Got to sleep at about 2am this morning......
Making a little MetroUI app for photographers, allows you to quickly select a bunch of photos, group them, rate them, distrabute them, probably chuck it out on the app store for free when I'm done
Got to sleep at about 2am this morning......
Making a little MetroUI app for photographers, allows you to quickly select a bunch of photos, group them, rate them, distrabute them, probably chuck it out on the app store for free when I'm done
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Got it installed and had a go - I like the new bootmanager and the metro stuff is very fluid. I struggled with moving between metro and the desktop (this needs work) and what really threw me is how to reboot the PC I eventually resorted to log off and then shutdown on the login screen.
Incidentally, the lock screen disappears with a single keystroke - ESC.
There's obviously work to do here for the desktop PC (but I strongly feel this isn't aimed at that use case - it's about getting devs to play with the Metro dev tools). However, I did like the Ribbon in explorer - it's much nicer to use for the novice user and reasonably intelligent. It's easy to minimize or have pop up on demand and there's lots of nice clicky things to do the things I want to do (even open a command prompt as admin). I'm hoping the glass is coming back though and it's a little weird seeing all those right angled windows versus 7.
Overall promising for such an early stage - it'll be really interesting to see the first Beta and how much shifts between now and then. Certainly no problems with performance at this stage - hopefully I'll get a touchscreen hooked up to it sometime soon so I can see Metro from the right perspective.
The ribbon did surprise me, I thought I would hate it.
The new task manager (TM.exe) is SEXY! Already tried getting it to run on W7 but having no joy (unsurprisingly but it had to be worth a go )
The whole Windows key/Windows button starting Metro was a bit but I guess that was the reason for the preview.
Main PC: Asus Rampage IV Extreme / 3960X@4.5GHz / Antec H1200 Pro / 32GB DDR3-1866 Quad Channel / Sapphire Fury X / Areca 1680 / 850W EVGA SuperNOVA Gold 2 / Corsair 600T / 2x Dell 3007 / 4 x 250GB SSD + 2 x 80GB SSD / 4 x 1TB HDD (RAID 10) / Windows 10 Pro, Yosemite & Ubuntu
HTPC: AsRock Z77 Pro 4 / 3770K@4.2GHz / 24GB / GTX 1080 / SST-LC20 / Antec TP-550 / Hisense 65k5510 4K TV / HTC Vive / 2 x 240GB SSD + 12TB HDD Space / Race Seat / Logitech G29 / Win 10 Pro
HTPC2: Asus AM1I-A / 5150 / 4GB / Corsair Force 3 240GB / Silverstone SST-ML05B + ST30SF / Samsung UE60H6200 TV / Windows 10 Pro
Spare/Loaner: Gigabyte EX58-UD5 / i950 / 12GB / HD7870 / Corsair 300R / Silverpower 700W modular
NAS 1: HP N40L / 12GB ECC RAM / 2 x 3TB Arrays || NAS 2: Dell PowerEdge T110 II / 24GB ECC RAM / 2 x 3TB Hybrid arrays || Network:Buffalo WZR-1166DHP w/DD-WRT + HP ProCurve 1800-24G
Laptop: Dell Precision 5510 Printer: HP CP1515n || Phone: Huawei P30 || Other: Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Pro 10.1 CM14 / Playstation 4 + G29 + 2TB Hybrid drive
Yes - the task manager - very nice bringing together the performance tools into it and well overdue. I did notice metro tasks get "suspended" too - interesting stuff. Have to say, all in all theres a lot there that's new already and there's still a stack of stuff to come in later builds.
Anyone seen any good prices for second-hand multitouch x86/x64 slabs? A quick google suggests that if you're willing to gamble on a less reputable retailer there's an Atom N45x tab out there for ~ £250, but that's still a bit pricey just for messing with Metro and touch-enhanced devving.
In some ways it's a shame I picked up this lovely Aspire 3810 when I did: if I'd waited a couple of months I'd've been far more inclined to get something touchy instead On the other hand, it's a real pleasure to have a laptop I can chuck in a bag in the morning without the power adapter and trust to still be running when I get home...
Had a play with Metro to see how it faired on a multi-monitor desktop, both in 3x1920x1080 and 5760x1080 resolutions. There'll be more to come - I had to get my main rig back up and running after an SSD failure. I'll set up another drive and continue testing soon.
Leaving aside the start menu for a second, window handling remains the same as previous OS versions, taskbars are nicely overhauled; as 3 desktops, there are options for unique or mirrored taskbars, providing full Aero Peek and some customisation, negating the need for UltraMon (Wallpapers are covered too). You can quickly switch which screen Start Merto appears on, which I thought was handy. Spanned desktop operates as normal, one massive desktop.
