Microsoft explores bringing top menu bar to Win 11 with new PowerToys feature(www.windowscentral.com)
2 pointsby Tomte5 hours ago3 comments
  • marekful5 hours ago
    Microsoft again copies something from Apple, this time 20 years late. They should downgrade themselves to toy category instead of playing with power toys. The last thing they did well was computer mice.
    • theGeatZhopa4 hours ago
      It's not copying. It's extending.

      I am not standing a word for Microsoft. But I don't like bashing on something without taking the big picture into account.

      This kind of bars could have been added to Windows 20y ago. There were all flavors and use cases for this. From management information of running a fleet of printing machines (the big industrial printing presses), to laser cutters, ..., to the current CPU usage and PC's components temperature. Everything imaginable could be added on screen. In all possible shapes and colors. This was the case with windows, Linux and most of the other operating systems and will also ever be. It's fundamental!

      So who invented the bar at the top?? It's not apple, it's not Microsoft, it's not Linux "who ever this might be" - it's the every day guys and programmers needing a always on top information displayed.

      Apple copied it, because it makes sense. Now Microsoft integrates it too, because it makes sense. Google do it on mobiles too, like Apple and even Nokia and Sony Ericsson and literally all of them use(d) this kind of UI pattern.

      The question from the perspective of UI:

      How else do you want to solve "where to show information constantly without cluttering the user's screen?" If you find an answer please write the concept here.

      If you want to bash Microsoft, then do it in the way "better late, than never. All others are using the concept already. In windows you have to use one of the millions available status bar programs or widgets, while other OS integrate it.."

      But please don't act like Apple is the developer and the writer and the engineer the Bible spoke of ...

      Keep it real and show that you understand the world.

  • boxed5 hours ago
    Well.. it's not a menu bar, which can be seen pretty clearly from the screenshots. It's basically only the left side of the menu bar with tools from the mac, not the menu bar itself.
  • damnitbuilds4 hours ago
    I, like most people, work with an application having its menu bar across the top of the application's window and the Windows menu is along the bottom of the screen.

    Putting another menu above the application's menu bar would just overcomplicate trying to select an application menu item.

    Microsoft need to get developers to fix the shit they already have, not get designers to come up with stupid new ideas. File Explorer STILL - three decades since NTFS came out - cannot handle long file paths properly FFS.

    • theGeatZhopa4 hours ago
      I think it's the slice technique to introduce the "new" task bar in much broader context. In each installation, even when I have to help friends, I switch the taskbar from the centered to the left positioned (as it has been for decades) temporarily/permanently.

      This is because the centered is reduced in informational real estate. There's is simply not enough space to show more, as it is the case with a full screen wide, left positioned.

      And the people don't like it or miss something (like me). So, if I were Microsoft and I plan to have only the centered one in a distant future, I need to find a way .. and that's this way. A way people are used to already from a lot of UI in their daily life..

      I think it's the motivation behind this. :)

      But you're right. You just have to learn to structure your thinking in 255 characters long sentences, then long file paths won't even appear hahhah I hate it too. Have you tried the UNC path \\.\fullfilepath\filename.ext

      I used this for access files with very long paths and names..