Windows Explorer is a foundation of the user experience of the Windows desktop and has undergone several design changes over the years, but has not seen a substantial change in quite some time. Windows 8 is about reimagining Windows, so we took on the challenge to improve the most widely used desktop tool (except maybe for Solitaire) in Windows. Alex Simons on the program management team authored this post with a detailed look at the evolution of Explorer and the major improvements to its interface and functionality for Windows 8. Judging by the passion on file operations and user interface design, we know this is an important subject so we expect a pretty engaged dialog on the topic. We put this in one lengthy post, will watch the comments and dialog, and down the road we’ll continue the discussion.
— Steven
It’s exciting to have this opportunity to share the improvements we’re making to the file management capabilities of Windows Explorer. Explorer is one of the most venerable parts of Windows with a heritage you can trace back to the “MS-DOS Executive” in Windows 1.0!
MS-DOS Executive in Windows 1.0
Over the years, Explorer and its forerunners have gone through several major iterations:
File Manager in Windows 3.1
Explorer in Windows XP
Explorer in Windows 7
It’s a bit daunting but also pretty exciting to have the opportunity to revisit and rethink this cornerstone of our product. Many of you who are reading this (and most of us on the development team) are among the most extreme “power users” of the file management tools in Explorer and likely start from a different perspective than the broad base of customers. As we approach the work to improve file management in Windows, we do so knowing many of you have long ago “given up” on Explorer and are using some of the wide variety of add-ons or alternatives.
As we mentioned in our post on improvements in the copy function, telemetry data indicates these add-ons and alternatives are mostly used by us power-users and we represent a small but influential group of people. The most popular add-ons and replacements (programs like TeraCopy, FastCopy, xplorer2 & QTTabBar) are installed (note that does not mean used) on about 0.45% of PC’s. Our goal is to improve the usage experience for a majority of customers while recognizing that, with such a long history and variety of depth usage, we cannot possibly provide all of the power everyone might want. We expect that there will be a vibrant third-party toolset for some time to come. Windows 8 is an opportunity to substantially improve the experience for everyone.
How Explorer is used today
Over the years, Explorer has grown to support a number of different scenarios, many unrelated to file management – launching programs, viewing photos, playing videos, and playing music, to name just a few. We wanted to know which of these capabilities customers were really using. Using telemetry data, we were able to answer the question of how the broadest set of customers use Explorer in aggregate. As a reminder, the telemetry data is opt-in, anonymous, and private, but it does represent hundreds of millions of sessions from all customer types.
This data is pretty interesting. First it shows that even though there are over 200 commands in Explorer, customers use a small number of them with any real frequency: the top 10 commands represent 81.8% of total usage. Additionally it shows us that people overwhelmingly use Explorer for core file management tasks – the top 7 commands (72.2% of usage) are all for managing/manipulating files.
This data represents the total usage of Explorer and includes cases where a person has a third-party add-on installed that uses one of our built-in commands (i.e. “play,” “open,” “edit,” “email,” etc.) A good example would be that a customer might have a third-party music app installed, which is the default player for all their music formats. The command usage of this third-party add-in from within Explorer is included in the data above. There are a class of add-ons that add their own custom commands (i.e. “rotate”) and we don’t get telemetry data for those, though we do know how often they are installed and get invoked (<2% of user sessions). This data is pretty solid and given the hundreds of millions of data points, it gives us a very clear picture of average usage across the population as a whole, and also of the spectrum of usage patterns (depth and breadth, frequency, etc.).
We also wanted to know how people most frequently invoke commands in Explorer.
The telemetry data here shows that 54.5% of commands are invoked using a right-click context menu, and another 32.2% are invoked using keyboard shortcuts (“Hotkey” above) while only 10.9% come from the Command bar, the most visible UI element in Explorer in Windows 7 and Vista. With greater than 85% of command usage being invoked using a method other than the primary UI, there was clearly an opportunity to improve the Explorer user experience to make it more effective—more visible and uniformly accessible. While context menus are convenient, the features in them can be overlooked if you don’t condition yourself to “search” via a context menu for the feature (a well-known challenge with the mechanism).
We also did an analysis of which of the commands that customers used were available in the Command bar:
Only 2 of the top 10 commands customers invoke in Explorer are available in the Command bar, the main UI element for invoking commands. This further reinforced our thinking that there was a big opportunity here to improve Explorer by making common commands more readily available. A clear user interface design principle is that frequently used commands should be easy to get to—clearly we had not yet accomplished that with existing designs.
Next, we turned to customers and community feedback. Customers have a lot of suggestions for how they’d like to see Explorer evolve. Many of these suggestions are for things that after-market add-ons like TeraCopy, QTTabBar, DMEXBar, & StExBar, or Explorer replacements like xplorer2, XYplorer or FreeCommander already offer.
The biggest category of feedback was requests to bring back features from Windows XP that were removed in Windows Vista, especially things like bringing back the “Up” button from Windows XP, adding cut, copy, & paste back into the top-level UI, and for providing a more customizable command surface. Also frequently requested is the need for more keyboard shortcuts. As you’ll read below, we’ve addressed many of these top requests in the redesigned Explorer. Each of these “removed” commands has a long history rooted in the changes to the Windows architecture and/or design philosophy.
Goals of the new Windows Explorer
We set out to accomplish three main goals with this new version of Explorer.
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Optimize Explorer for file management tasks. Return Explorer to its roots as an efficient file manager and expose some hidden gems, those file management commands already in Explorer that many customers might not even know exist.
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Create a streamlined command experience. Put the most used commands in the most prominent parts of the UI so they are easy to find, in places that make sense and are reliable. Organize the commands in predictable places and logical groupings according to context, and present relevant information right where you need it.
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Respect Explorer’s heritage. Maintain the power and richness of Explorer and bring back the most relevant and requested features from the Windows XP era when the current architecture and security model of Windows permits.
We evaluated several different UI command affordances including expanded versions of the Vista/Windows 7 command bar, Windows 95/Windows XP style toolbars and menus, several entirely new UI approaches, and the Office style ribbon. Of these, the ribbon approach offered benefits in line with our goals:
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Provides the ability to put the most important commands in very prominent, front and center locations.
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Makes it easy to find commands predictably and reliably. Every important file management command could be given a home in the ribbon, and customers would always know where to look for them.
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Exposes a large set of commands (~200) in one easy and consistent experience and organizes commands into scenario-focused groups without the use of nested menus, popups, dialogs, and right-click menus.
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Aids command identification with support for grouping, a variety of button sizes and icons, and aids deeper investigation with live previews and expanded tooltips.
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Takes a similar approach to Office, Microsoft Paint, and Windows Live Essentials, which means that many of our customers will be familiar with the model and not have a lot to learn.
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Provides a consistent, reliable UI that doesn’t degrade over time like traditional toolbar and menu-based user interfaces do. See Jensen’s earlier blog on this topic from the development of the ribbon.
These strengths fit well with our three goals – the ribbon would allow us to create an optimized file manager where commands would have reliable, logical locations in a streamlined experience. The flexibility of the ribbon with many icon options, tabs, flexible layout and groupings also ensured that we could respect Explorer’s heritage. We could present a rich set of commands without removing access to previously top-level commands, something we knew was really important to our customers. As it so happens, while not primarily a touch interface, the ribbon also provides a much more reliable and usable touch-only interface than pull-down menus and context menus (we’ll have lots more to say on the topic of touch, of course—as a reminder, check out this Windows 8 video–we definitely know there is a lot of interest but also want to make clear that we know how important keyboard and mouse scenarios are to power-user scenarios of file management).
Explorer in “Windows 8”
We knew that using a ribbon for Explorer would likely be met with skepticism by a set of power-users (like me), but there are clear benefits in ways that the ribbon:
- Exposes hidden features that they already use but which require third party add-ons to use in the Explorer UI today.
- Provides keyboard shortcuts for every command in the ribbon, something many people have been asking for.
- Provides UI customization with the quick access toolbar, taking us back to a customization level that is basically equivalent to Windows XP.
We also knew that, similar to when we added the ribbon into Office, there would be concerns about reduced screen real estate. We worked hard to mitigate this issue, and I’ll tell you what we did here a little later in this blog post.
Finally, there are quite a few third-party add-ons that some of our more advanced customers use with Explorer today. These add-ons will continue to work in the right-click context menus in Windows 8, which is by far the most common access point for experienced customers running these add-ins (where discovery and occasional usage are not the primary design points). However, add-ins will not be able to plug into the ribbon UI. This was a difficult engineering choice for us and we expect that many of you will read this and suggest we add the capability–of course if we could get it right this time around we would have done that. A big part of this blog is sharing these choices–tradeoffs–between new features and adding everything we can dream up and finishing. We also think the customization we provide and the improvements are worthwhile this time around.
In a related note, one of the most common requests we get in any redesign is to continue to provide the old user interface along with the new. Sometimes this is suggested as a “transitional” benefit, and other times as a “compatibility mode.” We’ve learned over many product cycles that the work to provide this significantly impacts the evolution of the product. The most immediate challenge is that any new commands added to the ribbon then need to be added in the old UI, even if there is no logical place for them. And of course as the new UI evolves, backward compatibility proves doubly challenging. Each time we change we double the number of “old” experiences we carry forward. Our hope is that those who maintain software understand that these are tradeoffs we make in a thoughtful and deliberate manner, and are not meant to be forceful or painful in any way. We are fully aware of the responsibility that comes from changing an interface used by so many people.
A ribbon gave us a lot of layout options and we explored a number of different approaches to tabs and grouping. We decided to go with three main tabs: Home, Share, and View, plus a File menu and a variety of contextual tabs.
The new ribbon
The Home tab is focused on the core file management tasks, and we’ve put all the major file management commands there in prominent locations: Copy, Paste, Delete, Rename, Cut, and Properties. We’ve also given new prominence to two popular heritage features, Move to and Copy to, along with exposing a hidden gem, Copy path, which is really useful when you need to paste a file path into a file dialog, or when you want to email someone a link to a file on a server.
The new Home tab
The Home tab is the heart of our new, much more streamlined Explorer experience. The commands that make up 84% of what customers do in Explorer are now all available on this one tab:
Overlay showing Command usage % by button on the new Home tab
The Share tab is for sharing files by typical methods like zipping them up and emailing them to a friend, or burning them to optical media. Or you can quickly share files with other people in your home group or your network domain. It also provides one-click access to the ACLs for the currently highlighted file.
The new Share tab
The View tab provides access to options for view customization. We’ve enabled one-click access for turning on/off the Navigation pane, Preview pane, and Details pane, a live preview gallery for the different icon display sizes, quick access to sorting and grouping by column, the ability to quickly add columns, plus easy access to three hidden features: show file name extensions, show hidden items, and hide selected items.
The View tab
The customization options for the Navigation pane are also much easier to access – in the drop-down menu, you get one-click access to them, including a new option to show or hide favorites.
Navigation pane options
The file menu and other tools
The file menu lets you quickly open new Explorer windows, access your shortcuts, and change folder and search options. It also includes a hidden feature that we love, Open command prompt, and a really useful new command, Open command prompt as administrator, both of which launch a command prompt with the path set to the currently selected folder.
File menu
We’ve provided a variety of contextual tabs that activate in the context of specific files and folders, and for tasks like searching, managing libraries, viewing pictures, and playing music. One of the best examples is the new Search Tools contextual tab which launches when you click in the search box.
Search tab
The Search tab surfaces a bunch of hidden gems that most people are not aware of, but that could solve some common problems for them. You can quickly adjust the scope of any search, filter by common date ranges, file type, file size, and other properties like the author or name. Then you can save these searches for future use.
Here are examples of some of the other Explorer context tabs:
Library Tools
Picture Tools
Disk Tools
Designing for a wider screen
When considering the ribbon UI, we knew we had to be conscious of one of the primary customer concerns we hear about: screen real estate. As we looked at ways to mitigate this issue, we dug up some more telemetry data for Windows 7:
As this data shows, widescreen formats (those with a resolution ratio > 1.3) have become the standard. Of the top 20 screen resolutions, 17 of them are widescreen formats and they account for 83% of the total Windows 7 PC base. This should make sense to everyone because the majority of PCs are laptops and almost all laptops are wide screen. The two common standard resolutions are almost exclusively desktop PCs. We had a lot of good discussion about display resolution in Engineering Windows 7 and likely this will be an interesting topic again.
Knowing this, we investigated a number of options for using widescreen formats more effectively with the goal that the total vertical space available for content was the same after we added the ribbon as it had been in Windows 7. We removed the header at the top of the main view and moved the Details pane to the right side (and also did a visual revamp of the pane) while keeping a one-line status bar at the bottom of the window where we show you critical information.
Details pane for images
This approach gives you a new Details pane that is much easier to read, makes better use of widescreen formats, and preserves screen real estate for the main file/folder pane. The exact number of lines might vary a bit from PC to PC depending on what add-ins you have, but for the out-of-the-box configuration running full screen at 1366 X 768, you can actually fit two more lines on the screen than you could in Windows 7.
And this comparison assumes you have the ribbon open. If you collapse the ribbon (double-click the tab, or click the Minimize arrow on the right side of the ribbon), you get even more vertical real estate with our new approach.
Making it work well for power users too
Finally, while most of the work we’ve done is focused on making Explorer work for everyone, we also wanted to make sure we were giving our more sophisticated users a good experience as well.
One of the top requests from more advanced users is for more keyboard shortcuts. All of the existing Windows Explorer shortcuts work in this version of Explorer, but with our new approach, all of the approximately 200 commands in the ribbon now have keyboard shortcuts as well. (Note that we haven’t finalized the exact number of commands in the ribbon yet. It will likely end up between 198 and 203 when we’re done.)
Keyboard shortcuts
Advanced customers have also traditionally asked for the ability to customize Explorer more. The Explorer in Windows XP was probably the most customizable version to date (you could add or remove a pre-specified set of buttons from the toolbar and customize the layout) but the Explorer UI in Windows 7 and Vista had very limited customization options beyond installing third-party add-ons.
The new Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) in Explorer provides a lot of customization opportunities. Similar to Office, by right-clicking any button in the ribbon, you can add it to the QAT. Additionally, you can choose to have the QAT display above or below the ribbon, and to display the ribbon in an open or minimized state. This is a big increase in the level of customization available in Explorer (you can choose approximately 200 commands to add to the QAT) and returns it to a level equal to or greater than we had in Windows XP.
QAT customization options
A customized QAT with a minimized ribbon
Finally, as you may have noticed in several of the screen shots, we just had to bring back the “Up” button.
The return of the “Up” button!
This is far and away the most requested improvement to Explorer, and a great opportunity to bring back some of Windows Explorer’s heritage features.
I’ll leave you with this quick demo where I walk you through the main features of the new Windows Explorer.
Download this video to view it in your favorite media player:
High quality MP4 | Lower quality MP4
–Alex Simons
Ribbon FTW 😀
New Awesome post !! Thanks
looks nice.
i'll surely try win8 beta (if it will be public)!
Hmmmmm… I actually took a swipe at Notepad ribbon again today as if I knew you were posting this. I think I like it… Keep it coming guys… 😉
I think one great feature would be some kind of "user education". When you perform commands, that are accessible through hotkeys, the manual way it would be nice if a hint could be shown. I try to use as much hotkeys I can but I realize there are many I don't know. And for the regular user it would be even more.
Hmmmmm… I actually took a swipe at Wordpad ribbon again today as if I knew you were posting this. I think I like it… Keep it coming guys… 😉
Ribbon UI may have its positive sides, which you noted – however, when it comes to touch operations and looks overall – it is simply not good enough. 2 cents
Looking forward for Windows 8 beta release. I'm sure this will be the most successful Operating System ever built by Microsoft. And not to mention that this will be our future OS, means no more chromium and no more apples.
ehm .. I prefer the Windows 3.1 version ..
For a everyday user simplicity beats functionality .. 98 % of windows users are simple folks that think OS X and Linux are complicated ..
Looks like 98% of windows users will think the new Windows Explorer is comlicated!
Nice feature and ı watch video build 8059 🙂
Will it be possible to play a song or video on the preview pane without open it?
looks very nice.
It's like office ribbon and I love it so much. 😉
Rather good. I hope you'll also be able to fix the bug that prevents Windows Search to properly index any drive whose letter is "B:". This bug really annoys me.
Major improvement, Ribbon will definitely help the UI.
Looking great! Any chance you are adding advanced file/folder naming options? Like "Find & Replace" functionality?
Windows7 has a very functional address bar, and makes the 'up' button obsolete in every way.
I prefer the actual shape, maybe making it more similar to IE9's look to give more consistency. Speaking purely aesthetic, that Ribbon-ized Explorer just looks awful. Though, I should admit that for some users Ribbons could be more easy to use instead of diving through sub-menus.
I'd have liked to see some context menu love; for the first half of the article it felt like you were saying, "We figured out most people were using context menus. This made us sad because we like the command bar. So we decided to focus on the feature users clearly rejected to force them to use it." On the other hand, the ribbon satisfies me because at the very least it means I can find keyboard shortcuts when I forget them. Plus I'm not sure what you could do with context menus to make them easier; a search box would be nice I guess?
I imagine there's heaps of legal issues surrounding this, but it seems archaic to see a "Share" tag without a Facebook, Twitter, etc. button. I'd halfway expect to see "fax" and "postal service" buttons next to "email". Hopefully there's good shell extensibility so everyone who uses a computer can make Windows 8 have features modern users use :p To your credit, Mac OS Finder lacks that feature too; I'm curious if their recent Twitter integration into iOS might be a precursor though.
Wonder if there will be a touch first explorer. Or file operations will need a mous/keyboard.
Also, wonder what the extensibility model is now. Really hate the long pause caused by shell extensions when you right mouse click.
Looking good. How about you make it look consistent across Windows and Office this time?
Looking good. How about you make it look consistent across Windows and Office this time?
Why does the "Command prompt as Administrator" icon have an overlay of a user instead of a shield overlay? Administrative tasks/elevation commands always have the shield, this is a rather odd icon choice!
Hi,
Really liking the "Open Command prompt" option in the File menu however I prefer to use powershell so would like a "Open Powershell prompt" option too.
thanks
@jamiet
A little complicated. Ribbon interface with Windows Explorer is not a good idea (space space space on top of window). I prefer medium icons, with grey scale colors (like Google Chrome, for example).
I like the use of the Ribbon UI here. It is easy to collapse the Ribbon if you know your shortcuts and right context menu. One quibble on the File menu – where is the Open PowerShell Prompt menu pick? PowerShell is far, far, far superior to CMD.exe in almost every imagineable way. It really should have its own "Open" entry in the Windows Explorer File menu.
Thanks for adding in the ability to hide Libraries. For those of us who use our own media management techs, this frees up a lot of space in the Explorer window.
Love it, keep up the great work! Wish I could be a little more constructive, but a compliment is better than nothing!
Good update, but it would be exceptional optimizing the "Share" tab. In fact I think a lot of people won't actually use those functions and they will still upload their photos, videos etc. to Facebook, Twitter etc. using the web browser. So it would be nice being able to upload folders and files to Facebook using just Explorer and it would be more, I'd say, modern. It's just like a "send via e-mail", but now it's for social networks. A little bit like the social integration of Windows Phone 🙂
I love the "up" button, glad it's back. Looks like more great stuff coming with Windows 8. Can't wait!
The ribbon is a nice shiny new UI with big buttons and lots of color, but how will it work on a notebook with limited real estate? Given that we're moving so much into mobile computing, I don't understand why they'd sacrifice so much real estate.
I'm glad to see coherence is finally coming back to Windows. I also love how the new Explorer works, although I have to admit the address bar looks kinda awkward with the ribbon.
Very curious about those always-changing designs of the window managing buttons up there.
Keep up the great work.
Wow, this is really going to drive the market for 3rd party explorer replacements. Ribbon interface is just too busy.
I agree with Keith… PowerShell is more superior than the CMD.exe. It would be a sin to leave it out of Windows 8. Please, include a "Open PowerShell Prompt" on the File Menu. 🙂
how about the status bar ? we need : total space in the view and free space on disk !
Hi, Why don't you update the icons ? especially the so long yellow icon for folder. The UI is very important for people and you should not forget that.
One more thing: An archive should be selected right after it was created, because it's very likely that the user wants to deal with it (e.g. move it to an USB drive, email it) *right after* it was created.
Keep it up Microsoft people, you all are doing great.
Nice improvement but users should be able to choose location of details pane to bottom or side because many users never use Windows Explorer in full screen mode.
I've yet to find a user where I work who likes the Ribbon in Office, and I can't imagine we'll like it better in Explorer. I've been told frequently by Microsoft people at TechEd over the years that "once you get used to it, you'll love it". Well, it has been quite a few years, we're used to it and still don't love it. Aside from being a terrible waste of screen real-estate (but thank you for adding the collapse button!), the main problem we have with it is that it has no logical hierarchy by which to find infrequently used commands. In a menu, we have a top list of options, followed by progressively more specialized sub-menus that flow visually top to bottom. With the Ribbon, the top level is still there but the sub-levels are progressively more randomly arranged and difficult to quickly scan for the command we need. One good work-around I've seen is a Command Search text box that filters the Ribbon to just matching commands.
Another Ribbon issue is that the hard-coded choice of which commands go where is very frustrating. With Toolbars we could usually re-arrange things to match our needs. I might actually like the Ribbon if I could move my commonly used commands where I wanted them. Further, toolbars were small enough that you could have almost all of your common commands available at once, instead of having to tab around like in the Ribbon. One click has become at least two, usually more as my guess as to what Ribbon tab the command is on is frequently wrong.
In Explorer, I exclusively use keyboard shortcuts, the menu (thank goodness it was possible to make it "always visible" still in Win7) and context menus. Command bars, Ribbons, and other fluff just take up space I'd rather use to see files.
I think a better solution to the Touch UI problem would be to create a new visualization for traditional Menus that was touch friendly.
Hello Steven,
1) Why not provide a tab in the explorer ribbon pan as Office ribbon provides for addins. That would be great for power users. The add-ins tab will be displayed, only if any add-in is installed.
2) Regarding the colour scheme/theme of the explorer. I think it looks outdated, Office 2010's ribbon has much fresher look than the above Windows 8's.
3) Any changes made in the file search algorithm? time for Indexing and stuff like that..
4) The back and forward buttons are cornered and hanging somewhere. I think it will be better, if they were made somewhat larger and become part of the ribbon..
