- cross-posted to:
- linuxmasterrace@feddit.de
- cross-posted to:
- linuxmasterrace@feddit.de
Hi everyone,
I’d like to have my apps as tiles within a full-screen view (ideally called via pressing the Windows button on the keyboard) in Linux, pretty much the Windows Metro look as seen above. I have all the icon files and just need to link them to the apps themselves. Might you know of a way to do that?
Thanks for your help! Temperche
There will always be someone requesting the weirdest Windows features.
This interface is pretty awesome on touch screens. Windows 8 was terrible on laptops and desktops, but it easily beat iOS and Android on tablets.
It’s a real shame nobody ever made any applications for Windows and that Microsoft decided to replace the entire API every major release, killing the remaining apps.
I can also imagine this being useful for people with limited eyesight or mouse movement, nice and big surfaces and distinctive colours are a lot clearer than the flat grid of icons moet GUIs have.
I wouldn’t want this, but I can totally see why someone else would.
The move makes some sense in context. Computer sales were declining and it was looking (if you’re Cueball) as if the traditional desktop/laptop computer was about to die out. The Surface was being developed, tablets were all the rage, PC gaming wasn’t that big yet, and so Microsoft thought “alright, K/B+mouse is out, touchscreens are in, we need to update our interface to cater for this new demographic, but we’ll still allow people to use a keyboard and mouse if they really want to I guess”. That’s when they went all in with Windows-On-ARM (remember Windows RT?) as well.
Obviously a completely missed shot in retrospect. What Microsoft miserably failed to understand is that smartphones were in, but touch screen interfaces are absolutely awful for power users. Ya can’t really use Excel or write a book on a touchscreen. And ya don’t need to pay for a Windows license to browse Facebook, Twitter, and passively consume some news and video. So the “middle segment” of tablets never really had broad appeal in general, and Surface tablets especially were the middle segment of a middle segment (with android/chromebooks on one side and the iPad on the other) so the Metro UI never had a chance to make sense for more than a handful of very lonely Surface users. No wonder they scrapped it a few years later when sales of touchscreen windows devices failed to materialize.
This depends on the power user, though. iPad Pros are being used by professionals left, right, and center, and have completely replaced laptops for some because they have a decent typing sleeve. It’s not that they missed “power users” per se, it’s more that when they thought “power users”, they thought “Microsoft Excel” rather than “Photoshop”. Then again, Microsoft’s ARM offering back then was too slow to reasonably expect power users to switch.
IMO, they could’ve fixed some of this. They shouldn’t have sold tablets without keyboard sleeves. They should’ve used the Windows 8.1 design for Windows 8. They should’ve focused on getting browsers and applications available before the platform launched, not years later. They could’ve pushed touch screens onto laptop vendors so the UI makes more sense.
Microsoft still sells Windows tablets and I believe they’re actually quite popular among artists for their excellent pen support and the full version of tools like Photoshop being available. If they weren’t so Microsoft-priced, I would consider buying a Surface tablet before I’d look at an iPad, considering the sheer power and freedom the Windows ecosystem brings compared to iPadOS. Qualcom/Intel/AMD really need to step up their game and compete with the M2 on mobile already, though.
Art is a valid use-case for tablets, and actually the best one. For almost all of corporate office jobs however, tablets are a worse proposition than a regular workstation. Most people type more than they draw.
It’s fine, but that means that Windows 10’s “UI optimized for KB/Mouse with accessibility features for touch screens” was, in retrospect, the better choice all along. Windows 8 did the opposite and made the experience worse for everyone under the completely incorrect assumption that we were ALL going into a touchscreen-first world.
I still consider Windows 10 to be worse for tablets than Windows 8.1. Windows 10 is better for 90% of computers, but the touch interface went through a regression when they refocused on kb/mouse.
Tablet mode works well in recent versions of Windows, but that feels more like a layer on top of the OS rather than an integrated part of it like Windows 8(.1) felt like.
In a perfect world, we would have the option to choose, but Microsoft doesn’t want to maintain multiple shells of course. As for desktop use, I would love to get Windows 7’s UI and privacy friendly design on top of Windows 11’s state-of-the-art kernel. I know nothing like that will ever happen, but I can dream…
Having a dedicated touchscreen shell is something that I believe GNOME and KDE are trying to achieve, but I don’t know whether they succeeded UX-wise as I’ve never used them.
It’s unfortunate that Windows 10 was a regression for touchscreens, but if MS did not have the resources/willingness to support both well, then focusing on KB+M was the right call IMO. When building Windows 8 they simply miscalculated how relevant touchscreens would/could become for Windows in the 2010s.
If you want privacy, Linux is definitely the only choice anymore. If you want privacy and a good UI, Linux may be a good choice depending on your tastes in UI. I think KDE does UI/UX right for your average power user while retaining most of Windows’ UI paradigms (which is why SteamOS uses it for its desktop mode). Ironically Microsoft has actually been stealing a lot of design cues from KDE, especially with Windows 11. The lock screen of Windows 11 in particular is a straight ripoff of KDE Plasma, every time I walk in front of a locked Windows computer I have to do a double take. The rounded corners, slight Gaussian blur, cute-yet-serious font, it’s all there.
Right? I’m thinking “who the frig would willingly choose this of all options‽” 🤣
I like that for Windows phones. I still have one. Screen space is saved. You choose the app you want on the main screen from a clean list instead of an icon profusion. Nowadays all phones interfaces are the same and less good than the Windows Phone interface.
Its cool on phones, but I admit, I don’t need that on PC.