[rant]I know that's the point but combining normal desktop operation, browsing, file management, etc, with Surround gaming is still a PITA. Window management isn't suited to ratios like that. Switching modes and reconfiguring monitor ordering continues. Either the OS or driver needs to handle switching between single and spanned resolutions.[/rant]
Metro, on a touch device, looks like it'd be ideal, I can't test that more's the pity. For a desktop, it's cumbersome. I won't mention that when Metro app crashes and you've terminated it via the lovely new task manager (no, seriously), the crashed app persists, despite there being no evidence of it elsewhere. I was quite surprised at how good the weather app looked, full screen high quality videos for each location you set. There are bits of it I really like, when they work. What's been presented as a Start Menu replacement, however, would be more suited to being a desktop replacement at most, replacing gadgets ideally. I'd use some of it. Start Metro is not Star Menu, the latter is what I want. It's more productive and accessible for me as a desktop user.
The information it displays and the layout you're forced into isn't what I use a Start Menu for on a desktop system. I want quick access to control panel items, quick access to recent programs and the content I'm working on. It's easy under Vista & 7, with a mouse, you're done with a couple of clicks, all done within a small area. Keyboard is simply Start and type, result appears, hit enter and done.
Start Metro has you clicking all over the place on several screens before you get close. Even using the keyboard method takes longer; wanting the sound control panel for instance, hit Start, type sound and the results have defaulted to app searches, settings are down below, back to the mouse.
Browser links opened in either the default Internet Explorer or the one in Metro. I couldn't be sure which one would capture it first even with the default installation. How long the Metro version sticks around whilst interacting with other desktop apps is random. It doesn't like IE being launched but doesn't if there's already an instance running.
I got angry with Metro and played with Windows 8's other features. I thought I'd captured more images but apparently not. I'll run another test through and grab more, there's a lot of good stuff hidden away, Start Menu would make it easy to get to, Metro keeps it hidden.
If Windows 8 Developer Preview if any indication of what I can expect in terms of Start Menu replacement in particular, I'll pass. It's a huge mistake as it stands.
Remember kids this is a developer preview mostly so we can get started writing in metro.
And on that end I hold in my hands a tablet running windows 8, the problem is its acer build quality....
Metro is really great on it, the browsing experiance is top notch, and the on screen keypad APPLE GET YOUR PHOTOCOPIER OUT, THIS IS WHAT I WANT, NOT THE ***TY IS CAPS LOCK OR SHIFT ON PILE OF DOG EXCREMENT YOU HAVE.
The interesting thing is, this is a C-50 CPU, its 1ghz, but metro always comes up quickly, they've obviously well tuned the process, looking at the physical commit so it never gets paged, nice touch. The putting apps to 'sleep' rather than proper multitasking is also a very handy feature. The downside is so much is cut, I immediately think "oh I need a xxx app" but then remind myself MS will have one in the works, there is no point writing it......
The hiding menus I don't like. Right for 'global' Bottom for app stuff, I get that, doubt my mum will. Thou in all honesty I don't know that, I will try next time I see her, and maybe my gran too, I shouldn't write those luddites off so easily.
For a tablet that has the metro interface, which I'll be honest is far better than iOS for functionality, and on a par with it for performance and liquidity, its really great, but you can then dive benieth and use it as a full PC. I love this. I just don't love the hardware its on.
Maybe I should write a hexus app
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Don't get me wrong, I did like what I saw. Metro on a touch device looked like it made sense in that keynote. As a desktop gadget it would too. As a start menu replacement it's enough to put me off altogether. I hope that it's just down to it being an early build. It's something I could see myself using and developing for otherwise.
This is interesting:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4811/w...-intel-silicon
One of the tablets is running Windows 8 on a MSM8660 SOC. The APQ8060 in the HP TouchPad uses an APQ8060 SOC which is similar but lacks radio.
*shrug* I like my Acer lappy, but then I'm not a build quality snob: as long as it doesn't actually fall apart I'm pretty much happy
I'd love an Iconia W500 just for messing around with touch-oriented development, but I really can't justify that. And if I'm looking at anything over £200 then I might as well just get an Inspiron Duo from the Dell outlet.
I'm a little surprised there aren't more Atom N2xx devices being flogged off cheap at the minute - but then I guess there weren't many Atom tablets in the first place, so perhaps I shouldn't be. Hmmmmmm.
Well I've been using the web browser and I must say its bloody brilliant compared to safari on the ipad2. Its much faster, none of the none rendering whilst scrolling bull**** that some how some people don't get pissed off with, it also renders the page in the first place better. Slight issue with a 64bit build.... no flash yet. But tbh that will most likely be fixed soon.
All in all a very good dev cut. Oh an the w500 comes out of sleep so smoothly.... ❤
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Installing on VMWare Workstation with the 32b version. You get a 30 days trial for the VMWare.
Step-by-step instructions at
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/articl...re_workstation
Installation was very quick -just 5 mins. But, don't like the 'looks' of things. Are we going back to text from icons ? Everything else seemed just like Win7.
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