Explorer in Windows 8 is extremely dynamic and I like it. However a little thing I notice that the blue theme of the ribbon and Aero color scheme (not in this case) will somehow unfit with each other like Aero with pink color and the ribbon with that blue look. So I would suggest the change by two options:
Option #1 : Give ribbon option to change with three standard colors (gray, black, blue) like the ability of the ribbon in Microsoft Office 2007/2010 because at least it has the gray (colorless color) which would be fit in all color of Aero scheme.
Option #2: Let the ribbon be adaptive when automatically change their color according to Aero main color scheme. For example: if I change Aero scheme color to pink, the blue theme of ribbon would change to pink or some short of light pink to fit with the whole theme as well.
And I also wonder why the team doesn't want to show the new start menu logo without the orb since it was recognized at the previous post. It would be nice, if the team remove it because since Windows 7 official logo (not Windows 7 start orb) the orb is already gone so there no reason to keep it in this version.
We've known about this since the 1st Windows 8 leak… scratch that, before that, we had screenshots…
Not just that, but if you squinted you could see this in already released official Microsoft videos of Win 8…
Hello,
I think what you have done with explorer is brallient. It is neat to see the "hidden gems", as you mention it, surface, some of which I didn't even know existed!
I agree that Windows XP had the best Explorer UI (functionality and convenience wise) up to this date, and the ribbon brings much of that functionality back without overwhelming the UI or cluttering up the interface.
I do have one request, though. It is something that I was hoping that the Windows team would adress after seing the Windows Ribbon in Windows 7 and Live Essentials 2011. I believe the MS Office 2010 team has done an excelent job at streamlining the ribbon's size and making it look very clean. I was hoping Windows Ribbon would adapt the Office 2010 ribbon. Here are my reasons: Office 2010's ribbon takes less realestate than does Windows Ribbon. Office 2010's ribbon looks cleaniner and simpler than does Windows Ribbon.
Furthermore, one thing I like about Office 2010's ribbon that I would love to see implimented in Windows is the ability to change colors. I would love to see an universal option to have a black, blue, and a silver version of ribbon that would be applied to the Windows Ribbon all across the board. It is great that we can color the Aero Glass, but we have little control over the color of other UI elements, like the ribbon.
Thanks for sharing some of your Windows 8 Development stories with us and reading our comments. I will be sure to continue following your developments and supporting Windows and its community for years to come.
Nazmus
Excellent update to Explorer !
I am one of the guys who have 'given up' on Explorer, but this may make me come back.
I cannot imagine using Explorer in any other way than 2 open windows side by side, as dragging files using the folder hierarchy is not practical at all.
So, the "must have" feature for me is the ability for Explorer to remember the position of its windows (note the plural) between sessions. Remembering the current directory in each window would also be very useful.
Thanks for sharing your vision.
I am curious, how is the data collected ? From focus group, data dumps, or plain snooping?
Can we toggle the ribbon on and off? I personally do not like the ribbon interface and prefer menus. Will I be able to switch from ribbon to menu?
When I first read "ribbon" I thought "NOOOOOOO!".
But the feature you put in there are cool and I think you have done a good job.
Perhaps the ribbon icons could have more space: they look like a little messy to me.
Oh, I forgot one more thing that the ribbon in windows 8 has less transparent glassy look than Office 2010's one which not really nice. because at Office 2010's ribbon with Aero enabled the its ribbon changes to transparent with white linear gradient . Hope the team would consider that or some other creative stuff and I will wait for some new hovering animation as well.
This is example of glassy ribbon look in Office 2010 with the gradient highlighted in red square
img41.imageshack.us/…/drag.png
Looks awesome! At the same time, was a little disappointed in seeing no support for a tabbed interface.
Great job! I really like the new implementation of the ribbon in Explorer, and the newly exposed features will make things more accessible for everyone. I can't wait to try it for myself!
Great work but … common questions from the users are:
– will you support *lossless* picture rotation?
– will you support tiff multipage format (starting from vista it's a lost feature)
Consequent questions from developer are:
– how hard is extending this shell? Explorer.exe extensions were either undocumented or very hard to create (I mean to create a stable version).
Another skeptic here when I saw the ribbon. It makes the window seem top heavy.
I was also worried about losing screen real estate. Your comparison (22 files vs 24 files) changed my mind on that issue. Great job on claiming back unused space!
With that being said, I am still all for the change. Keep up the good work!
I forgot to say that seeing an extra 2 files (or so) doesn't help me at all. To see more, I'd use the change view, and use that frequently when necessary. Removing successful UI for and extra 2 visible files doesn't make sense to me.
Instead of cmd.exe or PowerShell, how about giving the option to specify the command prompt of choice? I use Take Command along with PowerShell.
I wrote a lengthy post explaining why I don't like at all this design, but I soon realized that what I don't like about it is turning back to an old and clunky interface, when a lot of better ideas could be attempted.
I find the "expanded ribbon" interface to be really poorly designed, cluttered and visually distracting.
And yeah, you can disable a lot of it (I can stand the "reduced ribbon" at least) but just look at this from telemetry data – how many people actually CUSTOMIZE Explorer?
In my experience with inexperienced people, that something around 0%, and forcing a cluttered interface on them looks like a mistake to me.
Ribbon is a great tool in an inherently complicated tool such as an editor, be it Word, Excel, or even Paint… but what I want from explorer is being beautiful to look at, and to give me exactly what I need, and this interface just gives me everything.
And that's just a pity when this comes from the same guys (or their colleagues) that invented Metro, or IE9.
Bottom line: please design Explorer to be like its cousin – A BROWSER. Content should be king.
My two cents.
I hate the color scheme. WinNT was kind of ugly, but much easier on the eyes.
I've stopped using ZIP files on my machine because they are lousy at compressing code. 7-zip does a much better job at compressing code files. Could you make a way to make the compress button have a customize-able function call such that I can plug in a 7-zip or winrar call instead of the rather lousy ZIP format?
Explorer, Windows 8 should have a design more oriented metro style.
I can see the benefit for a lot of users. But personally I'd prefer an option to collapse it most of time and bring it back when needed.
"Except solitare" lol XD
I really like the look. It takes up a lot of screen real estate, but with a 1920×1200 main monitor that isn't an issue for me. Plus I won't likely use the ribbon with the other great feature…QAT. A lot of people above are complaining about the screen real estate. The likely did not read the article. Double click on the active tab and the icons go away leaving you a very svelte bar at the top.
I think the QAT is a great idea for those with limited real estate though. If you add some of the features that people mentioned above such as share to Facebook this could be an extremely functional toolbar for any user with a modest familiarity with short-cut keys and context menus. For me, I would put some share items such as email to and burn to disk in that bar since the basic file operations I do more quickly with shortcuts.
The other thing that I wanted to mention from a comment above is the desire for view of pics or playback of video in the preview pane.
Overall nice changes for everyone. Ribbon for average users who have no interest in shortcut keys and the QAT for the more experienced user who wants some customization. Keep up the good work.
Ribbon is horrible, from a newbie prespective it looks complicated with all these buttons, colors and so on.
Keep it simple
I agree with tommaso
If people want the classic interface, let them have it, just don't update it with new commands. This way, over time, they will move over the the new interface to get new features, but if they really need to get something done some day they can just jump back in to the old interface. With Office, many, many commands were removed from the Ribbon that used to be in the menu's. In fact, the help even said to access the command I was looking for from an icon added to the quick access toolbar. If there were a classic mode, I could just quickly jump to that mode, do the work I need, and move on with life instead of hunting for the feature that I know is there, but don't have the time to find right now.
I also agree with Keith Hill regarding an option for 'Open Powershell prompt here'. Powershell has been growing rapidly and many Microsoft products now depend on it. Making it more prevalent in the UI would go a long way in promoting the usage of such a great tool.
Windows Explorer in Windows 8 looks great, and I'm very excited to use it.
One comment I have that ties in is regarding Windows Search. We've been waiting for Microsoft to support Windows Search with DFS paths for a long time, and I'm really hoping to see this in Windows 8 (and the related server OS).
System Administrators world wide would be hailed as heroes if a user could navigate to a network path (on a DFS share), do a search and have fully indexed results.
What about the useful "resize" picture available only for powerToys? OR better yet, when the sharing option comes along, provide the capability to fit the picture in a single email. I know that we have facebook and all, but my mom doesnt really use anything other than email
uhm, is this a joke? that ribbon isn't _really_ going into windows 8's explorer, right? it's not april…. 🙁
the complexity, busy-ness and butt ugly paintjob of windows is finally making the cost of the up-front familiarity hit experienced when switching to the mac worthwhile
Looks really good and I support making more features visible, but maybe the ribbon should be collapsed by default and expand on hover of the tabs (as opposed to having to click on the tabs to show a minimized ribbon like you do in Office)? Most users do not need most of those commands so it would keep it simpler looking for them, while still allowing easy access to it for power users without requiring an extra click (just a brief hover over the tab).
I also like the gradual transparency gradient into the tab area that Office 2010 introduced, please keep that as well.
With all the focus on the new Metro-like touch UI, glad to see solid improvements and attention are still being given to the standard UI.
Thanks for these very informative and frequent posts.
Could Explorer borrow from Outlook in how it previews files? That works really well. In fact, if you could allow the ribbon to change, or have the Explorer ribbon minimize and the appropriate Office ribbon display/appear when previewing an office document that would be great. It would allow me to manage my files like I manage my emails. I could have a object-oriented approach to my files instead of an application-oriented approach as I'm forced to have now.
File systems! All righty. Are we still going to keep the stupid 20 years old legacy hierarchy file system? Be bold people! Create the new world! User's don't need to know where a file is physically located on their computers. Thy should only be able to have the file file when they need it. Users don't care about their file storage on their phone. Now is the time. you had libraries in Windows 7. That was the first step. Musics, Photos and … were in a library regardless of their actual location. I know WinFS was a failure, but it was so because MS was not bold enough and did not push it though.
Believe that "Organizing files is some thing that computers can do better than humans can". Keep the Windows Explorer for the old tech guys such as us, but users don't really need to create and maintain a folder structure. That's why you see lots of crazy folders and files on typical users desktop. I bet every time that you buy a new laptop and copy your documents to the new one it takes ages to organize your docs too, and you still have a folder of old files you carried around for years from your old computers.
I'm a windows user, always have been and will be. But I adore Steve Jobs. He is bold and he made some changes happen that others did not have the courage to, take natural scrolling as an example.
Remember that every single car has a glove closet just because somebody made one in a car long time ago [probably because he did not have a better idea for that space or people needed gloves to keep their hands clean while driving].
@Brent: That option is there. (There are even screenshots of it!)
@Brent: That option is there. (There are even screenshots of it!)
@Jeff Miles made a great suggestion. If explorer could keep an index of files in a folder in the folder like it does with thumbnails that would make network and removable drives searches wonderful and easy. I actually wish that other image management programs would make use of the Thumbs.db files and certainly if there was an Index.db file that would be a wonderful thing.
Yes, what old people needed was more buttons.
Wow, that looks amazing. I just wonder how much people will ove the ribbons. Wherever they turned up i know many people turning away.. I just hope this will finally provide the breaktrhough for this amazing piece of UI design.
All of this is fine but unfortunately, the UX is by far not enough to fight in the tablet war. I hate having to say this but this is still the same old Windows UX that has been there for years now.
The change must be far more aggressive. The widgets are outdated and not suitable at all for a non-mouse driven experience. Please wake up.
How can you be sure that your "hundreds of millions" of users actually represent a well spread distribution of user types. I would guess that power users more often are paranoid and aware of sharing data, including telemetry, so they would more often turn that "feature" off.
This alarm triggered me when the Internet Explorer team had some statistics that 90%+ users had maximum 3 tabs open. LOL, everyone that has more than 3 tabs open has moved on from IE long ago. Might not have the same effect in windows as for IE but still something to consider.
I also have to say that your nr of files comparision is fabricated in favor for win8. 1. In windows 7 you are in a library folder which removes 2-3 files worth. Normal folders don't have the first header. 2. The details pane is very large, it can be resized to show 2 more files and still contain 3 rows of details (most file types don't need more). (Although i still like the new details pane).
Ribbon hotkeys…better than nothing and easy to find but requires keys to be pressed in sequence. Can be a bit messy for commonly used combinations. I hope the old hotkeys still work as well. Hotkey for new textfile would be awesome, the same way ctrl+shift+n does new folder in win7.
I kindof like the ribbon for not commonly used commands, today i learned that explorer had an invert selection function because it was exposed in your ribbon, i've never even taken a look at the edit-menu in win7. For commonly used commands i don't really see the point, i think even my grandma knows ctrl+c/v/x for copy cut paste. If not they know how to drag the files.
Thank you very much for your informative post, and I'm looking forward to using the "ribbonized" explorer. However, I was confused by one thing. You referred several times to the "command bar", but it was unclear exactly what this is. I assumed it meant the toolbar in Windows Explorer that contains the Organize and New folder buttons, but the "Command usage in Windows Explorer" chart says that it also includes the "Refresh" command. Does the command bar also include the navigation toolbar?
I assume that the "NewMenu" command is the "New" context menu option, but what is the "CommandBar" command? If it refers to the command bar itself, why list it as one of the commands on the command bar?
What's with a sharing button in the share tab for sharing files via the Internet, with 3rd party "tools" like dropbox or one-click hosters?
I didn't even recognized, that the UP-botton was not available in Windows 7, cause the Explorer is very functional. I hope Windows 8 will have a lot new short cuts. I love them at 7, especially for the window management. I am very excited and hope there will be soon a beta to test all the great new features.
Keep on having such great ideas. The new Explorer will help all normal users to find out what the Explorer already can do, but they do not know!
We sincerely hope that the Ribbon isn't Microsoft's one trick pony for its touch improvements in Explorer for tablets/slates…Please dont even try it…Because, It will be a BIG DESASTER
Very handy, will make a lot of stuff much easier. I'm not really a fan of the UI & color palette, I'd prefer the Office 2010 version of the ribbon (Areo instead of cornflower blue gradient).
I really don't like all those buttons,i like keyboard shortcuts,that's why i'm good with the cleaness of 7..
WOW! this looks great!
Recently I moved to a TabletPC (Acer Iconia Tab W500). I normally use a FAR Manager for my file operations, but this is because I am a keyboard guy. However on a tablet I immediately moved back to explorer (I user WIndows 7 now). What I notice is a lack of things you can do by clicking your finger:) – this includes lack of Up button and other things. I think what you doing here is great!
However what is hard to do in tablet pc – I use a capacitive screen and my finger. It is damn hard to resize a windows or a preview pane or whatever. For this, I have to put my finger VERY precisely and this is hardly possible. What I think shoud be is some tolerance – ok, i have put my finger 3 pixels left from the border line, but most likely this means i want to move a border between explorer sections, and not to scroll inside a file list.
And one more thing. Windows 7 has a great snap feature that allows me to quickly pin a windows to right and left part of the screen.
Now I am using a tablet and rotate it vertically. Windows 7 still suggests to snap to right and left while snapping to top and bottom will be much more natural.
Thank you! I hope windows 8 will fit into 2 GB of ram and 30 gb of HDD and I can install it on my Iconia at some time 🙂
Only 2 of the top 10 commands customers invoke in Explorer are available in the Command bar, the main UI element for invoking commands.
Excuse me, what? Command bar has Organize menu, Open, Include in library, Share, Burn, New Folder. I see no Refresh there.
But, i like this NON -Touch explorer UI.
Thank you so much for continuing support for the oft used, power user fav, keyboard shortcut keys! This looks very promising and usable.
Why have all hot keys been replaced with Alt + … instead of Ctrl + …? This will be a major failure with power users. It should be reverted cleanly to old hot keys or maybe keep both.
Sharing should have stuff like upload to SkyDrive (and other 3rd party services). No one shares through email now, or at least everyone is moving away from email as a medium of file sharing.
Lastly, I don't know why you guys are trying to salvage Aero. Aero and Metro are completely antagonistic to each other. Please just get rid of Aero in the "Desktop" and replace it with a more Metro feel.
Not just explorer, but the ENTIRE Windows 8 interface needs a revamp, in-line with a "Metro" chrome-less look.
I actually like the Ribbon. It brings tons of function. Now you really need to get this to a designer team and give it some style and consistency with the Metro interface design language. Explorer should be functional above all, yes, but it also needs to look clean, professional and modern. This does not.
Fantastic – love it! However, I'd like to see add-on-based contextual tabs for specific file types. For example, WinRAR could then add a contextual tab that Explorer automatically displays if a .rar file is selected. In the contextual tab, the ribbon extension from WinRAR could then offer .rar-specific commands.
That's an awful lot of chrome. So much colour and distraction.
When it comes to tasks such as browsing and opening documents, almost all of it is useless. Have you not done an analysis to see what the common *activities* are, rather than invoked commands? Really, how often are people actually needing to invert file selections?
If multiple Explorer windows are open, each with their own toolbars and what not, it would seem like a lot of wasted pixels. If 10 commands are responsible for 83% of use, couldn't they just be surfaced a little better? I use a Mac as well as a PC, and the Finder windows is very much oriented towards browsing, and as a result very streamlined and simple. The emphasis is on my files, not on chrome. It's a pity that Explorer is moving toward a file manager for advanced users.
I do hope the ribbon is minimised by default.
>However, add-ins will not be able to plug into the ribbon UI.
Whaaat. This is extremely lame! I'm not totally against the ribbon, but it just looks ugly and too fat for Explorer. Improvements start under the hood! You should invent a better control than ribbon and listview with checkboxes. Where are Common Controls guys from shell team? What will raymondc say?!
One thing that could use clarification and better user control is the Search for text option. The Windows 7 UI is less clear, I think, than Windows XP was in terms of explicitly searching for text within files from Windows Explorer. I understand that the search capabilities in Windows 7 try to make searching for text easy — you can even do it from the start menu — but it is unclear where you are currently searching, where you can search, or how to do a one-time search in an area that you don't want to (or can't) index. For example, I keep a number of scripts in a mapped drive to a webdav connection. It isn't an area I want to index because of the nature of the connection, but it would be awesome to be able to search for text within those text-based scripts.
The current search feature in windows 7 and it appears the search function in the upcoming 8, do not give good control for searching for text as far as I can see.
Cool, but where are the "Sync" and "Web Sharing" commands of Windows 8 M2?
http://i.imgur.com/l8NJ6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8t77t.jpg
Also, please include Open in Powershell in the File menu, and use the standard UAC shield for "Open CMD as administrator."
@Chen – most of the existing hotkeys (Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-Shift-N…) will continue to work. Ones dependant on the old menu bar (Alt+…etc) have been changed to be optimised for (and greatly expanded upon with) the ribbon's keytips.
Feature request: I would love the ability to drag-and-drop files to the breadcrumb bar, and development time permitting, including the navigation arrows to alternative folders, to be able to move/copy files to another folder. This would greatly speed my ability to sort files into their appropriate folder.
Will I be able to drag and drop onto a parent folder in the smart address bar? It frustrates me to no end that the parent folder path that's displayed can't accept drag and drop.
It will be very god if we can search for some menu item. Sometimes Microsoft Word hide some items from me. Microsoft Excel always hide the "Data to Columns". I never find it in the first try.
The ribbon really should be extensible. For example, I'd like to see SharePoint-specific commands in the ribbon (provided by an add-on). If Office is installed, Outlook and OneNote could add buttons to the ribbon, too.
I really hate the ribbon. It takes up so much space and is ugly. I dont need 50 buttons in the toolbar I use context menus. It's sad that explorer took a step back in both vista and 7. Folder view in win 7 is horrible and when you include no up button it can be very frustrating to navigate folders.
Based on the Command Entry Point data, it appears ~87% of users appear to prefer minimal mouse travel when using Windows Explorer.
While we're borrowing from Microsoft Office's UI, why not bring the Mini toolbar to Windows Explorer? If 82% of functionality is covered in 10 commands and 55% of commands are issued through the right click menu, why not cut out the right click?
When someone selects a file or group of files and moves the cursor up a bit, display the Mini toolbar. Word 2010 displays 13 commands. Explorer only needs 10.
Move To… and Copy To… thank God those two commands are more accessible now! In Windows 7, the only way to get those two commands to appear in the right-click menu is either by editing the Registry (Scurry!) or by download a third-party app.
Wow, the new Windows Explorer in Windows 8 is totally awesome. The Ribbon UI just plain fits it, in my opinion. And I disagree with the concerns about it being too busy or sacrificing real estate, when the Ribbon has always been collapsible since it was first introduced in Office 2007. And it is not too busy at all, it just gives direct access to many functions, especially those that were previously burried in context menus, sub-menus and property sheets.
I have a few suggestions for improving Explorer further though:
– Why not merge the Details pane with the Preview pane? I'd like to see the details and previewing a music or video file at the same time, for example. If that causes too much noise on the Details pane, put an option there to hide the details and just leave the preview or to at least condense them a little.
– I'd like for the filmstrip view from the Windows XP Explorer to see a return in Windows 8, as it was actually the best way of previewing image files within Explorer, due to the previews being exposed horizontally, unlike the Preview pane which is a vertical.
– It's nice to have direct access for opening the directory in a command prompt, whether standard or elevated, but while you're at it, add two more options for PowerShell as well.
– Can some of the search features that Vista had be restored in Windows 8? They were awesome for personalizing and fine-tuning the searches but were removed in Windows 7.
– Make each Explorer window a different process by default. The setting is already there but disabled by default. This consumes more resources but I believe most would accept the trade-off for better stability, since if one Explorer window crashes, the others remain intact (much like Internet Explorer already does natively).
– Since Explorer is the frontend for the shell, can we remove the context menu that pops up when clicking the title bar icon? I understand why you left back in Windows 95, since it was actually used for controlling the window in Windows up to version 3.11. However, the control buttons (minimize, maximize, and close) have been here for so long that anyone has already got used to them, thus the old menu became redundant and not so useful anymore. This is something related to the shell itself, so I don't know exactly if it would be bad to remove it completely.
– Can file size be finally depicted using SI units, instead of binary units? Memory uses binary addressing, thus it makes sense to use powers of base 2 to quantify it. However, file size is different and can be any arbitrary value. The way it is now confuses people because Windows informs that the available space for storing data is less than what announced on the data storage medium (for example, Windows saying that there's only 4.37 GB available on a standard, single-layer DVD when the announced capacity is of 4.7 GB). If this is not feasible, then the terminology should be corrected. As it stands, file size is in fact being referred to in KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, and not KB, MB, GB, TB, etc. due to using binary units instead of SI units (1 KiB = 1,024 bytes vs. 1 KB = 1,000 bytes).
