Microsoft is expected next month to disclose more details on Longhorn, its planned upgrade to Windows, as the company looks to drive demand for the forthcoming operating system. At its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, the Redmond, Wash., software maker will detail Longhorn’s underlying graphics and user interface technology, code-named Aero/Avalon.
Microsoft to Reveal More Longhorn Details
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At first, the “Aero” name got me confused, see purported Aero screenshots at Winsupersite.
( http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/longhorn_aero.asp )
The most attractive news for me here, is that one of the new screen resolution in Longhorn (120 dots per inch or higher). My only doubt is what does exactly “higher” mean. Remember the Viewsonic Dense Pixel LCD delivering 200 dpi last year?
http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/1/0,3363,sz=1&i=…
Full article at Extremetech ( http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,525370,00.asp ).
Still fairly expensive (around $8,000), though who knows by 2005? Expensive and very far from a common resolution for laser printers (600 dots per inch), the screening technology has to make up some big breakthrough soon. According to Antoine Leca at the freetype.org mail-list three years ago (Mar 2000):
Quote
I have a 200dpi prototype screen from Toshiba, who have a low-temperature polysilicon TFT process that creates the brightest, clearest screen I’ve seen yet. With Windows 2000 and ClearType, the text is unbelievable. I’ve seen the same thing on IBMs 200dpi Roentgen display, running Windows 2000.
I have seen other LCDs with reflective displays: 200dpi you can read in direct sunlight.
So resolution of LCDs is pretty much set to at least double over the next two years.
200dpi by itself is still not quite good enough. 200dpi with ClearType gives text that’s better than any newspaper, most books, and many magazines.
When you see the most complex Kanji glyphs rendered on a screen at 9 POINT, with no stroke reduction, then you believe.
End Quote
That doubling has not happened yet, AFAIK.
————————————
Windows haters, please don’t bash it here, rather do it here:
“Gotta Love Bill Gates”
http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2003/mft03092601.htm
I wonder what kind of CPU would a screen of scrolling text require for such hi-res antialiasing. Would an IRC client bring a machine to its knees? Or it would just update text slowly? Anitaliasing definitely slows down my mIRC
Higher resolutions can’t come soon enough for me. I’m very spoiled by my 15″ 1600×1200 laptop, though I notice that newer models have lower resolution, perhaps because the LCD market has tightened up again.
Sadly, my favorite operating system, Mac OS X, is behind the times, with lower resolution and no way to adjust the size of the user interface. Indeed, Cocoa doesn’t even seem to allow for the possibility of adjusting resolution. Compare that to Windows, where every Window is sized based on the underlying font size, so when you enlarge the font you also enlarge the window.
This lack of adjustability on the Mac worries me. I think it is part of the reason why the latest Apple laptops have exactly the same resolution as the previous models. The OS X UI gets too small at higher resolutions.
I think this may become a big issue as higher resolutions come along.
What kind of laptop do you have with that resolution? I have 1400×1050 on mine, but would be interested in trying higher.
. And yes, many excellent new laptops come with maximum resolutions of 1024×768, which I think is unnaceptable.
I thought that the old NeXT GUI was resolution independent and even offered screens at 144dpi. I wonder why OSX can’t scale.
I think higher dpi screens have been a long time coming. I hope Windows will make it happen.
You gotta be kidding about “antialiasing slowing down your MiRC” (???). Please don’t take it badly, but I have to ask you the same question Weird Al Yankovic sings:
“What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?”
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/weird-al-yankovic/its-all-about-the-pent…
(Mine not Intel. AMD XP1300, half the latest AMD chip but doing alright)
The hardware requirements are obviously raising and -higher graphics output = higher processing power- is an obvious equation, however MiRC is not precisely a power demanding application except if you are running a really outdated system.
One of the best things Microsoft Windows does is definitely font rendering, it has achieved the best rendering solution (generally available) under the actual tech limitations. The lack of adjustability if one good example, another one is the simple fact (IMHO of course) that small fonts ought not to be antialiased: the Microsoft Windows standard method for smoothing fonts. Still, other OSes insist on making some small font sizes unreadable by antialiasing everything as a default setting.
