At Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft is planning to provide programmers with the code for an early version of Vista, as well as Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005, both of which will be released in November. Vista, the client version of the next release of Windows developed under the code name Longhorn, is expected to be released next year. Screenshots of the PDC Vista build can be found here.
well at least those new screenshots are starting to show Vista is getting a more refined transparent look… Vista is *slowly* maturing on its spx. Im assuming MS will be revamping it still?
I get all those effects on my mac and Linux workstations. So nothing grabbing yet.
oh btw what’s the point of Vista again? heard its something to do with user experience but have not seen anything new. Looks like XP SP3 still.
You get all those effects? Really? I didn’t know OSX and Linux used shaders on their windows.
XP SP3… I hope you’re not serious.
Yes, it is possible to get shadows and real transparancy in Linux. However, it will require a lot from your graphics card, just like I expect it will in Vista. This is probably why it is not enabled by default in most Linux distros.
SHADERS, not shadows. Shadows require per-pixel transparency, but no effects.
Vista uses shaders to do special effects like the frost-glass effect on windows. Not only is it per-pixel transparency, but you can essentially apply filters like you would in photoshop: glass, blur, etc.
Can Linux and OSx do that? Nope.
Linux? I think you mean Xorg or Xfree86. You know, Linux is just a kernel.
GNU/Linux, whatever. You know exactly what I meant, so why don’t you address the actual point.
so i guess this is the final look of the much hyped ui?
The article mentions that Microsoft will be opening up some of the API of Messenger and other MSN services. Hopefully this will help other projects (such as Adium) in their work. I really want camera support for MSN on my Mac! Oh, and I’m sure they’re doing it because they’re really nice at heart – nothing to do with Google Talk of course!
I feel sorry for Microsoft if Google Talk has motivated them to change their Messenger strategy all that much.
I do hope Microsoft gets around to replacing those ancient icons on buttons and such– like the ones in the screenshot of Paint.
Yes it is quite amusing seeing various bits of really ancient code still around–in typical Microsoft style (witness the amazing array of Win 3.1/95/98/2K icons still present in XP). I suppose you could say their motto is “if it’s broken, don’t fix it/if it ain’t broken, fix it” 😉
Why, calc.exe was enough for us back in my day. You spoiled youngin’s don’t know what for!
You had calc.exe? You were lucky. All we had was abacus.com hand coded in debug. And we liked it!
One of the PMs at Microsoft said they would be replacing ALL the icons, unlike XP. Hopefully they actually follow through with this promise.
I wouldn’t mind getting some kind of patch from MS to update the really old icons that are still in XP, it might boost my confidence in them having new icons in Vista.
The old icons in XP that never got updated since win9x or 3.1 look extra ugly when you use an LCD monitor, it’s not as apparent on a CRT though.
The larger thumbnail preview when you hover looks a lot like KDE’s thumbnail preview.
The thumnail over the minimized Paint window reminds me a lot of Apple Dock icons.
There are more features that have been taken from other OS’s but we all pretty much expected this. Not that this is a bad thing. All developers use others ideas and try to implement those that make sense and that improve productivity. Like Expose, which MS will have their version in Vista. It is how the developer uses the reimplementation.
Oh, and it looks like the sidebar is back. With some new transparency, ooooh. So much transparency.
Microsoft likes to claim that it invented those features later on down the road though, and unfortunately some people actually believe them.
The side bar is actually kinda neat.. be interesting to see what can be put in it. Reminds me of the sidebar in Epoc32 r5 *glances at netbook*.. Same sort of thing..
Sidebar looks like it will be full of useless widgets.
As if there isn’t already enough stuff wasting screen real estate.
I like how paint hasn’t changed. Neither has notepad.
I guess the releasing of source code will probably trick a lot of people out of their actual freedom.
But it’s good to see that Microsoft is feeling the pressure.
Soon the world will be ours, patiences.
– Jesse McNelis
Yes. It’s highly encouraging to see that the “About” menu still reads like a legal document rather than informing the user what the application actually does.
I wonder if Notepad still refuses to let you access the “Page Setup” menu without a printer installed but still lets you view the “Print” dialogue?