– Will the Ribbon UI be used in all of Explorer? That is, will it be extended to the Control Panel, Game Explorer, etc.?
Also, still regarding the Ribbon UI, but now from a global perspective, it requires some adjustments to become even better. Consistency is a key factor for a good experience. Thus, since Aero is not being ditched but rather updated with the Metro style, make the Ribbon's elements square as well and flat as well. The font is also inconsistent with the rest of Windows so it should be changed to Segoe UI. I think that since Windows is now embracing the Ribbon UI, better integration between Windows and Office should be done as well.
Completely cluttered. You guys need someone with design skills. Teach people how to use keyboard shortcuts instead of plastering the interface with all these big/small buttons in a completely messy layout. Just horrible.
+
Open command prompt
Quick Access Toolbar (perhaps a good compromise for power-users that need some advanced functions but don't want waste too much screen real estate)
Special context tabs (e.g. Disk Tools)
Details pane with more details
–
Old icons (including back/forth buttons, hope this is not the final design)
Subjective loss of screen real estate
Lacking extensibility (imagine Imaging software adding commands to the Picture context tab, e.g. cropping and resizing)
As some others mentioned they wanted the ability to choose between different colors of the ribbon, I think it should be no different than with every other menu in Windows. The color should match the menu color of the UX theme in use.
I vote for an "Open powershell prompt" too, if you could make it start a bit faster. Often, the only reason for me to use cmd.exe is to start a command-line program with some arguments. I'd love to use powershell instead, but cmd simply starts up 5x as fast.
Give us at least possibility to extend individual command like Share, Zip, View! So much customizability is lost… until hackers find a way ofc.. 😉
Yes, finally the Ribbon is included in Windows Explorer. I have a question how does the Ribbon work or not work e.g. in the Control Panel? Does Windows Fax and Scan also get the Ribbon?
Best regards
This is awesome and all. I just hope the UI gets metrofied so that when viewing this side by side with the new Windows 8 interface, it won't be so glaringly archaic.
I appreciate the added functionality, but it seems a bit unwieldy. When I consider the Windows 7 vs. Windows 8 side-by-side screenshot (blogs.msdn.com/…/4377.Figure-21-_2D00_-Real-Estate-comparison_5F00_thumb.png) Windows 7 feels lighter and more palatable to browse with. Let's not forget that the number 1 function of explorer is *exploring*, not copying/pasting or anything else. And I understand that the ribbon can be collapsed… it just seems a bit too much "in your face". Not a clean/clear browsing experience unless collapsed. Can this be improved somehow?
I suppose more feedback and use is necessary to decide.
"Looking good. How about you make it look consistent across Windows and Office this time?"
I agree 100%. The Office 10 ribbon looks much better, much more modern with it's transparency. I hope this it not the final look, would be very disappointing to have no optical changes since W7.
1980 called – they want their clutter back.
Seriously… take a step back and remove yourselves from development of this product and look at just how cluttered that image looks of Windows 8 explorer.
Awful.
I stopped using MS Office because of the Ribbon menus; I'd hate to do the same for Windows. Reading is a function of spacing and size, and the Ribbon menu is a jumbled pile of different icon and font sizes and styles and the grouping is unintuitive. After about the 12th time I found myself fruitlessly hunting through the menus for a feature I *knew* it had, I gave up.
Since I am forced to use it at work, I am 100% sure at this point I will never learn to like it, and neither do any of my coworkers. I'm not happy to see the worse chunk of UI in a long time start replicating, although I can't say I'm surprised.
I do like the return of the very handy "up" button and one of the only things I really didn't like about Windows lately was the strong-arm tactics to use the Libraries folders. Being able to turn those off will be fantastic.
The forward/back buttons need to be consistent with Internet Explorer.
Love the new ribbon. Fantastic work. Especially the CMD as admin here.
Please consider adding in the extensibility of the ribbon in Service Pack 1 if you can't make it for RTM. It's worth it.
Promising. A few requests though:
(1) Most important: Please make sure that Windows Search will be able to index multiple partitions. Win 7 is so frustrating in this respect.
(2) Could the Explorer inform us of the size of folders as well as of files? That's an unfortunate hole in Win 7.
(3) I agree with others that the color and style of the ribbon is somewhat outdated in comparison with Office 2010 and that one should be able to customize it in accordance with the general style of Windows.
(4) Could you please add "Show Libraries" as an option in the Navigation Pane options?
(5) Would it be possible to add some basic options for renaming series of files?
(6) I second Sunwook Park: it would be great if we could choose the location of the Details Pane.
Thanks.
Promising. A few requests though:
(1) Most important: Please make sure that Windows Search will be able to index multiple partitions. Win 7 is so frustrating in this respect.
(2) Could the Explorer inform us of the size of folders as well as of files? That's an unfortunate hole in Win 7.
(3) I agree with others that the color and style of the ribbon is somewhat outdated in comparison with Office 2010 and that one should be able to customize it in accordance with the general style of Windows.
(4) Could you please add "Show Libraries" as an option in the Navigation Pane options?
(5) Would it be possible to add some basic options for renaming series of files?
(6) I second Sunwook Park: it would be great if we could choose the location of the Details Pane.
Thanks.
Really good! Can't wait to try that. Windows 8 was due… can't remember :).
However, I can only agree, there as to be a "Open Windows PowerShell" or a way to add it afterward.
[Looks like my comment was lost somehow…]
As others have said, please use Office 2010's ribbon, it looks much cleaner.
(and please tell the Office team to fix one minor bug in Office 2010's ribbon, too – if you don't have anything in the QAT, the two bars used as delimiters still appears, and that's ugly)
Sorry, I have to dissent. I really dislike this a lot. I'll try to be constructive and explain why. I mean no disrespect and I know you are working very hard on this.
The ribbon takes up a lot of space. If it is like the WPF ribbon double clicking on one of the menus will toggle the minimize setting. It is easy to do by accident. I am told the office ribbon behaves differently, but I am not an officer user so I cannot confirm that.
The entire trend of adding ribbons to everything is a rough contrast to the minimalism I like so much in Windows 7 and IE9.
Aesthetically, I also find the icons used in most ribbons to conflict with the aero glass theme. I realize this view of mine is quite subjective and wholly divorced from the concept of ribbons. I find these particular ribbon and icon combinations with the aero glass theme unappealing.
I realize I am in the minority here, but thank you for reading.
The Ribbon UI is awesome fella! Stick to it, no matter what the feedback. I was one of the most fervent anti-Ribbon campaigner around, until I used Office for a couple of days. Now, I can't live without it. You just have to adapt to it, and that takes a few fays. Once you're over that hurdle, you'll love it.
One thing I really miss though, is a tabbed UI, like many before me inquired. Can we PLEASE have some sort of a tab within Explorer? PLEASE? 🙂
I hope that "Command Prompt" is PowerShell, 'cause I really don't need a reminder of the "good" old days…
I think it is very nice, but instead of the blue ribbon from office 2007 you should have used the white, cleaner ribbon from office 2010.
Wow, the Ribbon UI looks great…… but no support for tabbed browsing?????
plzzz include it!!!!!
For scrolling experience by touch at Windows explorer that I saw in Building Windows 8 video #1. I think the team should give scrollbar of explorer, other windows and apps the ability to auto fade in if in use and auto fade out if not in use for a while. It will save windows some space at the necessary time. When future users will have their multi-touch mouse or multi-touch pad, Microsoft should add and improve native gesture support and its responsiveness for example :swipe to go back and forth. Since this version of windows will go for touch as well as traditional mouse and keyboard, it would be nice if the team adds some more drag-and-drop integration that make things go smoother and better. Hope IE10 and its HTML5 support will enhance its native drag-and-drop features (without plugin likes flash, silverlight, or java) as well.
Going from Office 2007 to Office 2010 they changed the background color from light blue to white, and it made a huge difference in the overall look. The text and the icons looked better, and they were much easier to identify at a glance.
So I think that moving to a white background and black text will make a huge difference in the overall usability.
Maybe it would be possible that Ribbon could change the color if we change the Aero color.
I don't want to use folders anymore, please add the ability to tag ALL files!
is not a new explorer … it was only corrected explorer from windows 7 … I'm disappointed
most people here greeted the news positively, but would rather try something new.
I saw a small tick on the right above, and I hope that it is designed to cover the whole horror of the new graphic interference in the style of ribbon.
I like the scent design internet explorer 9 with its minimalist design, and hoped that the windows explorer will be like him, but it turned out that something terrible is reminiscent of Vista.
I like the flat buttons "back forward" in the internet explorer 9, and here I saw this cheap again convex glass design.
this is not a new OS ithis is a service pack
I can cope with the ribbon in Explorer, but please tell me that the final styling is yet to come. The Windows Ribbon is less attractive than the Office 2007 and 2010 implementations (even if it was forked from the former), but more importantly, it's inconsistent with the rest of the Windows UI in regards to colours and menu behaviour (context menus fade-out, not in – same as Office). Right-clicking in the middle of an explorer window and getting a grey menu only to right-click on the ribbon and get a gold menu is surely not a good user experience.
Additionally, the contextual tabs (Library Tools, etc.) not reaching up to the top of the window border looks hacky – surely the Windows team is better placed than anyone else to get this right, given that they can modify the code that draws windows. Please polish this.
I can cope with the ribbon in Explorer, but please tell me that the final styling is yet to come. The Windows Ribbon is less attractive than the Office 2007 and 2010 implementations (even if it was forked from the former), but more importantly, it's inconsistent with the rest of the Windows UI in regards to colours and menu behaviour (context menus fade-out, not in – same as Office). Right-clicking in the middle of an explorer window and getting a grey menu only to right-click on the ribbon and get a gold menu is surely not a good user experience.
Additionally, the contextual tabs (Library Tools, etc.) not reaching up to the top of the window border looks hacky – surely the Windows team is better placed than anyone else to get this right, given that they can modify the code that draws windows. Please polish this.
I can cope with the ribbon in Explorer, but please tell me that the final styling is yet to come. The Windows Ribbon is less attractive than the Office 2007 and 2010 implementations (even if it was forked from the former), but more importantly, it's inconsistent with the rest of the Windows UI in regards to colours and menu behaviour (context menus fade-out, not in – same as Office). Right-clicking in the middle of an explorer window and getting a grey menu only to right-click on the ribbon and get a gold menu is surely not a good user experience.
Additionally, the contextual tabs (Library Tools, etc.) not reaching up to the top of the window border looks hacky – surely the Windows team is better placed than anyone else to get this right, given that they can modify the code that draws windows. Please polish this.
Better colors!
While I like the general idea of a ribbon-based Explorer, I find the icons too colorful. The icons of the Office 2010 ribbons are way more subdued, which is better. For example, the Delete icon is elegant black in Outlook 2010 but aggressively red in the Explorer ribbon.
Remember the monochrome buttons in the Windows 2000 explorer that only became colorful on hover? Even Apple has stripped out most colors in the Lion finder, which looks much more elegant in general.
Colors are great, of course, and they make specific buttons easier to grasp, but please use more subdued colors.
The colorful icon set of the Explorer ribbon is a step backward and reminds me of to the Luna colors of XP.
Great work.. great progress.. You guys rock..
But I didnt liked share tab in the explorer, I created a design myself in Photoshop, here is the link i200.photobucket.com/…/sharetabnew.png
1. Share with "people", it is very difficult to select a person with whom you want to share some file when you are on a tablet / slate device, so I used the blank space in the area to make it bigger & easy for touch based device
2. Most people like to share there photos to Facebook & Twitter directly from Explorer..
One thing I would like to request to All Windows 8 team,( I am not disrespecting, I am huge fan of your works) that Windows 8 is going to be on a lot of touch based devices, so why you are designing it like it is only for mouse/pointer based devices. e.g in the share that there are lot of free space but still, lot of thing/options are so tiny that It will be very difficult to tap on them on touch based device. Why you are not properly utilizing the free space to those items to be easily tappable on slates/tablets
I understand that in may place space in not available, options/buttons are small, but what about other places when there is lot of free space, but still option/buttons are small??
Does that mean only on the mozart of tiles (start screen) everyone will have an awesome touch experience, and rest of the OS this experience will suck a lot, because everything else is designed according to mouse???
I expect this answer from Windows 8 , Please reply
Thanks
Ritesh
PLEASE use Office 2010 ribbon style with more Aero transparency on top there are ribbon tabs.
+1 on folder size in details view! At least allow 3rd parties be able to include them like in XP.
+1 on keyboard shortcuts. Every component of explorer should be accessible via keyboard shortcuts.
I would dearly love to finally see my explorer sorting preferences be consistently utilized in the File Open/Save dialog windows spawned by applications (For instance – the explorer window that appears when I choose to open a file in Paint or Notepad). Case in point – I like to search for unknown file names by date. Having to constantly open up the 'Views' menu, select 'Details' and sort by date each and every time a file open dialog box opens is beyond tiresome. If I have turned off the 'Remember each folders view setting' in Explorer, the 'File Open' dialog view/sorting preference should default to whatever way I have chose to sort my view in Explorer previously. Or at least, this should be added as an option in the 'Folder Options' menu – something akin to 'Use Explorer View/Sorting preference for Application File/Open dialog option'
This would be a huge time saver for folks like me who just want to view and access files in the same way no matter which application they are using.
No "Open With …" in the Ribbon? 🙁
Looks promising and I can't wait to get my fingers on it. A few suggestions/whishes from an IT Pro:
-Please make Explorer UAC aware. It is *really* cumbersome to get prompted serveral times when you navigate a folder structure and you don't work with the bulti-in admin… 3rd party replacements do so already…
-I guess Windows Server "8" will be the same code base… So my whish for several windows server version has been: on a Server OS please change the default view settings in explorer, so that hidden files, system files and extension are displayed by default. While I understand that hiding these files makes sense on client/consumer OS, this makes no senes on a Server OS.
Thank you, keep the info coming!
Christian
@Ivmodo "Open" has a dropdown menu for specifying the program, just like in Windows 7.
You can have similar one-click access for turning on/off the Navigation pane, Preview pane, and Details pane using following tutorial posted at AskVG.com website run by a Microsoft MVP:
http://www.askvg.com/how-to-customize-windows-explorer-command-bar-aka-folder-band-or-toolbar-in-windows-vista-and-7-add-cut-copy-paste-delete-rename-undo-and-many-other-useful-buttons
1./ Those Back/Forward explorer buttons should be updated to IE9 style
2./ Merge address bar with search bar IE9 style
3./ Attach UP button to the beginning of the address bar the same way like Refresh button is at the end and give them both similar monochrome icons like in IE9 address bar.
(Replace IE9 bitmap resourced with IE10 when they will be different, to maintain consistancy)
Oops – sorry about the triple post.
You forgot to mention the best (rumoured) new feature of the Windows 8 Explorer: drag-and-drop support for the breadcrumb bar (apparently).
I hope that the folder option window also get optimized or the propertie window the harddrives and so on.
Could you all please add an option from OSX Lion, "Create New Folder from Selected Files"?
I find this to be a valuable and quick tool to use when you're handling large sets of files (such as pictures, music) and makes your life much easier. Thanks
My requests would be:
* PowerShell (ISE flavor for me) support in "Open command prompt", this is really important
* updates to the Zip handling code (needs: lots of performance improvements, better Unicode handling, not failing for paths with special characters, Deflate64 support)
* long paths support ( > 256 chars) in explorer.
I'd like to add weight the chorus of people asking for sharing tools for modern web services. (The tab looks like it was designed ten years ago.) I know you said you aren't allowing general Ribbon extensibility by plugins, but it seems like you could hack in something specific for the Sharing tab… or if nothing else, just ship with tools for the most web popular web services.
Why open Command Prompt?
Why not open PowerShell?
This is a great update for Windows Explorer, just make sure the ribbon (as what you call them on Office) have a hide option 😀
Yes, it's very good, but why don't you make improvements in the Windows Media Player, mkv support maybe, or in notepad and paint? Why won't you take ideas from Paint.NET or Notepad++ to make advanced tools in Windows? Oh, and another question why don't you remove junk in Windows 8, like notepad, you have wordpad which is more advanced, why do you keep it both? Wish you good day of coding!
One thing that I miss from XP was the ability to immediately see the amount of hard drive space taken up by the contents of a folder. If you just open up your %userprofile%Music folder, for instance, there are files in there that take up space. But in Windows 7, the only way I can find to figure out how much space those files take up is to highlight them, which, for an unorganized folder as that, is tedious.
So my feature request to you is this: In the Status Bar (which I realize isn't enabled by default and is probably be deprecated), can you just show the amount of space that files in the current directory take up?
That aside, I love the new explorer and look forward to getting my hands on it!
Good post !!! The UI certainly looks very nice and eye candy!!!
One suggestion could be, when a main tab (Home, Share OR View) is open, the user has a context about why such a tab and the UI elements inside the tab has come up, and may be knows what to do with those tabs and UI elements inside them. All this because he might have selected that tab.
But for contextual tabs/sub tabs, their arrival is based on a change the user has involuntarily taken, like for eg, clicking the search box. I guess if there is some sort of a visual cue to the user that this contextual tab pertains to a particular UI option/action, then it would be very nice. I am not sure how this can be acheived in a clever and efficient manner, but such a cue will be very helpful and increase clarity to the user. One way could be to use the same colour code used for the contextual tabs to highlight/enhance the UI option related to it, but I am not so sure. You guys are the UI yodas 🙂
I hope the ribbon offers a clickable command for permanently deleting files. Until now, permanent deleting always requires to hold down the SHIFT key when invoking the Delete command, which is time-consuming. A specific command for permanent deleting (which could be added to the QAT if desired) would be perfect.
It's really nice to see plenty of stuff for power users – keep up the good work!
My question is – what would Explorer look like for Windows 8 tablets? Will there be a simplified Metro UI version?
I like the idea with PowerShell prompt as well.
And I miss Vista Explorer's features as well 🙂 namely search, stack by view, and especially the fixed favorite locations in the folder tree. I thought that's the point of favorites – that they are always immediately available…
@Ivmodo: I believe the "Open with…" is in the Open command dropdown.
– The "Up" button is useless. Give us an option to remove it. This is navigation style from the 90s. Breadcrumb is 1000% times faster.
– please bring tabs in the Explorer.
Is the auto arrange disabled again or is this blocker still not fixed? And is the sort-header visible in all view modes (not only the Details view-mode) again?
It'll nice to selected the archive after zip operation.
Oof. This looks awful. Glad I don't use Windows.
Wow, this is really depressing. Are you guys trying to lose more of your market share on purpose? That is the worst UI I've ever seen. Has anyone at Microsoft ever designed a successful interface? Obviously not. Because I'd expect something better from a freshman in college. Come on guys, get a brain!
A couple questions:
1) Will 'open command prompt' let me open powershell and not cmd.exe? One is good while the other is.. a bit antiquated. 🙂
2) Did you guys get around to making explorer.exe multithreaded or at least a little bit less prone to hangs?
OK you've potentially sorted out the usability but what about the design, at the moment it's plain disgusting, it truly is I mean don't you guys have any designers at all?!
Firstly the icons show no unity at all, no one base color that they all follow they instead actually look like they're thrown together based on resources already created for other uses. Why? The explorer is going to be the most seen UI on the whole of Windows could you not at least of dedicated some designers to coming up with a unified batch of icons?
Now I'm sure it goes without saying that you guys are going to redesign the actual Ribbon or at least use the most recent revision of it, basically the one the guys over at the Office Team are using and not the old one being shown currently. PLEASE tell me it goes without saying?
Also in the screenshots posted Aero is blue, suppose I make it red, pink or green? Instantly the UI looks 100x worse than it does already. INSTANTLY, not through customization, not through modded skins but by using a feature built into the OS that I'm assuming everyone uses at least once! Why not make it white so that it matches all potential colors?
Regarding the actual address bar that's even worse, again I'm assuming it goes without saying that EVERYTHING their will be redesigned, from the back/forward buttons to the poorly position Up button. Again it goes without saying, right Microsoft? I mean you made no mention of the design in the post so I'm basically assuming that it will all change, am I naive in think so? A comment on this would be nice.
I hate to attack any of you guys after putting so much work into something, being in software development myself i know how that can feel but this time I feel it's warranted. You've gone from a relatively nice looking explorer in Windows 7 to a complete disaster in Windows 8. The ribbon works and looks great in Office so I feel the problem is you guys, and not the control.
The Home tab looks decent enough and I feel that could work well but the Share tab is pointless, sharing via email makes sense, making a .zip file again makes sense but fax? Are you seriously going to put an option to share via fax in such a prominent position on the UI, a technology so old some would argue it should be removed completely from the OS?
Regarding "Share with", why make the faces and the actual control that houses them so small, you have so much horizontal real estate that it seems like a huge waste of space. Not even going to mention how poor the icons match the surrounding UI (kinda just did).
I should note however that the details pane for images looks great, I'm assuming you've done the same for other common files such as music and video files?
Loved your work up until now and again I should state that I hesitated to post this as it will most certainly come across as negative but I'm merely giving you a honest opinion, nothing personal.
I miss the display of available drive space in status bar.
Please NO MORE RIBBONS! 🙁
Loving that you are working on the Explorer. It can be improved for sure, as you pointed out.
I do have 2 comments on your new design.
First that toolbar is way to big. I don't know if it's implemented in the Ribbon control, but why is it high as three commands (small buttons). Can't it be downsized to 2 commands high. With that change you can probably remove the descriptions. The whole point of icons is that they should say more then words, so why put the also on there. Saves another few pixels.
Also the group names, can be placed in a better location, saving again a whole new line.
Why not remove the quick access toolbar and only show it when the ribbon is minimized.
The second thing I don't like, is the placement of the url / folder bar (don't know the real name). In W7 it was nicely placed with Aero Glass on top. Actually the whole glass is removed from the explorer, why? Maybe use it in the statusbar below…
Hope you read my comments. Keep up the great work. J
This was a bit frustrating to read/watch, but I think the frustration is that this is just windows, it isn't anything different and that is fine. The sad thing from all this is some really stupid decision has been made to try and make windows this common platform that runs tablet devices and desktop devices, despite the fact you guys saw and had the balls to make the windows phone its own platform, you are dragging the entire classic windows paradigm with the metro tablet paradigm.
I would hope you guys realize this fault and actually do a windows phone like windows tablet device, and let developers start on a fun new exciting platform (if anything you would want to come from the windows phone base), and carry on as you are with the windows desktop.