My laptop with 1600×1200 resolution is a Sony PCG-GRX650. But the equivalent models today only seem to have 1024×768! Even the high-end PCG-Z1RA only has 1400×1050 (though the screen is smaller, so maybe it makes sense).
What kind of laptop do you have with that resolution? I have 1400×1050 on mine, but would be interested in trying higher.
. And yes, many excellent new laptops come with maximum resolutions of 1024×768, which I think is unnaceptable.
I have a wonderful Dell laptop (D800), it has a 15.2″ with 1920×1600 resolution.
http://www.dell.com/us/en/dhs/learnmore/learnmore_screen_notebooks_…
By the way, all Dell laptops with a 15″ screen in UXGA are 1600×1200, but you can find that out by the link above
I think Microsoft does have a point with the full screen simplified windows in the screenshots. WIMP has really gone too far in one direction. On a HDD filled with Hundreds of programs and thousands of files [on a default install!] little icons, windows, and toolbars really are just to hard to concentrate on effectively.
When you flip the switch on your shiny new PC and get to the main desktop, what does it DO? Big empty window, lots of space… maybe some Icons. A toolbar with some more icons. A start menu with still more icons for menus[of more icons]. If you open a file manager…you get more icons. Nothing explains whats going on! All that power and the PC basicly sits there while one ponders what to do next…….
What would it take to throw something like those screenshots [see m] together for KDE or Gnome? I think the idea of full screen tiles all the time might actually do some good. A better way to manage the hidden windows will be needed..perhaps some visible keyboard buttons to switch screens. to save time on slower systems flipping, perhaps it should flip thru screenshots until you stop pushing then change to the program when you release the key. It could just be a simple web script…after all, just about every Linux install has apache, PHP, and Mysql standard nowdays to run it. The more I work with computers, the more I become a mouse-nazzi. I’m starting to hate the things, as well as lost-focus windows, missing titles, taskbars, and the whole lot of picky mouse pointing things.
You don’t have mice on most “normal” electronic equipment. TV, VCR, PVR, Satillite…all have simple screens that just use arrows and a few special buttons. Why can’t PC interface be like that. extended key keyboards don’t count either…that’s another peeve. I want more power and fewer buttons! You don’t have these problems with a command line, but that’s really a cop out for fixing the problem. Command line is great..only one thing to do at a time, but it severely limits what a PC [emphisis] can do.
I don’t really have a solution, just that what we have now just doesn’t work anymore. As far as Linux [or other AltOS] trying to copy that only leads to being more messy and contrived, not less. Something new and radical is needed!!
mabhatter, PCs are not like “normal” electronic equipment because they are NOT normal. A PC can be used for pretty much everything, something you can’t with other appliances. A PC can do the job of a TV, but not the opposite. A mouse can give you a LOT of control… and that’s somebody that’s a keyboardist that is saying that (as I use the keyboard whenever I can). There are things you just can’t do with digital controls.
>>
He’s probably talking of MS ClearType. It is slow… Really slow. I have a XP2200+…
>>
Well that may be the smoking gun, I don’t use cleartype and I still haven’t been convinced to use it over the standard antialiasing method on my Sony LCD. Didn’t know cleartype was such a load, ’cause slowing a snappy program like MiRC has to be difficult.
>>
The more I work with computers, the more I become a mouse-nazzi. I’m starting to hate the things, as well as lost-focus windows, missing titles, taskbars, and the whole lot of picky mouse pointing things.
>>
I think I can understand that statement about becoming a “mouse-nazi”, I have never liked the mouse much, instead I have always used a keyboard-integrated pointing stick as the pointing device of choice (like this IBM Space Saver: http://www.users-side.co.jp/catalog/periphe/kbd/IBM/ss2en/s_us01.jp… ).
Pointing Devices aside, I don’t feel any urge to get rid of my keyboard, not with handwriting recognition, and far less with speech interaction. A QWERTY keyboard is a more powerful abstraction and a more efficient tool than many people seem to fathom, some physical changes should be made (like portability and maybe easier pointing) but nothing fundamental by the near future.