I have to admit, the clean UI of the photo viewer application looks pretty neat – that approach to Explorer would definitely be the way forward. Shame (by the looks of it) explorer is still at the woefully ugly look from B1.
I can’t see how the sidebar could improve productivity, or be useful. I don’t see the need of a constant slideshow of my pics (I have my website for that), news RSS (I have my browser for that), and a dirty great big clock (I have a digital clock in the system tray & a real clock on the wall). I guess time will tell with the sidebar.
>I can’t see how the sidebar could improve productivity, or be useful…
It’s called eyecandy and yes, makes a lot of difference to the regular user.
I’ve been using the Google Desktop (2.0 beta) sidebar for a few weeks now, and I really like the way it works. Granted it’s on a dual-mon setup but I’ve found it to be useful enough to keep.
What is the license going to be? You can see the code but only for filing bugs?
Microsoft hsa already made its source code available to others. I don’t see anything new.
The source has is available to a select few. It’s look only, no touching, no adapting, no derivatives, scary license, no freedom.
Here are articles from a few years ago that discuss shared source. The Eric Raymonds article is good reading.
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-07-03-007-21-OP-CY
http://www.perens.com/Articles/StandTogether.html
For all I care they can take it and shove it up their ass. Stupid proprietary piece of shit Microseft.
http://digitaldj.net/pdc05/
Are Microsoft offering developers the source code so they get a level playing field with the developers of Microsoft Office?
Are they going to encourage comments on the source to help make it more secure?
Will developers be able to clearly see if Microsoft are breaking any software patents by examining their code in detail?
Will government agencies be able to see that the code is not harming competitive products on purpose?
If so great news.
Microsoft has a long-standing track record of hyping and lying. In terms of releasing the Vista source code I believe it when I see it. Besides, it is not even that relevant anymore since lately everyone is switching to Linux anyways.
Microsoft to switch to Unix kernel. XP to be renamed “Classic.”
too little, too late.
It’s just the binaries. The headline is typical mainstream press sloppiness, misleading although not completely wrong.
Paul G
this is great.
they develop an os thats full of bling and useless crap, needs hardware that you can borrow from your nearby rocket-science-dev, and you still get MS PAINT which has less features than my washer/dryer. this is an os of the future. especially for countries where the monthly income of a normal family is less then what most people here earn in a minute.
but the saddest part is: it will sell like hell.
this really makes me sick.
Where’s pinball? 😛
“Vista uses shaders to do special effects like the frost-glass effect on windows. Not only is it per-pixel transparency, but you can essentially apply filters like you would in photoshop: glass, blur, etc. “
*sigh*
..are we really going to reduce ourselves to arguing about window effects?
Make the bloody thing work as advertised, without giving my personal information and files away to every 15 year old with a script fetish and I’ll be satisfied!
What I said is true, so what’s your beef with it? There are obviously people out there that don’t understand that the Avalon engine does more than what OS X and X.org offer today.
What’s wrong with clearing up a misconception?
Clearing up a misconception is fine, it’s just the last line of your comment came across as a bit…well…”neh neh ne-neh neh”.
No offence meant, but seriously…all major OS’s either have, or shortly will have basically the same feature set in terms of eye candy, so jumping into “my xxxx is better than yours” contests about things like window borders is really pretty pointless.
Well I’m sorry you perceived it that way. I was simply trying to make it clear that what Vista does is DIFFERENT than what Linux and OS X can do. It’s not really even revolutionary, but it IS different.
It already is open, just use OLEVIEWER
I think you mean public DOCUMENTED and SUPPORTED.
I think the buttons on the title bar (close, maximize, minimize) are way too small. That makes it hard to click them, especially for people without much experience using mice.
And the transparent title bar doesn’t look like a useful (and usable) application of transparency, it’s more like “We do because we can and to show off”.
Those screenshots looks awesome. Can’t wait to install that new baby on my laptop.
I feel sorry for Microsoft if Google Talk has motivated them to change their Messenger strategy all that much.
Why feel sorry? It’s called “competition”, and it’s definitelly a good thing.
Oh no, if it is different, they have probably patented it, so in that case no one else will be allowed to apply real time frosting to windows in future….
If they didn’t patent it, someone else would, and try to sue them. The patent system is busted.