I know there isn't a chance in the world this will happen, you guys had developers and other parties working on apps/devices and such that depend on this happening.. but it feels like you've doomed the windows tablet OS, and its really bizarre, because the windows phone was a great example of microsoft getting some balls, and actually getting some credit for doing an amazing job.
@cranberry
IE9 back and forth button style isn't fit for explorer.
This is my suggestion regarding to the back and forth button style in windows 8's explorer and other windows 8 apps in which Media Player 12 "play button" orb style in windows 7 is ideal consideration for all orb style in windows 8 apps including the orb of back and forth button expect the orb of start menu which needs to be removed.
Here is my suggesting picture: img717.imageshack.us/…/orbstylesuggestion.jpg
@cranberry
IE9 back and forth button style isn't fit for explorer.
This is my suggestion regarding to the back and forth button style in windows 8's explorer and other windows 8 apps in which Media Player 12 "play button" orb style in windows 7 is ideal consideration for all orb style in windows 8 apps including the orb of back and forth button expect the orb of start menu which needs to be removed.
Here is my suggesting picture: img717.imageshack.us/…/orbstylesuggestion.jpg
@cranberry
IE9 back and forth button style isn't fit for explorer.
This is my suggestion regarding to the back and forth button style in windows 8's explorer and other windows 8 apps in which Media Player 12 "play button" orb style in windows 7 is ideal consideration for all orb style in windows 8 apps including the orb of back and forth button expect the orb of start menu which needs to be removed.
Here is my suggesting picture: img717.imageshack.us/…/orbstylesuggestion.jpg
Glad to see File is a menu and not a backstage. I am not a fan of the backstage in Office 2010.
Curious about your thoughts on user expectations and different behavior between Office and Explorer since both File "buttons" look the same but result in different behavior.
DanielM2 +100500
Ribbon is ugly. It would be better to make buttons like in Windows XP. It takes too much space. In IE9 you want to focus on content and remove almost all controls (and that's why it looses it's market share). In Explorer you want to put all possible commands on screen. Looks like Explorer just vomited on screen.
Btw, there is no designers in MSFT. (It's so obvious!) They hire other companies to draw icons.
Take a look at the simplicity of Finder. They also used t make it ugly like that in OS X 10.0 – 10.2 and then made it compact again.
"They just don't have style" – Steve Jobs about Microsoft.
These improvements look great, and as your first line says, "Windows Explorer is a foundation of the user experience of the Windows desktop". With that being said, why are your engineers ignoring a well-known usability bug in win7 that you have admitted you are aware of, but don't seem to care to fix?
Bug report: connect.microsoft.com/…/bug-when-expanding-folders-in-explorer-server-2008-r2-and-windows-7
More feedback: answers.microsoft.com/…/50a81b05-da98-4d55-821d-55ffbbd0e998
Please don't leave us Win7 users behind while everyone at Microsoft is gunning for Win8. Your answer to the 'folder jump bug' cannot simply be to upgrade to Win8 if you want it fixed. That is unacceptable.
I don't know somehow there are duplicate of my comment. Hope I can remove it!!!!
loved all "new" freatures, but I just wish that the "navigation pane" is set to "Expand to open Folder" by default (I mean, not for me, I know how to turn it on/off) but for the ordinary user of PC.
The biggest pain has always been switching between the windows of the explorer. I wish we had improved the experience around this. Tabbing and tab grouping will make the experience better.
For other tasks, I hardly take my hand away from keyboard. I will minimize the ribbon to save real estate.
Thanks for working this out. But will these shortcuts be accesible via ALT + shortcutkey like in Office? Or will you add some new ones (STRG + KEY)?
Thank you so much for adding the Ribbon to the Windows Explorer. I have been waiting for this ever since I first used Ribbon in Office 2007, and immediately fell in love with it. All my friends and colleagues simply love the ribbon in Office, and I can't even imagine EVER going back to using those old-fashioned ugly menus/toolbars after using the beautiful and productive Ribbon.
Also, contrary to some people's belief, Ribbon DOES NOT take up more vertical space. In fact it has been proven over and over again that toolbars and menus take up more vertical space than the Ribbon.
Only one problem with the new explorer though — why have you brought back the redundant "UP" button? Windows Vista/7/8 has the beautiful and elegant Breadcrumbs Bar which is FAR more powerful than the up button. Please provide us an option to remove the ugly "UP" button.
This isn't really the right way, in my opinion. Adding more complexity will not help. There are way too many drawbacks with such a design.
The very first sentence in this article from Mr. Sinofsky shows that there seems to be a wrong thinking about this. To be honsest, i'm really shocked! No substantial changes in the Explorer in the last years? Well, Vista removed the classic menus, introduced a context aware Command Bar, we got search built right into it and the details pane was a brilliant solution to check and edit meta data right inside of Explorer. Why is this getting underestimated so much? In my opinion, you are moving backwards with this design.
– the current Explorer is very popular (as is W7 in general) and from my perspective works pretty well. So there is not a need for a fundamental re-design. This is a HUGH risk.
– the Ribbon was designed because the old Office menus and tool bars where too complex. The Windows 7 Explorer is as easy as it could get. So why even consider the Ribbon to be a solution? It is a serious question.
– did the team even consider improving the Command Bar? Because some important things like keyboard access were just not implemented and adding 4 icons: Copy, Paste, Delete, Properties to the Command Bar would have solved 80% of the problems mentioned.
– the Ribbon was never designed to work for simple and browser-like apps. The normal people would now spent more time searching for a command than they would have spent before. The Home-Tab, for example shows me more than 23 commands at once! With things like "Copy path" or "Rename". That are not necessary because you can copy the path from the address bar and you can rename a file by clicking on it.
– the focus moves away from the content to the user interface. This is contrary to the trend and to what the Metro-design language was about on other products
– people will have to deal with local files in general less than now. So the interface should become even simpler, not more complex.
– while there is sometimes more than 2/3 of the screen real estate empty, the icons on the upper left corner are very small. This will not work well in a touch scenario
– why didn't the author mentioned the amount of steps a user would need to do common tasks? Like open a tiff with Photoshop?
– the author totally missed that Windows Explorer is also available in every Save and Open dialog. How will a full Ribbon work in such small windows? Or will we get a different UI there?
– the name "Home" may confuse users in such a program because it will not take you back to home.
– the headers for the contextual tabs are just useless. Why can't the tab for Search not be green with "Search tools" on it? The same for Library Tools.
– my final concern: this is almost exactly how the Ribbon worked in Office 2007. Even *if* the Ribbon would be a good solution, why didn't you optimized the concept and improved the 2007 Ribbon? Why put things inside the title bar? Why do we need the group labels under even group of commands? Why 3 rows of small icons?
This doesn't feel right. Putting a 4 year old interface that was designed for editing complex documents inside every window, open and save dialog for just looking and choosing files, may not work. I'm very disappointed that the team seemed to have leaved the path Microsoft were on with Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7.
Can you bring back subfolder support to the SendTo menu (expand folders with shortcuts). This worked from Win95 to 2003 and you broke it in NT6!
@Tuxplorer: The up button is not redundant! It is always in the same place, you have to think to use the breadcrumbs bar.
This is a huge improvement and excited about Win8, from pausing file transfers to the new ribbon, MS has done a great Job. As a Microsoft Partner we are excited to start offering this to our clients. Its going to be a Tablet year with the new MetroUI, alot of our clients are already ramped up for this.
Keep the new stuff coming!!!
A few points I forgot in my first post:
The comparison showing 24 files in Win8 versus 22 in Win7 is a poor one, since the Win7 UI was so wasteful to begin with. Compare to Windows XP with the annoying "Standard buttons" pane turned off, and Win8 does not compare as favorably on screen real-estate. While being able to hide the Ribbon might get us back to where XP was, XP did it while still being functional via menus.
On the touch friendlyness of Ribbon–not so much, for commands with the small icons inline with text. In the end I really don't think having a single UI for touch and non-touch users is a good plan; you either make the buttons too small for touch, or waste massive screen real-estate for non-touch.
Another question, with vertical screen space as valuable as it is, why insist on a horizontal Ribbon in the first place? Why not move everything to the sides or to a dockable toolbar? Why not an MDI-like interface where several minimalist explorer windows can share a common Ribbon? If we're going touchscreen, top-docked Ribbon is a horrible UX, as the user's hand covers most of the screen while using the commands.
Ribbon – seriously? Please, leave an option to use "Classic"-mode and hide this abomination.
I just can't understand how you have decided to make another ribbon, when even your own research shows more than 80% use context menu + hotkeys.
This is by far the biggest, convoluted mess of interface elements I have ever seen in an OS. Who have you hired for UI? They should be fired immediately. I had to make sure this wasn't an April Fool's joke.
I just don't understand how Microsoft can continuously release sub-standard products and yet still be in business.
Please give some love to cmd.exe.
Would love to have proper auto completion, history, pipes, and useful commands like grep.
Just put add a bash.exe and we'll be alright
I like this "ribbon" feature and i want to suggest a little thing 🙂
It's possible to integrate a quick menu for rapid actions like Office 2007 / Office 2010 when a file/files are selected?
Sorry for my bad English
I am loving the idea of using the Ribbon for Explorer. So glad the UP button is back! I dig the copy location button as well.
I do think you'll have a lot of people asking to be able to customize the layout/add new tab groups. The ability to do so between Office 2007 and 2010 is what made the Ribbon excellent.
Nicely done! Looking forward to Beta 1 bits.
Great! It's really nice to see all the improvements you've been making especially with the optimisations that have been made for power users 🙂
Full disclosure: I work in Office.
My feedback:
+1 on PowerShell option in the file menu
Ribbon knit-picks:
* Change Paste button to be left of Copy. Usability study says make more common things closer to the left and then it's also in the same place as Office for us that suffer from severe cases of muscle memory. 🙂
* Along the same lines, the MoveTo and CopyTo options seem like they should be to the right of Delete and Rename and could possibly be the small type of buttons since your user data shows they're less used.
* Minimize it by default. Content is king and styling will go better with the minimalism in IE9
* The ribbon still appears to be based on Office2007 look. Can it be updated to look more like the modern Office2010 ribbon? Bonus points if it matches the installed-office style thereafter.
* It would nice if the ribbon File menu color matched the theme…
-1 on the up button. I hope there's a way to get rid of it. I can see how the ribbon can be a little overwhelming at first and this, to me, is just another button. It actually duplicates functionality. Win7 address bar has this feature (just click the folder "button" to the left of the current folder). This is just another button to accidently click.
+1 on selecting zip file after it's created.
Can we have an option for searching in the file (instead of just by file properties)?
Nice work with the option to make QAT a "toolbar" under the ribbon. With this kind of feature, I'm surprised to still be hearing gripes about how much people hate the ribbon. After all, you're making a way for them to almost never have to use it! AND you proved it could actually use LESS screen real estate than the old version!
Really sad to hear the lack of extensibility for 3rd party plugins. Would have been nice to "Share on Skydrive", or have 3rd party options for zipping and encrypting…
Please view my concept
imageshack.us/…/unledpkl.png
Just give me a non brain-dead cmd.exe.
The ability to Hide the Ribbon and just use the Quick Access Toolbar will be very handy. I only use a handful of Explorer features most of the time.
I leave it enabled in Word/Excel/PowerPoint but have hidden it in Outlook. It takes up way to much space taking away from e-mail folders. This is okay though because I just hide it and use QAT most of the time. I use even less features on a daily basis in Outlook.
@DanielM2
I agree. One of the headache issue of Windows is the style of it. Since Windows is still in development, the team will have time and should catch up with that. No matters, Aero theme, Metro theme, basic theme, or icons. they need to be unified as a style that make Microsoft unique and sophisticated.
The problems I see so far in explorer is the ribbon with its blue color scheme which not customizable like ribbon in MS office 2007/2010 which has three color options (silver/ black/blue). Blue color of ribbon will make two colors -Aero windows color and ribbon color sometimes conflict.
Icon problem is that sometimes the icons have heavy 3D look like yellow folder with shadow or hard disk drive etc, sometimes they are totally 2D flat which messing in style. It may bother your eyes and downgrade the experience too. In addition of that, let's take a look at the bitlocker icon this picture
blogs.msdn.com/…/4705.Figure-18-_2D00_-Disk-tab-crop_5F00_2.png
At the first glance at bitlocker icon, it's kind of messy. Without the text, I can't say what function it that– is that the hard drive? is that the yellow lock with 3D look? I mean sometime the icons need to have multiple versions according too its size. Bitlocker icon look obvious and easy recognized if it's large but if it's small it's hard to tell and address the function in visual way.
Please keep the back/forward/up/location bar at the top.
Come on !
Ribbon UI is too crowded and complicated..when you look at it for the first time it gives you a headache
what happened to simplicity and Neat designing Factor ?
the things you did with wp7 ?
At least if your'e going to stick to ugly win xp style crowded UI put an optional metro Theme in windows for the 99% minority of people who are constantly asking for it !!!
Good point. Paste should be left of Copy!
@David Wilhelmsson and @Jeff – We have added dragging and dropping files and folders into the breadcrumb bar. You will also be able to drag a folder from the breadcrumb bar to move or copy somewhere else. Thanks for the feedback!
I think that Windows 8's price should not be more than 59$ for Home Premium (if any) upgrade version.
49€ in European countries.
Only in this case I'd consider buying Windows 8.
I'd like to know the pricing and versions (you call them SKU's) for Intel and Amd processors computers.
Can you guys:
1. move the history buttons to the left some more to make it obey fitt's law
2. decrease the gaps between the history buttons, urlbar, searchbar and sides of the window
3. move the "go to parent folder" button inside the urlbar
Please! Draw new icons! Look at the Apple UI Guidelines. They wrote a perfect guide for icon designers. Theese cartoonish icons looks terrible.
@ Adrian
lol it's OS X design on windows theme XD
Very Nice
@ AleXandrik
Yeah, kind of, but i had no choise
seldo.tumblr.com/…/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a this is a pretty spot on analysis on the state of things.
For add-ins, why not simply add them as "Tools", with either a tool menu open to the add-in ("Super search add-in Tools"), or with the possibility for them to be added to existing tools ("Search"), but at the end of the ribbon.
It would really be a huge missing feature to block the add-ins to use that ribbon UI, as many users use them for some specialized tasks (debug, dev, cd burning, etc…), and that would be more coherent with what already exists with internet browsers.
@David Wilhelmsson and @Jeff – Although not mentioned in the post, the ability to drag and drop files and folders to the breadcrumb bar has been implemented for this release. Thanks for the input!
Please, stop saying it looks good because it does not!
There is way too much chrome and the ribbon is way too cluttered.
The saddest part of this is that it totally goes against the hard work and brilliant guidelines that were put in place by the Metro team.
The Metro styling is associated to Microsoft, praised by designers and should be leveraged in order to get rid of the traditional and outdated Windows styling.
Let's hope this is all a matter of "theming" and that someone with a deep UX vision will stand in this team and revolutionize Windows for real.
Looks like they thought of *everything… except for simplicity.
*cluster-F
Just seen Pirates of Silicon Valley today and the stuff about Microsoft's DOS. The improvements look good!
Looking good fellas
seldo.tumblr.com/…/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a
Will there be the usual millions of versions as Windows 7 and earlier? (Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, Enterprise…..)
Can't you really simplify this thing?
And please no more than 59 dollars or 49 euros for the UPGRADE from Windows 7, at least.
It's OK for the FULL version to cost more than 100 dollars.
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion only costs 29.99 dollars, just 23.99 euros.
This is awful and against your own conclusions and great metro UI.
+1 for:
seldo.tumblr.com/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a
Ok….that doesnt look good 😐
Im sorry…..but I became a fan of the Metro UI right when I first saw the *Zune* software. And that ribbon reflects nothing of it.
Im pretty sure how much change would come into effect from people's comments here…but i sure hope something is done about that….just want more of Windows 8 and less of 7( in particular Office and Paint) in Windows 8.
Thx.
Great improvements, I love this reimagining approach!
I like how you completely ignored how users actually use the interface. Well done.
I like it… nothing much to complain about. Can't wait to try out some of these things!
Will desktop bands be supported, so tools like QTTabBar can be possible?
If not, please at least use the standard rebar control and in a way that won't break horribly when bands are added or moved (like use RB_IDTOINDEX instead of hard-coding band indices).
Hopefully when I'm copying a large collection of files in Windows 8, and it encounters a file or folder that has too long of a path (more than 255 characters?), Windows 8 Explorer won't just say that the destination path is too long and the only button is the "ok" button and then it cancels the rest of the transfer, like it does in windows 7 or earlier! That is why I use total commander for complex transfers.
Please please prevent Explorer from cancelling the remaining portion of a file transfer after encountering an error like this, and log the error in some way that is easy for a user to look at later. It makes explorer file-operations seem like a joke and that it isn't designed for complex tasks in the first place.
Hi
Great work! I have 2 comments: Please add also "Open Command Promt here" to the file menu, which launches the command prompt in the current selected folder. This is currently available in the extended context menu.
The 2nd issue is regarding the navigation pane in Windows 7 which drives me crazy sometimes. When I launch an "Open File" or "Save File" dialog (or any small Explorer window) I quickly click on the top of the scrollbar of the navigation pane to scroll up in order to reach the "Favorites" area. Then I want to click one of my Favorite folders, but the nav pane refreshes at the same time and scrolls back to the bottom of the selected drive or folder, because of some delayed loading of other items (network drives or something else). Please, please stop this automatic srolling. I don't know how often I clicked something else instead of a favorite folder, because the nav pane scrolled itself down at the same time I clicked. Or better: pin the favorite area at the top of the nav pane and don't scroll it away as it was on Vista.
And thank you for bringing back the up button! For those who don't understand why: Open a small "Save File" dialog with long folder names in the breadcrumb bar. You don't see the up level folder in the bar where you could click onto to get one level up, because the long folder names in the small save file dialog just shows the current folder and no other folder to click on. The up button allows you in these small dialogs to quickly go up one or more levels, even though the breadcrumb bar shows only one folder.
Open command prompt is ok, but it should really be swapped out in favor of PowerShell. PowerShell should be the default going forward.
@Sunset Blvd. _
I can say most of the icons in Windows 7/8 have not been redrawn since Windows Vista as well as it's aero glass visual style like button, scrollbar, tabbar, checkbox, mouse cursors with Aero spinning circle on it. That's not to say that some system application's icon like Registry is even older-older than Vista- Is that hard to draw a new icon for over 10 year-old system application? Of course, it's getting more older so that unacceptable in new modern operating system and ugly too. Windows 8 still needs this change to become a revolution along with Metro UI.
Example of old icons that still appear in system apps as of Windows 7 like Registry Editor..
img16.imageshack.us/…/datingicons.jpg
Feeling better about switching to the Mac all the time…
I'm really disappointed that there'll be no third-party API for the Explorer ribbon. Currently add-ons just dump their options into the context menu making it more and more unwieldy. If something like TortoiseSvn could add a contextual Source Control tab for example, it could mitigate the effect of context menu bloat and provide a more pleasant way of accessing those options. Context menu bloat is actually my #1 UI gripe with Explorer.
Is there any possibility of an API being provided in an out-of-band release, or are we stuck waiting until Windows 9 in 2015?
I forgot something else: In Windows 7, the "Select Folder" common dialog (e.g. used in installers) expands folders always at the bottom of the treeview. So you expand one folder, scroll down, expand the next, scroll down again and so on. This worked better in previous version and should be fixed in Win 8!
And if most commands are done through context menus, then why waste space with a ribbon?
@ nowuniverse
also old cursors should be removed
Functionally it's great (except maybe shortcut to powershell and tab for plugins) BUT PLEASE you must "metro" ize the user interface.
Metro is perfect, clean, smooth, brillant, and I'm sure that Metro in the ribbon would help user to appreciate it.
More constructive criticism for you guys to ponder (and hopefully not ignore like I’m kind of assuming you guys will do, after all the hard work has already been done). Anyways I’ll continue…
Say I wanted to rename a file, by adding in the ribbon to the UI you are requesting users to now do the following:
1) Select a file
2) Move mouse up to the ribbon and press the rename button.
3) Type in name and press enter.
What’s wrong with a simple right click?
If I wanted to open a file you are now requesting users do the following:
1) Select a file
2) Move mouse up to the ribbon and press the open button.
What’s wrong with a simple double click?
My point it a huge majority of those controls on the ribbon are duplicates of existing controls that where either previously on the command bar or in the context menu. Every single Windows user is comfortable with that yet you now are asking them to forget everything they know and reduce themselves to draconian single mouse clicks for EVERY task they would want to do in explorer. I mean if you didn’t want them to do that why include the ribbon? Even in the video Alex never used any of those controls, why? Because they’re redundant, not required, not asked for, simply unnecessary.
You say you made this change by looking at telemetry, the telemetry showed that 10 commands made up 81% of use in explorer; you took that knowledge and then somehow decided that you needed to add 190 new commands that we won’t use. The leap between the data you gathered and what you’ve executed is outstanding. It’s a leap that I dare any of you guys to even try and justify, if not publically but at least within your team.
Explorer as it stands in Windows 7 is pretty close to perfect, it certainly needs work but if anything it needs streamlining, not “ribbonising”. Add the status bar you guys have got already, streamline the design, and most of all don’t let the ribbon go near it.
As a Microsoft fan I’m appalled, Mac users are probably rolling on the floor laughing their asses off and you guys are presumably patting yourself on the back for what you believe is a job well done. Tragic.
@Guys linking to Seldo's "analysis" : Seldo forgot one thing : Windows has hundreds of millions of users. Even if something is used by 0.5% of people, that's already one million people which would be very happy to see a feature they use in the Ribbon.
@nowuniverse: +1024. Those old icons need to die.
Will the kind gentlemen (and ladies ;)) from MS allow for a feature request?
a.) Batch Rename:
You see, I would very much like to see "batch rename" functionality; with the ability to insert "original file name", "date", "containing folder name" and "number sequence" into the constructed file name – which is then applied to all selected files.
————————————————————————
b.) Advanced Search:
As an addition I would like to see a tab called "Search" that would allow for multiple entry fields – "file name", "file contents", "file metadata" – this would make it easier to simultaneously search for multiple strings which are of unrelated format, and thus constrict the search results – both XP and Vista allowed for this.
————————————————————————
c.) Ribbon size:
Please consider changing the ribbon in such a way as to show the bottom section descriptions only when the mouse is over the ribbon – possibly as a info tip underneath the section – this would further reduce the vertical footprint which is quite a bit large.