>>
I think Microsoft does have a point with the full screen simplified windows in the screenshots. WIMP has really gone too far in one direction. On a HDD filled with Hundreds of programs and thousands of files [on a default install!] little icons, windows, and toolbars really are just to hard to concentrate on effectively.
>>
I can’t tell wether Microsoft “has a point” or not because I really haven’t fully seen Aero yet. However, from the leaked screens what I see is more WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointers), no revolutionary point made.
The only thing I would truly want to see dissapear from GUIs are icons. If you are a “mouse-nazi”, then I am an “icon-gestapo”, I can’t stand icons.
Those nasty little thingies around which WIMPs are built, proliferating in our GUIs like Cottontail rabbits on a viagra diet, are one of the obstacles keeping the GUI from managing orderedly and efficiently so much information. We need to move to a database-like GUI, a browser really. Netscape (Constellation) tried a step on that direction what now seems ages (1997) and the rest is history (Constellation never got out). Perhaps times are getting ripe now for browser-centered GUIs, or perhaps the icons curse is alive and kicking :>(
“Better looking GUI…oh im sooo excited. Its a shame they cant release a desktop OS that doesnt have 50 ports open by default each with lovely potential remote exploits.”
They did release a desktop OS that did not have 50 ports open. Haven’t you ever heard of MS-DOS 6.22 with Windows 3.10 (not for WG)? Since it does not even support networking by default, there are no open ports. Granted local security is pretty much non-existant, but you did not specify that. You just wanted remote security. For both local and remote security, try Windows NT Workstation 3.10
Also, Windows XP Professional only comes with 37 open ports, not 50 as your claim states.
If you’re suffering performance loss from ClearType, you’ve got a problem with your video card drivers, not Windows. I run ClearType on this laptop:
P4-M 1.8GHz set to always run at 1.2GHz
1600×1200 Radeon 7500
512MB RAM
And there is no slowdown caused by ClearType.
i don’t understand the appeal of higher resolution for a given screen size since things and icons and words get vanishingly small
Only 37 open ports huh. I can set up a FreeBSD or Linux box that has NO open ports and use it to happily surf the net,chat on IRC etc etc. Why cant MS do this?
I guess your not running X since it has to run a loopback to display anything on the screen
X uses unix sockets, no open ports.
AFAIK Aero, like Quartz Extreme, will offload work to the
3D acceleration of the graphics card. The fancy transforms
will be done by the card. And since you can cache lots of
textures on current cards, you won’t need redraw events
when scrolling or moving or raising windows.
If done right, Aero can actually reduce the load on your
CPU. But you’ll need a good graphics card to get a smooth
experience.
A good UI with vector icons (like SVG) shouldn’t. Only fixed width stuff like pictures would be smaller. Personally, I don’t see that as a disadvantage. The only disadvantage I can see is that the CPU/GPU usage will be much higher.
X can listen on port 6000 for network connections. Which can be disabled by placing “exec X -nolisten tcp” in your .xserverrc file. Hence i am running a X workstation with no open ports.
that they use their heads on this one, and give people an option to turn all that @#$% off should it turn out to slow down existing users or just get in the way. How many times have they added ‘enhancements’ that just make it harder for people who already know how to use the machine? The new menu in XP comes to mind, as do personalized menus. Clippy? What about the stupid search dialog puppy?
There’s user friendly and then theirs user sweet syrup cutsie to the point I’m going to barf.
When the longhorn concept was first announced, they referred to ‘task orientation’. Pretty fancy word choice for WIZARDS, which is all it appears to be. I hate wizards, since they take longer to configure for people who know what they are doing. Telling a new box that it’s on a lan and to connect to the web through the lan should NOT take 5 screens to configure.
I’m hoping those screenshots M linked to off winsite are way off the mark, since it would be a simple case of linking in #$%^ people won’t use. I don’t need a link to Outlook or Media Player inside of the volume control. You know it would be nice to maybe change the OS so there was only one way to start each process, instead of putting it in 50 odd places. Ok, let’s put a link in quick launch, on the desktop, in the top of the menu, in the menu under programs, in the taskbar as a crapplet, and while we’re at it let’s put a launch icon inside each and every directory window while we’re at it right under File and Folder Tasks, as well as in the program window itself. Sure, great.
