Android devices basically have a stranglehold at the moment, but it looks like a very good update.
Thank goodness for the return of sanity with the Start menu and Metro integration with the desktop. I doubt that many people will mourn the passing of the fragmented feel that Windows 8 initially possessed.
The universal apps could also be a pretty good idea; if it is implemented well it would make things much easier on Windows app developers.
Free software is coming as well.
Office for Metro…um…well…I *guess* it could be ok…maybe. At the very least it will be interesting to compare it to the touch-friendly iPad version.
I am not a big MS fan, but I am not going to chide them for making steps in the right direction…it just seems counterproductive to me.
I don’t know anyone who games on consoles. Why would you prefer expensive dumbed down games?
I meant more that most people aren’t serious gamers. Most of the home users are just trying to get some simple things done (email, Facebook, etc.) and the occasional catchy online game; the business users (a huge group, by the way) don’t user their PCs to play video games.
Hardcore gamers are just not that large a percentage of overall PC users. Just because you don’t know anyone who uses consoles for gaming doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It is cheaper and easier for your average Joe to buy and set up a console than it is to tinker with their machine’s hardware to chase better performance for gaming.
why would you prefer simplistic games built almost exclusively around the game mechanic of pointing at things? (with a mouse)
… but we already have technologies for running the *same* executable on different platforms and architectures, it’s called “Java”.
I mean, there’s no ground breaking announcement in this.
What phones will you be able to run 8.1 for free on?
Will they target existing Android devices that can be unlocked?
Or is this just for future manufacturers?
I find it’s actually Every Desktop environment ever that has a problem. Apple has a terrible commandline environment. Windows, has a terrible UI and terrible commandline/development environment. Linux has a horrible series of bad UIs and a lack of content creation apps that have workflow I’m used to/want to use (Caligari Truespace for 3D plz k thx. [I am aware it’s dead on windows but I still love it, cold dead hands people, cold dead hands.]) Linux is still winning it for me because it’s not trying to control me or ram things down my throat (would kill for a minimalist gnome theme that doesn’t eat screen real estate with window bars etc.). Apple is a very close second because it has not changed the system preferences area since OSX 10.0.
Microsoft keep changing things for no valid reason, and it’s not innovation. It’s them trying to adapt to the next fad. What’s next? Windows for VR headsets? They going to throw out the entire desktop/tiles concepts for 3d VR objects? Apple nailed this point: One platform for touch, Another platform for Desktop. I suspect we’ll need another platform for VR. Computing is going to keep crawling forward with these setups.
At least Linux has it’s touch platform in Android, and Desktop platform with Desktop Linux. Now if people can stop trying to shoehorn Ubuntu onto phones, and let the gnome-shell/unity interface die we might be able to focus resources and start winning the desktop war. Why is it that just as Linux gets games, the desktop jumps the shark? The only time desktop Linux belongs on a phone or tablet, is if you have a concept like Motorola’s Atrix phones. They use android when they’re used as a phone, and they spawn Desktop Linux, when you dock them to use them as a PC. That’s how it’s done people. The Atrix was perfect. They only flaw was it didn’t have enough RAM to support the desktop mode. Make a phone with 4gb RAM, and 64GB storage, and there’s your laptop/phone killer.
Edited 2014-04-03 20:19 UTC
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