Feel free to consider such a change for all of the programs that use the ribbon – the section descriptions are unnecessary once you know them, so they should only be shown at the beginning (possibly in the same sort of a way Start Menu was shown when you first loaded WinXP, or the old "Click here to begin in '95"), later they should only show when the mouse is over the ribbon itself.
(Obviously, the position of button description tooltips would have accommodate the section description. )
————————————————————————
d.) File Preview:
Since WMP is slow and ugly (so sorry :)) I like to use Explorer as a media player for music, would it be possible to "lock" the preview pane to a selected file so a currently played song wouldn’t stop playing while I continue to select other files (to view file properties or maybe just to scroll the file list), this would also allow me to have an instructions .txt file open in the preview pane, while I carry the instructions out.
Locking the preview pane to a file would be extremely useful (to me at least).
————————————————————————
And last but certainly not least;
e.) Multiple folders display:
Currently it is extremely hard to drag-move (or copy) files between folders; the folder tree is fickle (and far less useful than it was in Vista) and you have to constantly scroll it up and down – it's just a pain.
If explorer allowed for multiple folders to be opened in such a way that every folder was a thin bar (resizable, naturally) of vertically oriented items list, we could:
– simultaneously see the contents of multiple folders
– copy/move from a folder to multiple other folders with great ease
– copy to a folder from multiple locations with great ease
The folder tree use to allow for this, but nowadays it has become way too fickle and even if it wasn't, the tree is far too complex to be easily circumnavigated, I fell we absolutely need multiple folders to be displayed.
(And – let's be honest – if a certain other – let us name no names – file manager can do it, so can Explorer)
————————————————————————
Well, this came out to be a bit long; to those who have read: thank you for reading, please make the upper echelons aware of the existence of such requests – what I have wrote here is the top of my list of desires for Windows Explorer for quite some time, I am certain that many others (I believe a substantial number of MS' users, with many opinion leaders amongst them) will benefit from such improvements.
Best regards,
Arcyon
yuk!
@DanielM2 I think they're doing this to pave a way for the hybrid touch-first PC's where the ribbon interface would be pretty crucial to access common tasks that one would normally find in a right-click context menu. So, the duplication of functionality indeed seems to be by necessity rather than an oversight
this is so ugly. are you designing so Bill Gates can see the icons in his old age. you make your users look stupid.
Let the Windows Explorer be nice, and not that cluttered !!
I really hate the idea of seeing the Windows Explorer be that ugly, im sorry. I don’t think the Windows Explorer is supposed to be that powerful at all. I think the Windows Explorer should be a really nice ‘app’ which is super easy to use, looks nice und is super easy to understand.
Of course I would get used to it in time, but the most ‘normal’ users I know, wouldn’t. They would be totally overwhelmed by all these options. The standard user shouldn’t be afraid to use the explorer, thinking maybe they could break something.
The ribbon is great, but just not in the explorer.
Why don’t you just bring back winfile.exe ? In the earlier days winfile was one of the greatest tools for file management. It would be the best for all of us. For us power users, to have full control over all of our data and also for the average user to have a really nice touch friendly and just loveable experience.
@Ehasan – Tabari is totally right. The use shouldn’t have to worry about where to put the files and an filesystem at all. The filesystem should be a big drive extender. Put a new hard drive in, the total amount of free space just grows. Get rid of file letters. We aren’t in 1993 anymore, we don’t need drive letters.
I really do not understand why Microsoft just scrapped all Windows Longhorn Concept at all. Especially the design concepts were amazing and I really think most of the average user would have loved them. Like the Longhorn Explorer.
There is really not much need to ‘overpower’ the Windows 7 Explorer. Yeah the ‘up’ button is really helpful and nice, maybe here and there something, but all in all it’s a nice experience. Don’t make a mistake and screw Windows up with something like that.
As others have also mentioned. Its a cluster-mess, I think you guys need to stick to the mantra – "Less is More".
I can understand the use of the Ribbon UI for apps like MS-Word etc (In fact I love me some MS-Word Ribbon). But as a substitution for native UI tasks like file management, it just doesn't cut it.
I rather you guys lean towards the Metro / Zune look and feel.
Cut / Copy / Paste should be equal size and should be in that order. Every app since the beginning of time has cut/copy/paste in that order. Now it's copy/paste, and "little" cut. You've got a little more space to put a big cut button before copy (see the end of the toolbar) please do this before RTM.
+1 for PowerShell and PowerShell ISE as command prompt alternatives.
Can't imagine ever going back to CMD.
Could you make a a split view for windows explorer. so that you can 2 directories in one window.
would better in this cas than aero snap. so we can the full rbbon toolbar.
@PBJake – Well if that's the case it won't work, I've tried Office on a touchscreen with Windows 7 today and it doesn't work, the icons are simply too cramped together and small so that even when you do try and press a button it's shielded by your finger.
The ribbon doesn't work for touch, if it did Steven and co wouldn't be pushing the great looking touch UI in Windows 8.
I miss Dosshell.
Actually, I like the changes.
When Windows 7 was itroduced, I surfaced some changes I doesn't like.
For example, the fact, that when I'm not in details view, Windows Explorer hides the filter bar. You know, the thing on top of a Windows Explorer window where we can sort by Name, Type etc.
I would really like it if Windows Explorer would still show me the filter bar when I'm in details view.
But also a great feature from Vista was the "Stack by" in the context menu. It was really a great way to get the information I want quickly when I plug in a messed up thumb drive or a messed up folder. Too bad that it was removed. And I don't like why I'm unable since Windows 7 to manage the order of my files and folders by myself. I really like the "large symbols" view. In Vista I dragged my favourite folders to the top that I see them immediately. But since Windows 7, Windows Explorer doesn't allow me to change the arrangement of the files in any view. Btw the new "Up Button" is in my opinion only for people who doesn't understand how the new addressbar works. Will it be possible to remove the "Up Button"? Hopefully yes.
Meh.
Are there already tabs for folders? And what about an Always On Top-button?
Has any thought been given to having tabs in Windows Explorer like all modern web browsers have tabs? Not talking about the tabs on the ribbons, but tabs to keep from having multiple windows open for different locations in the file system.
I know this isn't the focus of this blog post, but in the sharing tab on the new UI, you have an 'email' button. In Windows 7/Vista/XP this button opened an email program like Outlook, but most home users don't use email programs. It would be awesome if you guys could make it possible for the email button to open the user's web-based email and attatch the selected file like it already does for Outlook.
really ugly, I was expecting it to be better than Finder. This is just laziness.
Wow..very disappointing.
Instead of all those changes I have a suggestion: just leave it as it is now in W7…
I think I'm going to vomit. Explorer was bad enough, does it really need MORE buttons?!
This looks really promising. Can't wait for a public beta to test. Very impressive indeed. I only have a single request. Please make it possible to rearrange the icons of the QAT. This is a real nightmare in office where I have to remove buttons and readd them to be in the order I like. Thanks again.
It just doesn't look right, Its too busy and it has a lot going on. I don't use office for the sake of using it, I use it because its a PROGRAM for creating word documents.
The ribbon UI makes explorer look like a PROGRAM for managing my files(which it technically is). But when you make mundane tasks like selecting a file or copying and pasting files feel like obvious mandatory duties instead of natural, sub-concious outcomes, it takes a lot away from the flow and experience of using Windows.
Seldo folks … I think of course that is interesting perspective but it doesn't quite use data the way it was presented/intended. The reality is that commands are going un-used except by a small set of folks. If you already know the commands and context menu then you don't change thing. But for everyone else, much of this will be "new". So when we populate the ribbon we put the most frequently used commands closest but that doesn't mean every person used all those commands or even knew about them, plus the organization allows us to show off more functionality that we know folks did not broadly see/use. That's what we learned as the ribbon as developed. Power users got things like keyboard shortcuts and quick links and other folks learned what was always there.–Steven
These are my suggestions and +1s from other reader's comments.
* Make Explorer borrow from Outlook in how it previews files.
* Allow the ribbon to have the appropriate Office ribbon display/appear as a context sensitive tab when previewing an office document. We could have an object-oriented approach to files instead of an application-oriented approach as is forced now.
* If explorer could keep an index of files in a folder inside the folder like it does with thumbnails that would make network and removable drives searches fast and simple.Allowing other image management programs to make use of the Thumbs.db files, and certainly if there was a FileIndex.db file it would greatly increase the efficiency of the Indexing services and searching for files in general. (Also the rumored integration of a new file-system and the ability to index by more metadata type options would increase this exponentially)
* I would love the ability to drag-and-drop files to the breadcrumb bar, and also the ability to right click (or hover with files) over the navigation arrows to access the last few folders in History (like in Internet Explorer) and allow for drag-and-drop with files.
* Make each Explorer window a different process by default. This might consume more resources but I believe most would accept the trade-off for better stability, since if one Explorer window crashes, the others could remain intact, (much like Internet Explorer already does) and file transfers wouldn't prematurely abort themselves . Most modern computers (especially ones running x64) have more than enough resources to support this.
* "Create New Folder from Selected Files", with drop down options for Create New … (zip, playlist, photo album, etc.) From Selected Files
* Buy Paint.NET and Notepad++ and integrate them into Windows to upgrade Paint and Notepad. (of course give them a ribbon-y make-over!)
## If any of these suggestions are not able to be integrated into the first release of Windows '8' then prep them for integration into the first Service Pack! This includes the ability for third partys to create extensions and/or customizations to the Explorer Ribbon! ##
@Christian Schindler: What do you mean exactly by making Explorer "UAC-aware"? AFAIK, it is already that way, since its instances are normally open with the same amount of privileges as the user. You can even start an elevated instance, so I don't quite understand your point.
@D.: Nice idea, never thought about it before. I've looked for some info about that feature in Mac OS X "Lion" and it seems very useful yet so simple.
@Lionel: Completely agree. Windows having a built-in zip file handler is nice but it is only so if it works and performs well and all your suggestions should be taken in consideration and implemented, in my opinion.
@Adrian: I believe that rather than improving upon Windows Media Player, Microsoft should replace it with the Zune software, improve it to be as if not more fully-featured than WMP 11 and 12 and allow sync of non-Zune and non-Windows Phone devices. Regarding Notepad, it's quite a good app for being so simple and basic, not to mention very useful to do some plain text editing. However, if WordPad had a mode to allow only features compatible with plain text and apply that same mode when opening plain text documents, then by all means I agree that it would be feasible to remove Notepad. About Paint, it's actually much more modern and capable now, no need to complicate it. I think that you need to reconsider your classification of "junk" when it comes to software here.
@jrronimo: Yeah, folder size should be available too. And the Status Bar is not being deprecated, they're actually bringing it back for providing the critical information, whilst the Details pane gives more data without requiring to open the Properties window.
@Role: It already has it. The dropdown menu in the Menu button gives you three options: Delete, Permanently Delete and Recycle Confirmations (which allows you to toggle whether you want to receive the confirmations or not without opening the options window of the Recycle Bin).
@r3loaded: I believe that the idea for the Immersive UI is to follow the work done with Windows Phone 7 and remove the idea of users interacting with the file system and its hierarchies altogether.
I have also more feedback for you guys 🙂
– Revamp the Folder Options window and make it a control panel. Also rename it Files and Folders, since it's incorrect to use words like Settings, Options, etc. according to the UX guidelines. This should be done because these options actually affect system-level features and are the rigght interface according to the guidelines for control panels. While you're at it, put all the special folders options (such as the Recycle Bin) in this control panel to simplify access to them.
– The delete, permanently delete, "file is in use", "access denied", "missing shortcut", "location not found" etc. dialog boxes could take a facelift. They are currently too gray and do not follow the UX guidelines (lack of main instruction, overcrowded content area, incorrect usage of titles in the title bar, etc.). This should also be done with the implementation of IFileIsInUse in Explorer since it does not support it yet and could make some of these error dialogs more informative and helpful.
– Like others said and since this is an excellent occasion to provide feedback, the Ribbon UI in the new Explorer still looks the same as the one used on Paint and WordPad in Windows 7. I think that it should be updated to match the gray and monochrome look of Office 2010, because it's more pleasant to the eye and looks more professional and adaptable to different styles and themes. I'm not sure if adding glass to the tab bar would be good, though. If you consider it, please provide an option for toggling it.
– The Properties window is a bit inconsistent. Mainly, it's easy to notice the difference when opening it on a folder or on a file. If opened on a folder or on multiple items, it uses Tahoma as the font but if opened on a file, it uses MS Sans Serif instead. Please fix that so that it uses Segoe UI on all scenarios.
– Permissions are still too difficult and confusing to manage. I understand that this something less experienced users shouldn't mess with because of the risks involved but it still hasn't changed that much since Windows NT 3.1. I believe it's possible to overhaul the UI for managing permissions to simplify the process a little and reduce the number of windows that are required to be open, which I must say is excessive. UAC makes it worse due to some of the windows needing to be reopened due to requiring elevation, while keeping the non-elevated ones open. All this makes the current design a mess.
I don't have a clue why you are still doing things like those. More trashy functionality and useless features doesn't make it better.
Please, think twice before doing something so reckless.
Whoaw! Why so much buttons in up-area? More easier for tablet users?
Oops, in my comment directed to Role, I said "The dropdown menu in the Menu button gives you three options […]". It's the Delete button, not the Menu button.
And I misspelled the word "right" too, I didn't notice the additional "g" there.
well since this is the new explorer ….could you make it look prettier? seriously, hire some designers from deviantArt they seem to be much more creative with things like this.
Please add an option not to show the ribbon *at all*.
Thanks
@Steven – I hate to bring in the comparison but you guys clearly aren't listening (as I assumed).. the one thing no one can say about Lion is that it's hard to use. Take a look at finder, do you see a bunch of huge buttons, do you see a ribbon clone, hell there are barely any buttons at all. But again everyone is of the universal opinion is that it's easy to use.
Every time you try and justify a feature you show a bunch of telemetry, even reading the E7 blog every post was full of charts and graphs. If the examples above is what you guys reading charts and graphs all day leads to then I suggest you stop.
I think the address bar should go above the ribbon, but other than that I like it!
Oh no.. not the Ribbon UI. Please hire some top designer to design new UI.
Keep it simple.
what's also with the UGLY square caption buttons?
"you can actually fit two more lines on the screen than you could in Windows 7"
I disagree with this comment and I feel that the corresponding picture is misleading. Anyone would notice how useless the Windows7 Details pane was in the picture. The size of the details pane is customizable in win7, and I always keep it as small as I can (still too big, but meh) . I think that if you re-make the picture, showing with the smallest possible details pane on the bottom side, there won't be 2 extra icons in the new explorer.
I've heard so many people complain about they dislike having to re-find all of their favorite commands in Office because of the Ribbon control. I'm not a great fan either, but I understand that it's better then a menu.
One of my biggest complaints is not that the ribbon control re-arranges and hides my favorite commands, but that it can't be docked to the left or right sides of a window, and ALWAYS takes up the best real estate, especially on a widescreen monitor.
TLDR: Please improve the Ribbon control so that it can be side docked.
Improvements? more like a regression.
Improvements to the toolbar are welcome; it's nice to see some level of customisation returning, interesting/useful commands represented as top level buttons, and I'm quite positive on ribbons in general.
But will you be working on the navigation pane too? That also was much better in Windows XP than Vista & 7. In particular, top-level nodes seem to remember their expansion state, and since these might open automatically depending on shortcuts you open, that means I always get an unexpected set of nodes open when I open an Explorer window. When I press Win+E, I want My Computer expanded one level, and everything else collapsed, just as it was in XP.
There also seems to be some outstanding bug in 7, where expanding a folder sometimes causes the tree to skip around unpredictably. And individual folders no longer remember their maximisation state – I want to open a maximised view when I press Win+E, but if I end up in some folder which I restore to floating size I don't want that to affect future views of My Computer.
Frankly I'd like these fixed in 7 SP2, rather than having to wait for Windows 8…
Please, put tabs (like all browsers have) in Explorer! It's incredible productive (l10n.kde.org/…/kde4.1-dolphin-with-tabs.png)
thanks
File listed functions for files. Now it doesn't, and Home does. So File does things not on files.
Has everyone at Microsoft lost their minds? What does the word File mean to you?
Wow. I am not sure what to think. I feel Win8 is taking one step forward and two step backs. How does this simplify my life or make me look cool???? I thought the whole concept around Win8 was to simplify and clean the UX. How is "Copy Path" a hidden gem???? more like a pebble in a river nobody crosses anymore!
C'mon guys you should be better than this!!!!! Hire a REAL designer!!!!
I like what I see here, but I would like to agree with two opinions:
1. Office 2010 ribbon looks much nicer. I understand that this is the standard "Windows" ribbon, but I still think you should upgrade the whole Windows' ribbon (i.e. including Paint, Wordpad) to the Office 2010 ribbon style
2. I would like to hear more about why you cannot make API for add-on for ribbon at all. As other has said, so many of nice plugins would be impossible without the API. Social media site sharing, 7zip/Winrar add-ons to the "share", adding an extra tab for program like 7zip, to name a few.
How about tabs in windows explorer. That's one thing I really miss from Linux world
No. Absolutely no. Why do you guys want to push this "ribbon" crap down our throats? It was hated with Office 2007 but you continued it in Office 2010 anyway. Now you are destroying Windows with it? I bought a Macbook to try out some iPhone dev, and I hated it and vowed I would never buy another Apple product again. But honestly, if I have to choose between RibbonDose (my new nickname for Windows 8) and Mac OS, I would choose Mac. At least they still have a normal File etc. menu, even if it is only one for every app. Way to destroy an entire company by absolutely obliterating the one thing you have going for you : usability and efficiency of use. Having to trip through fifty billion idiotic ribbon tabs to find the thing you are looking for is just inexcusable. Why are you morons trying to take us back to the 80s? What's next, Windows 9 will be a green screen?
I am a fan of the ribbon for sure!
One thing that concerns me deeply looking at these videos is the visual style. This video shows a very flat and ugly explorer. It looks white, unfinished, and unpolished. I am hoping that this is because you don't want to show the final visual style yet.
I hate OSX. However, the only thing OSX has going for it is that it is very much "prettier" than Windows. If you spend just a few minutes on a Mac, you can easily notice that they spent a lot of time polishing little details. Please take the time to really focus on the smallest of details and give the normal Windows desktop a fresh, modern visual style.
This is the kind of stuff that keeps people on XP. Instead of fixing what isn't broke, and in turn breaking everything…why not actually innovate and do something new. I'll stick with XP for Windows, and if I have to go to a newer computer, Mac. Forget Microsoft.
Here are 11 main things that the teams should work on to invert situation and prevent Vista disaster from happening again with Windows 8, particularly in this case ribbon and explorer stuff:
Since teams have taken away the piece of pleasant look in Windows 8's explorer by putting too much stuff on it. Here is how to fix:
1) By default, auto-expand and auto-collapse must be enabled for ribbon (user won't love doing that manually) so most of the time the clean look will keep pleasing users.
2) After the beta with extra researches and feedback, eliminate functions and icons in ribbon that's unnecessary to clean up the clutter.
3) Hide disabled function's icons on ribbon (not graying them out) , if all choices in a select list are disabled hide that select list to save more space.
4) Enlarge some icons on ribbon and status bar for easier access and better experience at touch devices as well as traditional mouse and keyboard.
5) Redraw/redesign icons in ribbons (2D friendly icons suggested) with unified style guideline. This helps cleaning the messy style currently in ribbon that ease user eyes when looking at them.
6) Since back/forward button and address bar can no longer be on the top of explorer with transparent ability like windows vista/7 , the top of the ribbon should replace that with transparent and linear gradient as a transition to Aero glass themed windows above it like Microsoft Office 2010's ribbon.
7) Give three color options for ribbon theme like Office 2007/2010 ribbon (silver/black/blue) OR make ribbon automatically adapt its color according to main Aero color scheme.
8) Rich built in codec with more formats for thumbnail like PDF, PSD, AI, RAW (without install codec pack from Microsoft)
9) More drag-and-drop integration and interaction with all element on explorer including address bar and new ribbon.
10) Remove small help icon next to expand/collapse arrow button because there are help section on "FILE" menu part of ribbon already.
11) Never put check box on ribbons BUT button -standard/spitted any kind are welcomed.
Sweet lord it's so ugly. Why are you doing this??
Im yet to find anyone I know that likes the ribbon (Moms and power users alike), im glad to see there's a button to hide it in your screenshots
So, because everyone uses the context menus and hot keys, you guys decide to make the tool bar bigger, more obtrusive, and more ugly, and then eliminate the part everyone uses (context menus)… Let me get this straight, everyone knows and loves the menu bars and 55% of all commands come from context menus so you eliminate the portion that's used most frequently? Generally speaking when people use something in large numbers there's a reason for it… You guys got it right the first time. Change for the sake of change is pointless. I didn't like the ribbon in office 2k7, I don't like it now. The ribbon hurt productivity because no one knew where to find things.
I switched off of windows and onto Linux (full time) a few years ago with Vista because I didn't like the direction the UI was going… The inconsistencies, the obfuscating the network control panel, the changes to the control panel in general, the making things take 3 or 4 screens or tabs to find what you're looking for. All of this crap in the name of making it "easy" has just obfuscated the UI to the point of uselessness for anyone who has been using your platform for the past 16 years and is in any way competent.
Looking at these changes, yes I'll probably have a Windows 8 license because I have to test my software on it, but hell no I won't use it and I won't miss Windows.
Real disappointed that ribbon cannot be extended by add-ons. As soon as I saw the headline of a Windows Explorer Ribbon I was hoping for proper .NET extensibility. There goes that 🙁
The Ribbon is complete JUNK! I hated it when i saw it in Office 2007 and hate it more in Office 2010 it takes 10 clicks to do simple things in settings because you removed things. If you are going to the way of the stupid user who wants a one click copy and one click paste this is wrong. at least i can still use Alt in win 7 to bring up useful menus. Make the ribbons and OPTION not required and if you are going to push them allow me to customize them so i can bring back useful things like File> Option instead of the 10 clicks.
Instead of previewing videos in preview pan, you can preview the same while you pointing the video file, that means a small preview windows should come, it will be very handy.
This is only the first step: the next will be a ribbonized Explorer shell in Metro style.
Is there a way to globally turn this feature off? I rather my menus/toolbars take up the least amount of my UI as possible.
The ribbon just takes up premium real estate on my laptop and serves no purpose for users that use context menus anyway.
I have the hardest time finding things in the Ribbon anyway.
I think it's looking great – noticed how you've made the most used toolbar features have the biggest icons.
The Share tab is just asking for things like Flickr, Facebook etc. I think you really need to find the time to add in the ability to programatically add stuff to the ribbon (like the aforementioned two) if for no other reason than it will help *push*acceptance*of*your*new*UI*.