Please, please, just give us an option to turn all that crap off.
For years, the mantra for M$ and Apple has been to make it easier and easier for people who don’t know what they are doing. I think we can stop now, as there is such a thing as too much. If my grandmother can figure out how to use XP, your done. You can stop making it easier now, since your just making it longer, and more confusing, not easier.
… having to spend a lot of money to upgrade the hardware to run an operating system that we will have to turn off all the groovy features in order to keep the users productive.
This new operating system is clearly targetted for the home user, not the business user.
A suspicious mind would conclude that Microsft is attempting to uproot the grass roots movement of Linux, which has a very rich eye-candy UI.
>>
I just hope that they use their heads on this one, and give people an option to turn all that @#$% off should it turn out to slow down existing users or just get in the way. How many times have they added ‘enhancements’ that just make it harder for people who already know how to use the machine? The new menu in XP comes to mind, as do personalized menus. Clippy? What about the stupid search dialog puppy?
…
Please, please, just give us an option to turn all that crap off.
>>
What are you talking about?
You can turn off clippy. You can shoot that puppy too (that’s the first thing I do on a clean installation). You can turn off the new menu (mine is Classic Start menu with small icons). You can choose between Standard font smoothing, Cleartype smoothing or none. You can run the Luna theme (which contrary to some pointless rants is a pretty austere one) or you can use a classic theme and also Windows classic folders. You can have Quicklaunch or turn it off. You can turn off UI effects like shadowing and fading. You can have a synchronized Web Desktop or not, default is off.
Name one single UI “enhancement” you can’t turn off. As much as I hate some “enhancements” like the search dialog puppy, my computer illiterate 60 years old uncle loves it, not because he is crazy about puppies but because that sort of animation really helps him to do find his way on an adverse medium. He knows more about wood manufacturing than you or I would probably learn in six lives, but he is not computer savvy and those animations ease up a lot. So skip the ‘bravado’ computer standing and try to have a point regarding Longhorn.
You make one point, you hate wizards; Mabhatter hates mice, I hate icons and you hate UI wizzies.
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When the longhorn concept was first announced, they referred to ‘task orientation’. Pretty fancy word choice for WIZARDS, which is all it appears to be. I hate wizards, since they take longer to configure for people who know what they are doing. Telling a new box that it’s on a lan and to connect to the web through the lan should NOT take 5 screens to configure.
>>
Have a heart and remember those pitiful abominable, sordid squalid, utterly despicable, filthy, beastly, depraved rats among us who don’t “know as well what they are doing”. Only, and I’m sure you are fully aware, you can turn off wizards too.
Funny thing is, in other news with the letter x in, I would see the usual gang crying out something like “For God’s sake, this is not even a beta!!!”
some people don’t know much or don’t know how to use OSX. You can change the res and change the text size, icon size and so forth. Its in system preferences. With regard to laptop screen sizes, just because it doesn’t suit you doesn’t mean Apple cannot cope and they are behind. Lets not forget they have a 23″ screen which you can attach to one of their laptops and have the same laptop run up a much higher res than what is found on its own screen.
They are doing fine, you are just not happy.
High resolutions do kick ass. After using my 133 dpi laptop, I have trouble going back to 85dpi screens, even if they are much larger. The resolution can be problematic at times, because Windows doesn’t scale perfectly, and some (broken) websites don’t like it when you don’t have your dpi at the standard 96. Luckily, KDE is pretty good about scaling, expect for one consistent problem with the “small-icon” size being fixed at 16×16, as opposed to being adjustable like the other sizes. I’m not surprised OS X doesn’t scale. Their HIG specifies stuff in pixel sizes, afterall. Kinda misses the whole purpose of using DisplayPDF — to have a vector (ie. scalable) GUI!
You can’t change the text size on the menus or in dialog boxes on Mac OS X. That’s what I mean by not having the flexibility to handle higher resolution. In dpi terms, that 23″ screen has pretty miserable resolution: it only goes to 1900×1200. Compare that to the Dell mentioned earlier, which gets the same resolution on 15.4″. Thus, I say again, you won’t see higher dpi resolutions on Macs until OS X has a more adjustable UI.
I do not understand why people are so exited about something already so long in the making and so long away from producing something tangible.
It is all talk. It detracts from what is happening now. You cannot buy it, implement it. It is useless for now. It will be different in its final version it is vapourware plain and simple.
Linux 2.6 can be talked about as it will impact soon. Longhorn is as far away as Linux 2.8. We do now what will be in there don’t we? All the soon to be released 2.6 stuff and more. We will see by then what has materialised; that is good enough for me.
Longhorn is not credible for now.
Thanks,
Gerard
M, I think you missed what I was saying. I wasn’t saying you couldn’t turn those options off, I’m just hoping that all this new BS they are adding for Longhorn CAN be turned off. Even more so, it would be nice if they gave us the option during the install.
See the difference?
I would assume they would at least let us disable it, but such assumptions are rarely a safe bet, especially where UI changes are concerned. Take Media player. How many different UI’s have we gone through? Even worse, how often do the new skin systems not even come close to being able to replicate the old one? Especially this new Rat B’ called version 9, which basically undoes all the things they got right with 8. Not only is it buggy, have a UI and skin interface inferior to it’s predecessor and have uberspyware at it’s heart, you can’t even uninstall the @#$%er. It’s a @!#$%ing file player. Anything fancier than what’s currently being called “Media Player Classic” just shows that their programmers are spending too much time on goofy UI @#$% and not on fixing REAL problems.
I really like the idea of the iSync alike SyncManager.
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/showcase/aero-01.png
It looks like it can take care of PocketPCs, Audio devices, storage cards and network locations. Nice to finally have all that in once place. I hope they make it work properly with bluetooth phones like the T610 as well. Also it would be good to have a lightweight calender app that works properly with snchronization that doesn’t require the full Outlook. Perhaps there will be an API for it.
Deathshadow, you have failed to give me a valid explanation of what you understand by a “goofy UI” in WindowsXP, you started by trashing wizards and then you jumped into a chain of understaments about your negative experience with Media Player.
Try to be more specific on “REAL problems”. 120 dpi or higher is not what many understand nowadays by “goofy UI”, but seems like you should lecture “their programmers” about not focusing on such trivial things.
——-
Quote GerardM
Linux 2.6 can be talked about as it will impact soon. Longhorn is as far away as Linux 2.8. We do now what will be in there don’t we? All the soon to be released 2.6 stuff and more. We will see by then what has materialised; that is good enough for me.
End Quote
Gerard, what dpi resolution will be supported in Gnome3? It would be all talk right? Damn, well lets try to get to more solid facts then. You made a comparison with Linux 2.8, will there be ready say… a developers’ preview edition of the Linux 2.8 kernel for ***NEXT WEEK***???
You are so insanely biased you haven’t even taken the time to read the article, have you? Or, perhaps for the same reason, you just don’t want to assimilate the weirdness of calling “vapourware” a developers’ preview a week ahead.
Quote article
Microsoft will be giving out an early preview, or developers’ edition of Longhorn, at the conference. Microsoft executives have called Longhorn, which isn’t expected to make its debut until 2005 at the earliest, a “bet the company” release of Windows. The software maker is readying Longhorn- related updates across much of its product lineup.
End quote
More “it’s all talk” you ought not to be interested in (beware of some heavy “vapourware” according to your logic):
– The 2.6 Linux kernel’s scalability prowess.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=4682
– GBDE-GEOM Based Disk Encryption on FreeBSD
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=4675
– A Possible Replacement to X11
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=4670
– Palm to Make Laptops?
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=4652
– Sun Gets Behind Athlon 64 with Linux OS
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=4645
Don’t even venture into such gaseous things as http://www.fresco.org (and here is poor me considering it interesting, naaah).
Gerard, you are not credible for now either. Thank you.
It’s called a similie. You know, comparing one thing to another. You may have heard of it.
I really have to wonder if you are understood a single word of what I posted.
No, I don’t wonder. It’s obvious you didn’t follow it at all.