I hope that you allow 3rd-party add-ons to make additional tabs in the ribbon (to the right of view – just like the "library tools" tab). This functionality has been in the ribbon interface from its debut in 2007. It would appease power users who want custom interfaces while also keeping the default interface the same. It would also allow users of multiple Explorer replacements/add-ons to use both at the same time. Currently TeraCopy only works w/ Windows Explorer or Total Commander, etc.
If I could only have one request for explorer it would be to optimize it for working with large directories. Currently I have some directories where it takes up over 5 seconds to enter a directory, and I'm on a i7 860 with 8Gb of RAM and an SSD! If I reduce the number of subfolders in the directory the performance goes up again.
If I could have one more feature, it would be to make it harder to move files and folders by dragging them around, for example requiring shift to be held. Way too often do I accidentally move or copy folders and files by not double clicking fast enough and moving my mouse slightly at the same time.
If those were the only changes that you'd make I'd be more than happy.
suddenly Lion isn't so bad after all. Its definitely prettier than this ugly mess
As a regular user, I think the Ribbon interface, is hideous.
And that's not just an opinion. The goal was to design a sleek, streamlined and easy interface, right?
Ribbon is cluttered, filled with 50% of non-important functions according to your own statistics, and the zero-windows-knowledge users are better of with the more practical ribbon-less interface. Right click, anyone?
seldo.tumblr.com/…/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a
The above tumblr entry proves the point I made, I could only hope for this critic to be taken serious.
You're doing an awesome job with Metro, hopefully extrapolating functionality to Windows Phone, but the job with the Desktop interface.. Sorry, that's a no to me. Things like this actually drive me away from Windows, which, you know, is a bad thing. Wouldn't want that ~10% market share of a certain competitor to increase, would we?..
Very impressed by the updates. The Windows 7 and Vista versions were a step backwards from XP.
Now if only the search behavior did what I expected it to do. Make that more XP like (in functionality) and we'd be close to perfection.
Ugh… Hate the Ribbon. It takes up so much space and provides very little benefit in any application it is applied. Things like this make me look at other operating systems more and more.
I would love to be able to compare two folders to see which files are different, missing, etc. Norton utilities used to do this way back in the day and I've been waiting for MS to implement this very helpful feature in their OS.
If you add a merge tool directly in the windows explorer, I will change my middle name to windows.
I just want to say that I'm liking the ribbon in explorer but I don't like the look. The back/foreward buttons should look like they do in IE9 not IE7 and the ribbon should look like the ribbon in Office 2010. I like the gradient window look in Office 2010, not a fan of the dull blue-ish grey.
Could you add a "Add to desktop slideshow" next to the "Set as Desktop Background" on the image contextual ribbon tab? For those that use Windows 7's built in slideshow manager – it looks like clicking "set as desktop background" will overwrite those settings and give you just one standard image.
It's good that you can also minimize the ribbon (most above-gandma-level users know about CTRL+{A,X,C,V} shortcut keys.
I really like the path-contextual "sudo" command promt; it should've been in Windows Vista.
That said, why not also offer this as a suggestionif you type in a path (relative or absolute) in Start Menu input field? (Windows-key + path => show "sudo promt path".
Here is my version based on Internet Explorer 9.
not much but about what I had imagined =)
And thanks for the – File Trinadtsat '=)
i041.radikal.ru/…/81bd0cce56b0.jpg
For windows explorer, the UI is my second concern while functionality comes at first place. I don’t care if they keep the current UI or introduces a space-consuming ribbon, I need tabs in explorer and get back the ability to manually arrange files and folders without using any registry tweak or 3rd party software. They maybe trying their best to improve the UI, but they should focus on providing some features first that have been long demanded by the users.
Also, I was expecting Metro UI to be expanded to the desktop as well. During the DEMO, you introduced us to the operating system for ALL computers. While there's still seperation between Tablets and Desktops, the gap you intended to close.
Really, really disappointing, and if it doesn't get much better, you lost me as your consumer..
Also, I was expecting Metro UI to be expanded to the desktop as well. During the DEMO, you introduced us to the operating system for ALL computers. While there's still seperation between Tablets and Desktops, the gap you intended to close.
Really, really disappointing, and if it doesn't get much better, you lost me as your consumer..
I rarely use search box and start menu in explorer because it never give me the sense it would find the things I'm looking for and by the way it's pretty slow…Searching files in explorer needs to be as fast as searching web. everything instant and a little out-of-the-box –>more helpful search suggestion integration like calculator and unit converter, my calendar, built-in and up-to date event, dictionary along live contents: news, weather, currency converter and other contents as well.
Can the backspace key be mapped to the "Folder Up" button again pretty please?
Nice article and promising functions. The telemetrie gives insight into the most used functions within explorer. The only thing I do not understand is that windows 8 is being marketed as a tablet OS. The current configuration of the ribbon is a good idea to the tablet friendly end user experience. But I would sincerely advice a more cleaner array of function buttons. More buttons will only confuse the end user. Make it clean with only the most frequently used functionbuttons. A tablet OS needs big buttons, so make them big. Hide the less used functions in a submenu in the ribbon. Also consider that it is more intuitive to select certain files or multiple files with a finger. Try condisering a more functional use of this for the file selection and get rid of "mouse thinking". Introduce the checkboxes as in windows 7 and make the checkboxes bigger. We all have thick fingers and the current checkboxes are too small. It is time to let go of the current windows UI styling and start thinking bigger styled UI elements for a fingerfriendely experience (Think metro UI and windows phone 7 tiles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). These are my tips as windows 7 ultimate and windows mobile end user.
I'm sorry but this new menu doesn't look streamlined at all. It rather looks like an explosion occurred.
Only an insane person would use that menu for tasks evidently a lot of people use the context menu for.
Please get a better UI team and don't implement such obviously out of place and hideous UI because you think those statistics are a call for such radical change.
Contextual tasks done via context menu – that makes sense. This catastrophe of a menu will just drive people insane.
Why not a Windows Explorer MDI like File manager of Windows 3.1.
Everyone calm down! Just give Microsoft and the Windows team the time and chance to gain more knowledge about user need in order to fix and enhance our experience since we're at very early stage of development not even BETA yet!
i would be very happy if they fix this : http://www.youtube.com/watch
Ive got to echo support for tabbed file browsing, while all this new is great to some and not so much for others, the lack of a tabbed interface for a file browser in 2012 would be Teh Fail!
* Why oh why when you press the zip button on a bunch of selected files is the created zip file not automatically selected?
* In the File menu you have open command prompt and open command prompt as admin? He's already logged in as an admin why ask how he would like to open the program? It's just so stupid.
Why don't you call up the Windows Phone 7 team and ask them how to do design? Clearly your team are incapable of designing yourself.
“Respect Explorer’s heritage.” Really? Why? It’s only an application.
“Bring back XP features.” Really? Is that the best MS can offer?
And telling users what has always been (hidden) there is not innovation. I felt that Explorer was low hanging fruit for improvement this time around. For me, file management involves organization and manipulation of text, music, and graphics files. A ribbon offers click, click, click, click, DONE. Tabs, and/or multiple panes offer drag and drop simplicity. I really don’t care about color schemes or button designs. (Are round or square corners the current fashion?) I’d rather see a right click resize option for my photos.
The alternatives to MS explorer have been miles ahead for years now. There are several…. you couldn’t tear xplorer2 lite from my fingers for example. It’s free for personal, academic, and non-profit use. It probably has 100 advantages over Explorer, at least 50 of which should have been begged, borrowed, or stolen for W8. Mr. Sinofsky even mentioned it and three others, albeit somewhat deprecatingly. By his numbers, there are 4.5 million users of the alternatives. Survey how many users don’t even know that Windows Explorer exists.
While I wish Mr. Jobs comfort and peace, Nikos Bozinis is my hero. Buy him.
Second try. Didn't see my comment pop up in the comments list the first time.
Nice article and promising functions. The telemetrie gives insight into the most used functions within explorer. The only thing I do not understand is that windows 8 is being marketed as a tablet OS. The current configuration of the ribbon is a good idea to the tablet friendly end user experience. But I would sincerely advice a more cleaner array of function buttons. More buttons will only confuse the end user. Make it clean with only the most frequently used functionbuttons. A tablet OS needs big buttons, so make them big. Hide the less used functions in a submenu in the ribbon. Also consider that it is more intuitive to select certain files or multiple files with a finger. Try condisering a more functional use of this for the file selection and get rid of "mouse thinking". Introduce the checkboxes as in windows 7 and make the checkboxes bigger. We all have thick fingers and the current checkboxes are too small. It is time to let go of the current windows UI styling and start thinking bigger styled UI elements for a fingerfriendely experience (Think metro UI and windows phone 7 tiles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). These are my tips as windows 7 ultimate and windows mobile end user.
Ribbons are somewhat unintuitive anyway. I mean, WHY is the "copy" button so large and the "cut" button so small? Both, basically, do similar tasks, so they should look similar. Another think I dislike with that ribbon stuff.
i'll repeat what i wrote in the previous post, in case it was missed. please make full row select an option. or, leave the entire row highlighted, but make only the first column active.
if look at your first screenshot of windows explorer 8, if those were folders instead of files, and i dragged and dropped a file, it would end up in one of the folders, not where i want it. Then I have to search for it. Need more white space to drop a file other than the little margin next to the file name. and since you took out bagmru regkey, I don’t want every folder to be huge enough to have white space to the right of the details.
i have a nice powerpoint presentation i can send you if you're interested
Please for the love of god implement a way to turn the ribbon off and the menu's that we are all used to back on.
For power users, 99% of the commands we use can be done easily with keyboard, mouse, and context menu's. For all the normal users, all you have done is confused them by replacing what they know with a bulky unattractive bar that takes up way to much real estate…. *sigh*
@nowuniverse – That's the thing they won't change it, they've spent 2 years now working on it do you really expect them to scrap everything because a couple hundreds users on their blog say so?
They are basically showing us the lesser features before the big reveal at the BUILD event (after all a new copy dialog isn't exactly worthy of a 3 day event). Sad to say but the ribbon is here to stay.
Could you maybe move the path and search boxes up above the ribbon a la chrome, and give us a tad more usable space? Still, love the ribbon, looks really useful
here are some thoughts:
1. powershell instead of cmd (only advanced users will use it, and they sure will not be using cmd these days)
(i would rather prefer this to be customized, as I use powershell within console2. lot of other users will be using bash or other cmd replacements, i hope this is customizable.).
2. allow creation of file name starting with dot. (Try creating a new folder or text document and name it as .gitignore and you will get an error. very important for developers. till then i will always need to open cmd/powershell and rename it or copy it from and existing file.)
3. open Visual Studio in admin mode and explorer as admin mode using the taskbar. drag a text file to Visual Studio, that file will not open. Same for notepad or wordpad or any other program. if i open explorer in admin mode i want to be able to drag and drop files to another app running in admin mode. (Azure development requires VS to run in admin mode and i don't want to turn off the UAC just for drag and drop support)
4. support for more than 256 chars in path. (there have been blog posts from .net BCL team about this limit and thought on this. please revisit this problem. blogs.msdn.com/…/long-paths-in-net-part-1-of-3-kim-hamilton.aspx).
5. support for deleting files that are more than MAX_PATH. (here is the blog post how to do it with current windows. blogs.msdn.com/…/black-hole-method-delete-folders-that-are-deeper-than-max-path-characters.aspx it actually requires me to create a new vhd, then use robocopy to move the file and then finally delete. Shouldn't right click>delete just work?)
6. i know that we can't create file names having ? > or any of those special characters. but lets say someone created that file in linux and sent me in pendrive. i can't rename/open it coz its invalid file in windows. even though windows doesn't allow me to create a file having those characters, at least allow me to rename it so i can open it in windows. (i had to actually find a linux box rename it and then open it in windows).
7. mklink is great to create symbolic links similar to those in linux. (allow us to create these symbolic without admin privilages. would love to have it in the explorer ui too for advanced users.)
Why not put all the big buttons that users use most together? That way, they won't have to search through the interface for the button they want to click.
Make it easy to create a "SEND TO" link.
I use it to "Send to" notepad, and it's not handy to find the "Send to" folder to create the link.
Thank you Windows 8 team.
And lower the price of Windows 8, if it's the same as Windows 7 it's too high, especially for Windows 7 users which will upgrade to 8.
The interface is exceedingly busy and will overwhelm most users. Add my vote in support of a dual pane window interface.
I can understand how some users are complaining about clutter or bad design, but it's difficult to balance exposing the full power of an app like Explorer with so much functionality built-in while still keeping the interface clean. Remember, you can just keep the ribbon minimized and add only the commands you want to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) so you can keep the UI clean and clutter-free if you want to. Power users get access to all the commands in the Ribbon. My concern is the Details pane and the Preview pane cannot both be enabled at the same time which I used on Windows 7. With the details pane moved to the side and a slightly wider navigation pane, my horizontal screen real estate becomes short. For that I agree with "Sunwook Park" and "Dany Rodier"s comments to allow users to dock the details pane to bottom (if they keep the ribbon minimized) or side (if they show the ribbon). Please keep the position of the details pane configurable.
Suggestions:
– Quick Access Toolbar needs to have large icons (24 x 24) because 16 x 16 is too small and 32 x 32 is too large so we can exclusively use QAT and keep Ribbon minimized
– Like "Run as administrator", can you add "Open as administrator" which works on selected file? Many times I need to open files in UAC protected locations and I cannot save them unless I open the associated app as administrator, then open the file in that app
– The "Run as administrator" item in the context menu sets the working directory to C:Windowssystem32 instead of the current directory. So I am unable to run scripts and batch files as admin which refer to files from the current directory.
– New (template) menu shows only "New folder" for UAC protected folders. It needs to show all items (New shortcut and templates) and elevate properly when creating that item.
– Office Ribbon shows hotkeys in tooltips. Can Explorer ribbon do that please?
– Allow activating ribbon tabs by hover instead of by click
– Please also add PowerShell and PowerShell as administrator to File menu
– I can understand not allowing addons to customize the ribbon but why is the Explorer ribbon not user-customizable like Office 2010 ribbon? The only real user customizable component is the Quick Access Toolbar and it's limited to 16 x 16 icon size.
– If the Ribbon cannot be customized, at least allow addon developers to add their custom commands to the Quick Access Toolbar.
– Will the Ribbon UI be extended to all special folders? Control Panel, Recycle Bin, My Briefcase, Game Explorer, Network Connections, Fonts etc?
– Would be great if Sharing could include 1 click sign in and upload to SkyDrive.
– I like the Preview pane and Details pane separate. Details pane is for showing and editing all possible properties and a small preview just to identify the file whereas Preview pane is for a properly viewable preview. Don't do anything silly like merging them.
– The menu bar is completely removed? I understand the command bar should be gone because we have a Ribbon, but please consider the scenario where users keep the Ribbon minimized and use only Quick Access Toolbar and the menu bar (like the Windows 95 and Windows XP style).
Question: (please answer MS, I am not asking just for sake of asking)
– Are Explorer toolband addins to add custom toolbars still supported?
Can we replace the legacy icons in Windows this time around? The icons for JS, VBS and some other files appear like in Windows 98. I think it's time to change these really dated icons.
As a great someone said "The first rule of upgrades is to always make sure you preserve all existing features", and Explorer underwent SO MANY CHANGES after XP that sadly Windows Vista and Windows 7 did cause me a great deal of frustration. I was one of the earliest users who had "given up" on Explorer after I migrated to Windows Vista and have been complaining loudly ever since. So I hope Microsoft will listen to my suggestions. Hopefully, ALL of the things will be fixed in Windows 8 though I am unsure if any further changes are going to be made or everything's final now for BUILD and we are just being told about it. Here's the MASTER list of problems in Windows Explorer:
– Biggest annoyance: Files in Explorer are continuously kept sorted even if the user wants them to get sorted when he pressed F5/Refresh. Because they are kept sorted, any file modification activity such as copy-paste, creation, rename or deletion makes files jump continually to obey the sort order instead of the items appearing at the end and getting sorted only when the view is refreshed. Please please please please Windows team, make this optional
– Auto Arrange and Align to Grid cannot be turned off in Windows 7. Why do we have this restriction? Please allow users to freely move items in folders like the desktop like all previous Windows versions allowed
– Permissions are not retained/copied like XP Explorer (KB310316). Copied items acquire the permissions of the destination folder.
– Images and videos used to have a "Refresh thumbnail" in the context menu to force refresh/regenerate them.
– Thumbnails for AVI files aren't shown. MS needs to ship more property and preview handlers in-box for video formats.
– The properties shown in Tiles view used to change by how we sorted the items. That no longer happens. Properties are static now in Tiles view.
– The Details tab in Properties doesn't support easily copying the information like XP's Summary tab or Version tab allowed
– The address bar dropdown does not display top level hierarchy from the desktop. Instead it shows history!
– Even if you brought back the Up button, you haven't brought back Ctrl+Up which opened the parent folder in a new window
– Details View has full row selection. This should be configurable from Folder Options
– Security permissions and ownership cannot be set on multiple selected items from Properties as the Security permissions tab does not show up in this case
– Folder backgrounds through desktop.ini are no longer supported.
– 16-bit program icons are not shown or extracted from Explorer
– Navigation pane had 1-click folder expand/collapse feature in XP called Simple Folder View. It didn't require clicking on the arrows to expand or collapse folders or double click them.
– The arrows indicating that there are subfolders inside the main folder disappear when you move the mouse to the right pane of Explorer making it difficult for the user to determine which folder has subfolders.
– Password protected ZIP files no longer supported
– Filmstrip view is replaced by Preview pane but filmstrip view could be enabled on per-folder basis and its state was saved.
– Preview pane does not show previews of subfolders whereas filmstrip view showed the preview of images within a folder
– Status bar showed free disk space at all times. You did not have to go to My Computer to view free disk space
– Alt-Enter hotkey shortcut to show properties does not work in the navigation (left) pane
– Recycle Bin status bar showed size of folders or files
– Cannot undo more than one delete operation from Recycle Bin
– Advanced File Type association functionality gone
– Folders on the Send To menu do not expand as submenus
– No List View or Details View in Control Panel
– Slideshow button in Explorer always starts slideshow in Windows Photo Viewer instead of default photo viewer registered app like Photo Gallery which has nicer transitions
– 32-bit Explorer.exe can no longer be run in Explorer. The Windows shell team has handled the transition or shell extensions from 32-bit to 64-bit poorly. Please include something like WOW64Menu utility which allows using 32-bit Property Sheet and 32-bit context menu extensions from 64-bit Explorer
– Each toolbar or desk band is forced to be on its own row in Windows Explorer. The Explorer forces the RBBS_BREAK style for every band
– Cannot click on multiple group headers when grouping is on to select items
– No share overlay icon means folders are shared silently and no easy way for the user to be told of that.
– Per folder views are not remembered if accessing that folder from a library
– When no items are selected in a folder, neither the details pane nor the status bar show the total size of files in the folder.
– Column headers are shown only in Details view. Showing them in all views like Vista will allow 1-click sorting and filtering in any view. At least make it a configurable option.
– Stack By functionality of Vista completely gone
– No horizontal scrollbar in navigation pane
– Sorting causes selection of multiple items to be lost
– Back/forward navigation also causes selection of multiple items to be lost
– How can you get rid of column handlers completely? The system supplied properties (msdn.microsoft.com/…/dd561977(v=VS.85).aspx) do not cover the ones I want to show in details view and they can only be registered per-file type, not for all file system objects. Plus, the properties need to be indexed by Windows Search, I cannot add my own dynamic properties like "Size on disk" or "Short file name". Please consider bring back the powerful column handler extension type (IColumnProvider).
– Please fix the infamous Windows 7 navigation pane scrolling bug.
If I would have just one problem fixed from the list, it would be making auto refresh/auto sort optional/configurable so copy-pasted files or renamed files do not jump to obey the sort order.
I'm very worried that you've surfaced commands that don't need to be changed frequently – like "Hide/Show file extensions". For pretty much every computer I've installed Windows on in the last 10 years, the first thing I do is go to the "Tools" menu, choose "Folder Options", and enable "Show hidden files, folders, and drives", disable "Hide extensions for known file types", then click "Apply to Folders" so all my folders look the same and I never have to change those options again. I never find myself browsing in Explorer and think "Hmm, I really wish I could hide the file extensions for a few minutes."
When deciding what commands to surface, please think about making my frequent tasks easier, faster, fewer clicks/key presses, and this does NOT mean surfacing the command constantly waiting for a click. And the commands I rarely use, I probably don't need. If they would make my life easier, maybe I just don't know about them, so suggest those commands when you notice that I'm doing something in a round-about way. But I really don't need a "copy path" button, since that's something I do maybe once a month, and I'm happy to click the address bar, and press ctrl-c.
Please, I want to see useful content on my screen, not graphical polish. A keyboard shortcut is almost always faster than moving the mouse to click a button. Show the keyboard shortcuts next to their corresponding menu item like we've seen for the last 30 years. Filling the top 200 pixels of every Explorer window with a bunch of buttons I'll rarely use is a huge waste of space.
I don't understand this change. If 50% of users use the context menu, wouldn't that indicate that people *like* the context menu?
"Average" users hated the ribbon in 2007, and they'll hate this too.
Wow, this new Explorer look goes against everything Windows 8 is supposed to be.
You make some good arguments.
For switching to linux.
I think 7 might be the last pos i try to make work like *I* want. I'm just getting tired of it.
Ribbon = Terrible idea. There hast to be a reason 80+ percent use context menu/hotkeys. IMHO it helps stay focused on the FILES when dealing with large number of them.
With the ribbon, if i want to copy a file I have to find it in the increased number of files shown at once (not a bad idea in itselft), then move my pointer away to find the Copy button in the increased number of buttons (terrible idea), then move back to folders to find my destination, back to ribbon to find the Paste button in the increased number of buttons (terrible idea). Yeah, i'm gonna do that just because the ribbon now occupies a quarter of my screen..
Congratulation on wasting a lot of development time on futility. You should have just stared at the Command entrypoint usage diagram instead.
Just thought this was interesting:
Alex Simons is one of the Directors of Program Management for Windows & Windows Live. What's the one thing everyone can agree on regarding the Live suite of apps? Ugly UI.
That explains everything.
Great Post. Now for a comment that doesn't apply, but I hope it gets routed to the proper team (file systems) before it's too late.
One of the biggest problems I see in Windows is the plethora of apps that bring your computer to a crawl due to disk consumption. Virus programs (er.. symantic), disk backup programs (mozy), search (windows search) they all kill you. What's needed is a simple API {path, changedat, changeType}[] GetFileChanges(changesSinceDate, filters). Exposing an API like this would do wonders for overall computer performance.
Please consider technology that auto-fits the columns intelligently to the content. It's excruciating to load a Windows Explorer and look at a details view only to have the File Name column be some default 20 pixel width (hiding nearly all of the files in the list) and see that the window itself has PLENTY of room to autofit everything. This is true in nearly all grid views (like MMC).
Here's the one thing that concerns me: that little right arrow in the screen shot of the View tab. Watching the video confirms it: there's another button that's supposed to be to the right of Refresh when there's more room.
Scrolling toolbars are bad, mmkay? When I saw the first previews of Office 2007, I wondered what you would do to the ribbon when the horizontal space got tight. Fortunately the solution of dynamically resizing things worked really well. Most groups had an expanded view, a condensed view, and changed to a button dropdown when things really got tight. They were also prioritized so lesser used features seemed to collapse before more popular ones. This was the right solution. If you're making things overflow off the window with a button to scroll left or right, it means you're going backwards in functionality, or more likely, the native ribbon component you've made for everyone simply isn't as powerful as the one you built for yourself in Office 2007. Scrolling hides features under an easily missed arrow and makes them awkward to get to. Condensing may require an extra click if it's really tight but at least everything is still in front of you and discoverable.
Overall, I think the updates look promising. Just wanted to provide some feedback on things seen with Vista/7.
1. Do not bring back the horizontal auto scroll from Vista when browsing the file tree. Windows 7 fixed this, but I don't want it to return. (It drove me crazy.)
2. Allow explorer.exe to be run as an alternate user. Right now explorer is single instanced. I want to be able to select the option "Run as different user" and launch explorer with admin credentials. This is useful for businesses that want to manage through the GUI and not an elevated command prompt. I believe this was possible in previous versions of Windows, prior to Vista.
3. If UAC is disabled, please have "Open command prompt as administrator" to prompt for user credentials automatically.
4. If UAC is disabled, please have the "Run as Administrator" option prompt for user credentials automatically.
5. Yes, please bring back the up button. Common complaint when migrating from XP to Windows 7.
6. Search looks much better. I receive numerous complaints for people wanting to search non-indexed locations and how Windows 7 handles these. The common statement is that Windows XP search options are much easier to use.
No "Map Network Drive" in the Share pane?
@DanielM2
It's impossible for a big tech corporation to give up on what they have built for such a long time and change philosophy idea about how thing would be great on their perspective. "Change" what I meant here was not to remove the ribbon but to clean, enhance and integrate it as well as a whole explorer. I don't like it but don't hate it. At least, the team showed off features, asked and looked for feedback even before they deliver the keynote at BUILD conference. But important question is could the talents of Microsoft be able to improve this new explorer experience so that we can change our view. M.R STEVEN's team was the team who build the success of Windows 7 and I hope it will be the same for next version of Windows. (Do not fail on Vista's trap)
Time will answer!!! Good luck Microsoft:))
@nowuniverse – Yeah I agree I don't dislike the ribbon as a control, but in its current state I don't like it either. I'm grateful for Microsoft giving us a peak before BUILD but as a lifelong Windows user who wants to see things streamlined this new bloated control is a slap in the face.
Steven and his team have done great work in the past so I'm hopeful that they will pull of the impossible, of course the chances of that happening all depend on what they do with the feedback they receive.
I swear you guys go out of your way to make using your software more of a PITA with every release. Why the heck do I need all of these giant icons that I will never use thrown at me while really useful features get buried further down than ever? Minimize is great and all, but how about a classic view for those of us that would rather work than stare and drool at the pretty little pictures.
How about instead of "ribbonizing" everything you go back to basics and fix things that don't work. Take for instance system administration: Go to users and computers in SBS 2008, select several users and click properties, not try to make it so they have to change their password at next login. It doesn't work! You have to select them one at a time even though there is a checkmark box and you hit apply when you close and reopen it loses the setting. WTF guys???
I would like to see Facebook and twitter integration for the share tab so that things like photos an pictures can be uploaded easily, but you said the ribbon is not available to 3rd party apps. sigh 🙁
@juanjesusmartinez
Yea that would be nice but I don't think Explorer currently have an advanced enough engine, and a rewrite would break a lot of legacy programs
@KyleK, @Tuxplorer
You can't breadcrumb to the desktop, and it is faster using an up button since one rarely breadcrumbs to the same place.
I can also quickly go up to the desktop that way I don't need the Navigation sidebar and can view more with multiple Explorer windows.
jooh.no/…/Windows_7_multiple_small_explorer_windows_file_management.png
@Joe
What programs extension causes a rignt click pause? I had this issue when an extension erroneously pointed to a network location.
@Guest
Yes please bring back total file usage and free disk space while still keeping the status bar small one line height.
jooh.no/…/Windows_7_explorer_windows_file_sizes.png
@Jean-Marie
I too prefer working with several smaller explorer windows
Amiga Workbench from the old days always remembered exactly window size and position, view mode and icon size and position of every folder. It did this by creating a hidden file in every folder. Windows Explorer saves this information in the registry, but this feature have been somewhat broken for many years and Explorer often loses the ability to remember anything.
jooh.no/…/Windows_7_multiple_small_explorer_windows_file_management.png
@c_barth
Yes I would love a 7-zip button there
@Martijn
If you add move to foreground and background buttons you get the amiga interface workflow. I frequently miss having these options.
"New" more often than "Open"? I call BS, unless web cookies use the "new" command, in which case I call BS on anything else being higher than "new".
1. Please bring back the resize area in the lower right corner. It is faster to hit with the mouse, especially if you have reduced the border padding to gain some screen real estate.
jooh.no/…/Resizing_with_the_lower_right_corner_IE9.png
jooh.no/…/Resizing_with_the_lower_right_corner_IE9_vs_Firefox_thin_borders.png
2. Copy folder path.
When I want to quickly go to a folder I am working in from an open/save dialogue box from a program I copy the path from the address bar and into the file name area. Maybe a list of currently open folders in applications open/save boxes?
3. File Menu is unnecessary big. If you want a touch friendly UI, make a seperate UI. You will never be able to combine the power of a keyboard+mouse with a touch friendly UI. In this current case of the File Explorer, most items are not very usable for touch, but with a few features standing out like a moose in an urban environment.
4. If we could remove the button group descriptions like Clipboard, Organize, New etc and the button description, the ribbon menu height could be reduced to two lines (one big button or two small buttons), it would be almost as small as the QAT, making QAT unnecessary and preserving the power of the ribbon system. Hovering would produce a description like everywhere else. Otherwise QAT will likely be very welcome. Vertical space is unfortunately scarce in computers due to the recent 16:9 trend.
5. Shell extensibility! Please make it better and leaner, and document it better. Many developers have problems with explorer thumbnails for their programs. Maybe a video preview while hovering a video file, but this would be best if Explorer utilized Direct2D. The possibilities are endless.
6. On option so that thing on top of a Windows Explorer window where we can sort by Name, Type etc. would always be present.
7. Hotkey for new textfile would be awesome, like Chen mentioned.
This is really OCD but there's more pixels below the address bar than there is above it. The icon on the address bar also isn't vertically central.
I always notice tons of tinee little things like this during the betas but they never end up being fixed :/.
Also, nice work. I'll personally keep the ribbon collapsed; it's a little too cluttered for my tastes and I'm accustomed to all the keyboard shortcuts in Windows anyway. Otherwise, it looks good, very functional.
Loving the changes to the copy/transfer process 😀
Functionality wise, these changes get a big+. I like what ribbon did to Office and I welcome this change to Explorer. But in terms of looks, the explorer is cluttered and ugly with various size/styles icons etc. In its current state it will get a big-. Hope you will change the theme from Aero (to metro?) and it looks pleasing as well.
Great work so far!
+1 vote for adding "Open Powershell" to the command prompt selection area. 🙂
This kind of change is precisly why I have replaced the window shell. With the shell replaced to bblean, explorer.exe does not even run. For file management I use the third party tool xplorer2. Everything is customizible the way I want it not the way Microsoft thinks I should I have it.
This is an April fools joke right? You seriously don't know what a horrible UI mess this is?
Ribbon haters, note that the Ribbon solves three important issues:
1. Gives power users the power back they missed since XP and makes commands more discoverable. If you prefer a clean design, just minimize the ribbon and add whatever commands you want to the QAT.
2. People are likely to install less addons and toolbars if there are built-in commands which will help make Explorer stable. Addons crash Explorer sometimes.
3. Less context menu clutter. This is also important as almost all apps we install today add their commands to the context menu. Context menu becomes slow to appear and overflows the screen sometimes.
I think Microsoft has stuck the right kind of balance with the Ribbon decision in Explorer.
Hi Steven,
Dual Pane Windows Explorer would be a welcome addition for ease of file ops between drives, makes for better use of the horizontal desktop real estate.
Auto-contraction of folders/subfolders post user Windows Explorer operations would be a cool addition.
"Disk free space" in the status bar when you click on a drive (which was available Windows XP Explorer but removed in Vista/Windows 7)
IE download integration with Windows Explorer e.g. "one stop shop for all file ops".
Thanks for reading!
Steve
This reeks of designed by committee. The fact that Microsoft does not know how awful this is speaks volumes.
While I generally do like the ribbon UI and think it will make for a much more finger-friendly OS, I agree with many of the other comments saying that the appearance isn't up to snuff. Win8 is competing not just with OSX and Linux anymore- it's competing with iOS and Android. With the push toward mobile (and ARM chips), it would make sense to not just create something that's easy to use with mouse or finger, but something that stands a chance looking good aesthetically compared to other mobile options. I love the thought of a razor-thin Windows8 tablet PC, but the software has to match the slickness of the upcoming hardware!
Another worry is that with the push toward widescreen formats in the new Explorer, you forget those of us who use tablet PC's in portrait mode. When using my EP121 in portrait, having the details pane off to the right would give me a tiny sliver of space in the middle to actually see files. Please consider an option to locate the pane either at the bottom or right side. For desktops and laptops, the option is obvious- and the right side makes perfect sense. For a tablet, it would severely hinder useability. PLEASE CONSIDER THIS!!
Hey Microsoft, less is more. Do you understand what that means? For one you don't have half your commands be ones that by your own admission no one ever uses.
I'm thinking of:
Windows Vista "Wow Starts Now" but turned to "Disaster Starts Now"
Windows 7 "Yours PC, Simplified" and they are simplified!!!!!
Windows 8 "Yours PC, Even More Simplified" OR "Yours PC, Complicated" who know?
"Yours PC, Even Better"
Sorry, i like what you are doing with windows 8, but this looks like a power user toolbar. Please make it more simple. The menu in XP was the best.
Please bring back the old advanced search from the left bar, minus the animations of course.
Hi, straight to the feedback, PLEASE READ IT ALL:
1- I think the most requested feature of Explorer is the introduction of TABs. All of the explorer alternatives provide users with tabs. Why shouldn't you?!
2- I agree with a lot of users that requested powershell to be added to the menu.
3- The reason that the command bar in Win7 didn't work is the same reason that is going to prevent the new Ribbon to work and it is: Mouse travel distance! I know about professional designing and I know that a user should not have to move his/her mouse a lot to achive what he/she wants. When I want to open a file, I never select the file and click on open in the command bar, I just double click it. Whenever I want to rename a file, I select it and hit F2, etc. You get the point. The same goes to hotkeys. Memorizing Ctrl+N for New Folder and executing it is much faster than clicking on Alt, look for New Folder, press its key, etc. People want to achive things faster with less effort.
4- After posting lots of videos, it seems that you've completely forgot about your beautiful new UI: "Metro"!!! What happened to it? Sure there will be a lot of fun in the start page but I for one, as a developer am sure that I will be spending most of my time in Visual Studio, Windows Live Mail, Explorer, IE, etc. doing my works with the same Aero that I had in the Win7!!! Isn't that just saaaad?! I really hoped to see the beautiful Metro in the "Actual" interface where I get my job done. Not just start screen. Hope you can change it…
4.1- Regarding the Metro interface, I think its finally time to see a dark theme from MSFT people (not just 3rd party and enthusiastics). If you are like me and you are spending at least 10 hours a day in front of your PC, you know that what a dark theme can do for your eyes. A dark Metro theme is what I love to see in Windows 8 (sth like WP7).
5- You mentioned that the context menu is the main source and I thought you are about to change that, not encourage it!! But you did when you said you're not going to introduce a Add-in tab to the Ribbon. (sth that we are used to see in Office, WLM, etc).
6- I hope to see some search improvements to Windows 8. As you may have heard a thousand times (which I have from at least 100 people), the Windows XP search was actually better than the Windows 7's!! I have searched for files that I was sure were there but Win7 couldn't find them. Finally I had to create my own search software just to get what I wanted!!!
Finally I should thank you for these blog posts and sharing and taking our feedback. I really hope you use our feedback to improve the next version of Windows.
Best of luck.
Folks that are saying this is cluttered, cluttered relative to what other interface exposing >200 commands? Let's talk about that a bit rather than just saying things are cluttered in an absolute sense. –Steven
The good things
have always liked the ribbon interface made life a lot easier in office
good to see the amount of research you have put in to understand user requirement
the bad things
like you said windows explorer is at the core of windows ..would have loved to see a jazzy UI especially for tablets..really not sure how finger friendly this is
What about semantic/tags extension for ntfs like tagsistant? i want to add tags to file and select files with and/or by tags
The "ribbon" concept has always struck me as "sensory overload" AT FIRST. Then, as you become familiar with the groupings (View, File, etc), it gets better. Presenting a LOT of information in one "screen" is a challenge. Apple chose minimalism (Cocoa and Aqua) somewhat akin to Linux/UNIX GNOME or KDE, (although KDE presents very "busy" screens at times)…
Steven
1. I have been actively using and supporting the Ribbon interface since its conception in Office 2007. I love it more and more with each new product that uses it, and as always the nay-sayers are always the ones who simply resist change for sake of change.
2. I absolutely LOVE the work you guys have presented with this. I almost died of excitement seeing the news about the File > Open Command Prompt option and the Copy Path options. I feel like "Windows 8… this was my idea", lol.
3. May I please ask a question/favor… can you guys PLEASE take the "Advanced Security" dialogs back to the way they were in XP (without all the extra clicking involved to manage ACLs) or at the very least take a look at redesigning them to be more friendly for administrators? I was reassigning permissions on a number of folders recently and it nearly brought me to a fit of rage.
Thanks! You guys are awesome, and after reading ALL of the post, I must confess that I'm very pleased with the very functional, customizable, and yet still useful changes being made.
Well, Steven, I think it's plain obvious: people want a simple Explorer, not a powerful one.
Besides the functions that are available do not a make for a powerful file manager anyway – people don't know them, but they also don't need them – so ribbon is seen as a clusterf*ck.
Really nice!
BTW the comparison made between current explorer and ribbon explorer is not fair. You should consider a normal folder (not library) and the detail's pane below should be of minimum height , coz that's how it is in default. That really makes current method more efficient at saving space…
"cluttered relative to what other interface exposing >200 commands…"
Total Commander shows less, yet it is more powerful.
😉
Ubuntu is becoming a more attractive option by the day
Hey Microsoft numbers are cool and all, group testing is also cool. BUT don't make the mistake of moving your engineering in front of your design team again. PLEASE. Look at Windows Mobile: simple, clean, unobtrusive — instant sucess. Or XBOX. Or Zune!
Now back at that fugly ribbon. Yes we use a lot of commands on explorer. But 99% of the time we only use it to navigate from folder to folder. And everytime a user opens a new window he'll have that giant thing just sitting there. Come on. Keep it simple, keep it uncluttered, keep it focused on the user. And don't try to reinvent the wheel.
I beg you. I've been a Windows fan for all my life. I work on a Mac 8 hours a day at work (design agency). I hate it. But I'll hate windows more if you start to improve on stuff that really needs little improvement. I'll go hackintosh if you turn win8 into a ribbonfest for the elderly (my mum will freak out when she sees the new explorer… she's 62 and I have my doubts that she'll know what to do with it).
I'd rather have a "quick look" to look into files (only useful feature on finder imo) and instead of icons have real live previews of all my icons for ALL the files (photoshop? pdf? etc). Now that's productivity. Don't change things that actually work but instead bring new stuff in that can help me do my job better. Think aeropeek!
Sincerely, your really disappointed and frustrated fan that has to hear windows jokes all day long at the office.
Bah.
Having keyboard shortcuts for all commands is important, but so is the ability to control the keyboard focus. Easily and reliably moving the focus to the key areas of explorer is crucial. Having keyboard shortcuts to select the file list and the folder list would be very helpful. Right now we have to use tab/shift-tab which is error prone as it requires you to track the current tab state.
This functionality is particularly important in the common file dialog, where going from the file name to the file list (type shift-tab two or three times depending on the application) is frustrating. This was easier in XP where it was just one shift-tab.
I'm not a Vista plus hater — I like most aspects of the new explorer — but it is important to realize that some of the clamor for better keyboard accessibility is related to Vista and beyond making it harder to set the keyboard focus. I hope that is addressed.
I have to say, I really do like the intuitiveness of the Ribbon in Explorer, but I find the Nav/Address bar to be awkward. It just sticks out like a sore thumb, it doesn't flow right with the rest. That could use some work.
But overall, awesome!
I like the new Explorer and the ribbon. However, please update the graphics to match Office 2010 or the Metro look. The graphics look very dated. And speaking of search….please let us index (file contents) nas/network drives.
Some weeks ago I was very skeptical seeing ribbon UI 'ported' to explorer in one of the leaked Windows 8 builds.
This nice review and the video at the end – just turned me into a believer 🙂
There are so many nice improvements that are suitable for power and novice users alike. I really enjoy readying the thoughtful process that the designers and programmers are going through. Good job guys!
Along other things I the new 'quick access bar' is very handy. Just like the interactive address bar, which has not been mentioned in this review… (thumbs up)
Couple of things I would really like to see being implemented in one or another way:
– (status bar) ability to see size information of the folder in the status bar when you click on it (currently in Windows 7 only the size of the file or a group of files is being shown when selected; if a folder gets into a selection too, the 'only' way to see the size of the selection is do a right click -> properties). Properties button is added which is a good thing, but (imo) having the size of folders/selection (whatever it is) always at hand would be very handy nevertheless (unless this would lead to performance degradation). I just catch myself checking out the size of folders/selection very often especially while copying them to some external media.
– (personalization) ability to change the color scheme of the explorer UI (just like color/transparency of the window). Maybe with couple of presets available like in Office 2010, as well as an option to adjust the color of the explorer to fit with the window color selected or even desktop wallpaper. The more will be possible – the more entertained we will stay using and exploring Windows 8 for some years to come. (I've used Vista since early beta. One of the reasons I was eagerly awaiting Windows 7 beta was that I simply got bored with the interface of Vista and pretty limited customization options it had. I do use Windows 7 as a main OS since official beta and not bored yet, but still – more personalization should keep power users and novice users alike more happy for longer time:-)
– (interface customization / size adjustment / dpi / 'scalable interface') from the available screenshot of the whole explorer window I can see that I could most likely do with the thinner panel containing 'back' and 'forward' buttons, address bar and search bar… That is, if some sort of zoom adjustment of the explorer panel/elements would be available – one would be basically able to scale it's size to a personal preference (getting more valuable space or getting the elements easy to see/read or click). I use such a possibility in one Norwegian internet browser, where I scale the elements to my liking (for example I use 80% of default size for address bar). I think if one would able to zoom in/out into interface like one can into a web page – that would be pure awesome. I am not sure if such 'scalable interface' is possible to achieve, but that would not only 'enhance' the option of changing DPI settings ('set custom text size' as it is called in Windows 7), but basically this would integrate the ability to set up working space to your comfortable size/scale on the fly.
For example, taking a 27" screen with 2560×1440 resolution – if I could only 'zoom into' explorer and Windows GUI 'with a click of button' (without the log off/on and mixed results at the end) – that would just make the experience perfect. Many seniors ask me to make the text more readable even at 24" screen with 1920×1200 resolution. I see that for most of them the comfortable text size with such screen is 125%. However, a user of '100% screen' would also feel uncomfortable working on a 125% setting. The experience is not pleasant/ideal in both cases. 'Scalable interface' would allow 'father and son' to work on one PC at the same time (taking seconds to switch). Just like zooming into Internet page for a comfortable read for your parents, zooming into interface could really make you a kid to be proud of… 🙂
Big thanks to all Windows 8 team for all the brainstorm sessions you've done, sleepless nights you had, arguments you survived through and eventually – great job you've done and continue doing on 'Windows Next'. Make us all proud, ladies and gentlemen:-)
"but they need to start making real design decisions that advance the usability of Windows." – techcrunch
techcrunch.com/…/windows-8s-new-explorer-this-one-goes-to-11
Please fix mspaint from windows 7 while you're at it! It hides everything useful by default so every action is 2 clicks. It's not an improvement over the old toolbar. Selection is also not the same as the old paint making it hard to get a specific pixel to crop.
Please fix mspaint from windows 7 while you're at it! It hides everything useful by default so every action is 2 clicks. It's not an improvement over the old toolbar. Selection is also not the same as the old paint making it hard to get a specific pixel to crop.
The Ribbon will definitely expose more commands to users, but quite frankly, it's ugly and cluttered. Windows 7's Explorer is much cleaner and more modern, in my opinion. Looking forward to a Metro-themed Classic / Desktop UI at BUILD!
Please make Full Row Select optional. When Full Row Select is on, it's a pain to find a blank spot to right-click, and drag & dropping to a folder full of files is difficult too.
I too would like to see Office 2010's ribbon style used here. A casual comparison between the screenshot and Outlook 2010 revealed that the W8 version is about 10px taller. I would also like an option to move the details panel back to the bottom of the screen and the right hand panel often gets in the way of viewing the column details.
Which brings me to this observation. The uselessness of the preview panel. 99% of the time it's just taking up tons of space while offering the helpful 'No preview available' message. This leaves 'normal' users operating files in a tiny space where they are constantly horizontally and vertically scrolling. Many of the users I run into at work that have this pane open have a tiny space to actually see the file list, and just leave it that way because 'they don't know how it got there' anyway.
While I would LOVE for W8 to implement the superior OSX style preview with the 'spacebar' key where you actually get a large preview when requested that provides the ability to display and read though almost everything imaginable, I know there is about zero percent chance of that happening. At least hide the small useless preview pane automatically if it can't do anything with the file. OSX's file management is terrible on just about every count, but there is no denying that the preview program is amazing.
Also another thing. I've been reading allot of things about implementing Metro into the Ribbon and yes i couldn't agree more. But please don't compromise your principles of especially one that we're seeing now in the Ribbon which is allot of Chrome. Remember Metro is supposed to be chrome-less if you're going to add Metro to explorer and expand it to the desktop; which i really hope you do because Metro should evolve beyond that "media Center" period, then please follow your principles and make it chrome-less. I also read comments about the Ribbon being much more cleaner and i agree it is not cleaner in the explorer. In Office 2010 it is beautiful clean and at first i couldn't recognize it that's much cleaned up it was then the Office 2007 Ribbon. The Office 2007 ribbon took up some space while Office 2010's ribbon didn't take up that much space because it's cleaned up and looks better and simpler.
Hi there,
I'm a News Editor for Neowin.net, and I'd be interested in talking to someone about the changes we're seeing here. You can go ahead and contact me on owen.williams[at]neowin.net
I usually resist posting on things like this, but this is really irking me today. I don't mind these changes, I think they're great, but, there's one thing that bugs me. The "up" folder button. If theres a definition of redundant, or even scope creep, thats it. We now have an up button, and breadcrumbs. Why do we need both? Not only is it hideous, on top of the UI disaster that appears to be the Ribbon built into explorer, we have something that really isn't needed.
Why has it been readded? I feel like EVERYONE is moving towards CLEAN and SIMPLE (including Microsoft with WP7) but Microsoft is insisting on adding MORE CLUTTER to Windows (for desktops at least).
It's making me sad :(.
Anyway, I'd love to talk to one of the team about the changes if you get to reading this far down.
Regards,
Owen
@Steven Sinofsky
xplorer2 has hundreds of commands and without a ribbon interface those commands can be easily found using the tried and true menu bar system. For me anyway the ribbon menu is really hard to look at, and quickly process… Icons are different sizes, text for items is sometimes on the bottom and sometimes on the side. I have really tried to get used it and I'm sorry I can't. I dislike the ribbon so much that I now use OpenOffice instead of Word 2007.
Let the user customize the interface. If users don't like the ribbon interface, this comment log suggests that a lot don't, there should be a way to change it. It should not be too hard to programmatically turn the ribbon menu into a standard menu bar. If you don't allow users to customize the interface then users will switch to a product like xplorer2 that will let them.
I'm disappointed. Ribbon is not the right way.
I hope MS can do it right with simplicity and clearness.
I wonder if the command usage telemetry includes mouse actions (double-click to open, drag & drop to cut & paste file, etc).
Oh, and thanks for bringing back the Up button. It makes repetitive file management much easier without having to read the paths in nested folders.
Current Folder size is a welcome old feature too.
Just watched the video. The new interface doesn't make anything easier, except to copy a path. Seriously, this is disappointing. As much as I am FOR ease, this is NOT the way to go..
The ruined Desktop interface and not-keeped promise of a unified system, where tablets and pc's are the same, is reason for me to not purchase Windows 8, despite Metro being awesome. It's being held back by the outdated interface of the Desktop mode, and I guess Microsoft, you will see it soon enough, as this leaves room for competition. And that, considering, I didn't like Mac at all.
I like these changes. However, I have never liked the handling of context-specific tabs in a Ribbon, such as Library Tools in the example (or Picture Tools in WLPG). It's unattractive, disrupts the titlebar text and doesn't function except as an attempt to draw attention to the functional tab (Manage, in this case, or Format in WLPG). Why not just highlight that Manage tab (reverse colors) and leave the superfluous label out. Less clutter. http://www.mjhinton.com/help
Could you guys use a office 2010 style such as not squashing the tabs right up with the top aero bar also stop going with the 3D hump lock as with the file button and with the ribbon itself. Can you also clean it up it looks likes some one has taken black and outlined everything not like office 2010. It also does not look precise and clear and it lacks clarity can you also Incorporate all commands and simplify the experience.
-Recommend Back Stage
-Backstage should also have a command selection in the next Microsoft Office that says destroy file, duplicate file, convert to different file type and a link to save As command, and send command
-save as command in Back Stage should be incorporated into Backstage like Print command does and should not open another dialogue box but instead run you through a series of steps like:
1.Location of File
2.File type : Use big Icons with text to select file type
3.Rename File
4.Review and save
-Also try to make the tabs flow up into Aero Bar.
It would be rather efficient for Users to have explorer tabs like in IE rather than opening multiple explorer windows.
So MS, you got these great stats from users, but who are these users and how did you get this data? Anyone call pull stats and say that x% of users did this.. but WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE and why are you BASING EVERYTHING on these people.
Not everyone uses the OS the same. There are technical people who you are really failing hardcore by removing functions and adding more bloat. I.E Homegroups, and the entire networking side in Vista/Win7/Win2008 is broken. Go back to WinXP/Win2000 style. Less crappy GUI's, more function.
'Open command prompt' in the File menu is for the PowerShell command prompt. . . right?
I try to avoid CMD as much as possible; please don't make it the default option.
1. When UAC is disabled, the run as administrator command and runas verb should display the old NT5 UI (It used to be in shell32) and then call CreateProcessAsUser
2. Pressing F2 twice should include the extension in the selection.
3. Right click on titlebar icon (HTSYSMENU) should display the IContextMenu for the current folder like XP does.
4. Explorer should stop the lies, it does not like to display folders like %AppData%MicrosoftWindowsRecentAutomaticDestinations and other "special" folders (see http://tinyurl.com/44ymg3h )
5. Backspace = Up folder (Like it was in Win95 to 2003)
Already suggested: Diskspace and selection size in statusbar, horz. scrollbar in tree, no auto arrange etc
@Frank Hollander: Type "shell:SentTo" in the addressbar
@Kraig S: 2: explorer.exe /separate,c:yourpath (This has been supported for ages) There is also a registry key you can set to always start a new process
Speaking of addons though, along with UI/context menu bloat Explorer addons (sometimes piggybacked without much fanfare on installers for other programs) can be a source of performance and reliability issues, much as IE addons have been. IE9 implemented an improved interface for getting addons under control, have you given any thought to something like that for Explorer?
By the way, I do think I like the changes overall, giving you the benefit of the doubt that you'll clean up the visuals some (though some degree of clutter is probably the nature of the beast).
I enjoyed reading this article very much and look forward to trying this. I'm an Office 2010 user, and going to a ribbon interface makes so much sense and meets your design and usability goals. One thing I like very much about Office 2010 is the ability to customize the ribbon by changing what's on each tab and even creating your own tabs. Will you be able to do this kind of ribbon customization in Explorer? If so, please also incorporate Office 2010's ability to export and import these customizations. I love to use the same ones across several machines.
Keep up the good work on these blog postings. It's also very nice to meet the folks who work on a system you use every day.
I don't get the point of the up button. If you want to go up a link in the chain, why not just click the previous folder name in the breadcrumb bar? If you were in C > User > Joe > Docs > Project, you could just click the "Joe" name to go back to the Joe folder — it'd take two clicks of the Up button.
The ribbon not being extensible by third parties? Personally I'd love for a TortoiseSVN tab.
Also, the Zip option in the Share tab – Power users want 7zip, I hope there's a way to use that instead.
I hope you make the "Up" optional, I think with the existing url bar it's not needed.
In the search Tab I can't see an option for "search all files not just indexed files" one of the most annoying things about Win7 search is you don't have access to this option till the indexed search is finished.
Sync the folder list on the side button. I don't like the folders on the side automatically following me – it gets too messy quickly but I want a button to "Go to where I am now" a lot like what I did in Visual Studio with this extension – visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/ef4ac3e9-d056-4383-8ca2-11721bd879b4
One more thing, when you open an unknown file type this annoying screen comes up which by default asks if you want to "Use the Web service to find the correct program" I would love to know if anyone has EVER used this option and it actually helped them. PLEASE give us an "ALWAYS select a program from a list of installed programs" option.
I hate the ribbon. It was the worst thing that could've happened to windows. Makes just about every Windows app a pain to use.
Hate it. The ribbon is horrible. Tasteless. Pointless. Condescending. No significant user interface improvements have been made to Windows Explorer since XP. It's all so much window dressing, and ugly window dressing at that. It's utterly amazing that so many smart people can produce a product that is so inexcusably dumb.
From the people who brought you an operating system called… "BOB"
also, fwiw I'd prefer you NOT revert backspace to "up" – backspace to go back is useful, consistent with other programs, makes more sense, and alt-up to go up works fine.
I would REALLY REALLY like you improve the keyboard use in windows. Not sure why, but it is a pain to do something useful on Win7. The interface is always blocking whatever file operation I need to do. I am back on total commander.
Please add a resize tool to the "Picture Tools". That would be very helpful.
This is horrible. Why not stick to the Metro UI? You clearly have a very good UI in Metro, just remove the Ribbon UI altogether. It doesn't work. Every UI designer thinks that this is crap.
This is awful, Most of people don't need advanced options and they know about right click. Explorer window must look clean and nice. It's like with browser where content is king. I'm windows user since 3.11 and for most of time I use right click context menu. It's much better than selecting file then moving cursor up to the ribbon then finding any button. Good luck…. People aren't using bar, because they are: 1) used to right click 2) bar is worse, less effective than keyboards shortcuts or context menus. Forcing people to do things in a new way isn't good idea. Especially when it makes windows interface ugly. Many users won't bother hiding it, it will be just ugly for them. On the other hand OS X is nice. Windows 7 UI is as nice as Apple's and is almost perfect for ergonomic point of view (better than OS X). The only missing feature in win 7 is probably up button. Maybe selecting more then 1 file should be easier and selecting all files. Not everyone knows about holding ctrl and ctrl + a. Nothing more IMO. Add them to context menu! Sure you can give users option to use ribbons, but they should be turned OFF by default. I know it isn't final design,but there are too many buttons there. It's totally overwhelming. I know this isn't the only interface in windows 8, but it doesn't mean it can be so ugly and I say it again in case you missed it…overwhelming. It isn't word or excel, you don't need so many options exposed to manage files. Most of them can be in context menu. It's sad that MS is the company that invented metro interface and designed nice and clean IE now develops such a ugly monster :<
@Steven Sinofsky
What about putting back the API to display Folder Size in the list view? It was very helpful in the earlier versions of Windows and was taken back in Vista and 7.
guys, come on! you had us fool with windows 7. we thought you guys were getting it! but now this?! come on people, less = more!!!
if you guys keep going this way I'll switch to a Mac, sorry.
Sorry if this comes off as a harsh overreaction, but this explorer UI is a conceptual nightmare.
What I see in this blog post for the explanation of this mess is numerous and repeated mistakes in assumptions of what users want/need based on false data constructed from actual telemetry. What’s even worse is the admission that the inspiration for many of these ‘improvements’ come from an incredibly small vocal minority instead of the vast majority of the actual user base. It is rarely ever a good idea to listen to the one loud mouth in the crowd because he’s the loudest and won’t shut…
Here’s an example of a mistake in assumptions: “Telemetry shows us that users don’t use command/menu bar, so let’s make it more prominent until they do!” The problem here is while there is lot data from telemetry, interpreting that data is largely subjective. You have decided that users weren’t using the main UI because it didn’t have enough access to functions; hence the reasoning why the context menu was used so much more. The interpretation you made twisted the data into a misconception by trying to make a logical solution from an illogical conclusion, thus giving a false solution. But in reality all you know is that the context menu was by a huge margin the preferred way to interact with the explorer.
Instead of trying to force users to use the command/menu bar (against what your telemetry shows) why not improve the context menu since it is by far the preferred method? Why not make something that is already widely used even better since it is so popular? Maybe the reason the ‘main UI’ isn’t used wasn’t because it lacked content, but because the faster and easier method is to simply right click and go straight to a menu where your mouse already is rather than to hunt across a large menu system at the top of the screen (more on this later).
In a highly active and fast moving program like Adobe Photoshop where thousands of repeated common tasks are performed over and over, the use of context menus is paramount. Right clicking and quickly making decisions instead of a lot of mouse scrolling saves an incredible amount of time and effort. But the most important part by far is the ‘context’ part; where this menu adapts to the content or task you are working on. It is this intelligence to what you have highlight under your mouse, selected as a group, are currently working on, or even what is in the clipboard that makes this context menu so powerful (which is the one possible redeeming quality to the ribbon UI). All of these commands exist in the command bar as well, but it is far easier to simply use a context menu just a click away, then to move up to the menu and back. It’s not just about flushing out ever command possible into one giant ugly UI, it’s about making it simpler, easier, and quicker to get to the one command you need right ‘then’. To make an analogy to cooking, it’s the difference between showing someone a large well-organized pantry full of well labeled shelves and saying “good luck!” vs. simply handing someone the tools they need for the current task. Yes the pantry has EVERYTHING you could ever need and is well organized, but a huge majority of the time you don’t all those things, you only need the few and to show everything is unnecessary, overwhelming and wasteful.
This again is where I can’t help but to see how a simple and clean metro style and attention to improving context menus could have had a dramatically better result. Not only would be less confusing to the huge majority of average users out there, but would again bring coherence to the platform instead of splintering it with a cluttered ribbon.
I simply fail to see how this could work harmoniously with the immersive Metro UI in the start menu, and I truly hope that no tablet user will ever have to be subjected to this; it simply isn’t touch first and even Julie (as well as in other Windows 8 demoes) struggled to interact with that UI through touch…. It just doesn’t work. And that is a problem that there better be a good… no… great answer too.
Let’s go back to that large menu system at the top of the screen that is considered an ‘improvement’. No matter how you move UI items around or talk it up, that large menu system does in fact waste space and not to mention it is visually distracting to the actual content of the page, i.e., the files and programs. That screen shot of the 2 UIs between Windows 7 and Windows 8 is a cute misdirection (read: lie) and is frankly somewhat disgusting and comical that this is used as an example as an ‘improvement’.
The Windows 7 example is shown to only have 22 items compared to the ‘improved’ 24 items of Windows 8, but the 7 version is using the large size for the detail pane at the bottom (with the new Windows 8 details pane conveniently hidden from the side).
img683.imageshack.us/…/22itemswindows7largedet.jpg
By simply switching to the smaller detail’s option (or resizing it to any size you want) you can show about 25 items in the same window, while keeping all horizontal space available – which is incredibly useful when you need every inch comparing two folders with aero snap.
img51.imageshack.us/…/25itemswindows7smalldet.jpg
Furthermore you can even hide the details pane under ‘organize’ to see 5 more items than the example putting it to 27 items. (Note: the Windows 8 example doesn’t show the details pane on the side to see how much space is taking up).
img585.imageshack.us/…/27itemswindows7detailsp.jpg
(Cue cheesy announcer voice) But, that’s not all! The library view of Windows 7 includes a header explaining that you are looking at a library and not just a folder, which the Windows 8 example curiously doesn’t show. If you simply open the actual documents folder you get the same view as the example used in Windows 8. By doing so and keeping the details pane closed – as so to looks similar to the Windows 8 example – we get 30 items viewable in the current Windows 7 UI!
img17.imageshack.us/…/30itemswindows7detailsp.jpg
This comes out to a 36% increase in space compared to the way Windows 7 is shown in this example and 25% increase over the ‘improved’ Windows 8 example, while looking much cleaner and less cluttered.
Now I’m not accusing anyone on the team of trying to maliciously misguide with these examples but I do think it shows another example of mistaken assumptions. A quick look at the example provided can lead to the conclusion, that “wow, yeah even with this clunky top menu I guess I can see more!” but this is an incorrect misconception. Not only are you seeing less, but UI elements have been unnecessarily added or moved effectively diminishing the intended positive effect. Obviously if the ribbon can be hidden completely then the sparse remaining UI will have more space than with it open, but to suggest that the open ribbon menu actually saves space is a down right lie.
This includes the movement of the details pane. Yes, moving it from the bottom adds vertical space, but obviously at the cost of horizontal space. For a list view you can to see more items vertically but the amount of readable columns becomes limited by the now lost horizontal space. Unless you spread your explorer windows to cover the entirety of that widescreen real-estate (which is a less than ideal use of desktop space), you now have lost a valuable information regarding the items you are looking at. And maybe it’s just me, but I find scrolling vertically with a mouse scroll wheel far easier than trying to scroll horizontally (which is probably why I rarely ever – never– have the preview pane open to eat away at horizontal space…) This also doesn’t take into account the use of other folder views where horizontal space is again incredibly valuable. It seems that movement of the details pane was more out of necessity from to the greatly reduced space stolen by the ribbon bar then out of consideration of the best UI.
The worst part about this, as many have agreed, is that it is probably far too late for the needed changes to be made. Too much time and effort has been spent moving to this new UI and not enough time is left to correct it. The only hope I see is that this isn’t the only UI available and there is an entirely separate (actually touch first) Metro UI that a user can spend all his or her time in. Even with a separate UI for touch, this currently shown version still is less than ideal even for just normal daily usage.
If I were to speculate, the move to a ribbon UI seem like it was in the works far before the potential of Metro was discovered and now it seems like the continuation of the use of the ribbon is just to stubbornly follow on the old path, instead of fully embracing the future with Metro. That of course could be way off course, but that is how it seems from its migration from Office to paint and the Windows Live Essentials to now with the explorer.
I would argue that the art of being simple and concise with Metro is far more difficult that plastering everything up in plain view but the reward for being successful with Metro is far better than any other UI. It’s a difficult task to take a lot of elements and reduce it down without losing meaning, which is why I would call it an art, but the end user benefits greatly with a more interface that is far more direct and clean.
The large majority of items in those ribbons just aren’t going to be used often if at all; and as you’ve shown you have the telemetry to back that up. That means for as long as the ribbon is open the majority of those elements are nothing but wasted space. Even if they are well organized, they are still overwhelmingly a waste, so how could that possibly seen as simplifying the UI for the user? It seems a huge effort has been put into flushing out a few elements that only even smaller group of users would care to use. And while some of these additions might be great for those few users, they are unnecessary for the actual 99% users of Windows. For something that the design team ‘loves’ when they are working with batch files, e.g. access the command prompt, is that something that your family members need better access to in the main explorer UI? Is that a huge advantage to business users? Do consumer really care how easy it is for them to get to an administrator command prompt? Really?
This line of thinking seems completely foreign to the mottos and goals described about the future of Windows. Are these thoughts really from the same team that designed the Metro UI elements in the start menu?? I don’t see how anyone could see believe that these two UIs complement each other or work towards the same goal. I feel like a broken record more so than ever because the same issues are being repeated again and again. Is bringing back elements from XP really a goal?? There is a reason why people universally loved Windows 7 and it was because it moved forward by reducing these types of unnecessary elements and now they are being brought back and more prominently than ever?? This line of thinking can’t be real; it has to be just a misguided delusion. Maybe when more is revealed the sense and direction will be seen, but if these are what the final product is expected to look like then the worst has already happened; the nightmare is reality. And that’s a scary thought.
*puke*
Glad to see the return of the up button, but the ribbon bar is a complete monstrosity
Have you already took a look at "Copenhagen Concept" by Cullen Dudas?
http://www.vimeo.com/4255076
he´s idea is really great!
some of his ideas for explorer could be implemented in this ribbon interface you´re doing!
this is disgusting. what the hell are you doing to my beautiful windows? if you want to implement this ribbon bullshit that was a complete fail in office at least make sure to include the option to revert it back to how it currently is in Windows 7. Not only will I never get used to this ribbon crap, I have no desire to do so. The current way is much much much better. why are you breaking what works perfectly fine?!!!!
Users have to be very "smart" to use this interface. Stupid users like me won't like it, even though I am holding a PhD degree.
The Advanced System Care 4 on my computer goes places here on this computer and finds directories, folders, and files that Windows Explorer won't even acknowledge exists. Will Windows 8 be any kind of improvement over Windows 7, which I have, which does not actually "explore"?
Nice
1. Please please provide descriptions for your graphs. I would really appreciate it. I also want to know which commands are the most popular. I am sorry if this causes you trouble. At least describe the most important graphs up to a point when you can and have the time.
2. Please improve your zip compressor / uncompressor in Windows 8. Since XP and up through Vista and Windows 7, it crashes all the time when trying to extract large zip files. For small files it works fine but for large ones it freezes and it says not responding. I think it should be a multithreading issue or something. The UI is tied to the processing of the zip file or something. It is unacceptable though that the same code is being used since XP. Time for a re-write so that it will not stall the UI when processing large files and make it say "Not responding" and crash.
3. I strongly disagree that the ribbon offers shortcuts to all commands. As an experienced blind user of the Office ribbon and as a heavy user of keyboard shortcuts I strongly disagree with your design. Let me explain: Traditionally shortcuts are a combination of two keys, i.e. a modifier such as CTRL and a letter (preferably one that is easy to remember). Now with the Office ribbon and presumably with the Windows 8 one too, shortcuts have become these long-winded sequence of irrelevant keys like "Press ALT, then let go of it, then press H, then let go of it, then press c and then let go of it and finally press x for Cut. How horrible. These are not Office shortcuts. They are longcuts. Shortcuts are supposed to be short, memorable and easy to press with one go. These ribbon longcuts are a series of hard to remember letters, which have to be typed fast one after the other and which are thus easy to misstype. I much prefer to open the ribbon and press tab one hundred times than to have to remember and press these so called shortcuts. You say that now we will have access to all 200 commands through these shortcuts. Well, no. They are so hierarchical that they cannot be internalized. So, they cannot be typed mechanically, i.e. they are useless to me. Have you done any research on this? I think that two level shortcuts (those that require a series of more than two letters) have to be abolished.
4. I hate the ribbon. Read the blogs, the forums, the support calls, the Web sites, etc, the blind community is outraged over the use of the ribbon in Office. And now it will come to Windows. The main issue is that to get to anything now you have to press tab one hundred times. Whilst before with the menus and with the 4-directional cursors, one cursor press this way and another the other way and you get there much much faster. Whilst now with the ribbon is tab and tab and tab and tab again until your tab key breaks. Cursors cannot be used reliably on the ribbon. What I mean is that traditional menus offer levels of hierarchy which made reaching your target command faster since you could use cursors left and right to select a menu and up or down or a hotkey to make a selection out of 6-8 items. Fast. Now with the ribbon you have to tab through 30 items on a single ribbon tab. And groups on the same tab cannot be navigated or explored easily by the cursors like in menus. They are more of a visual thing. At most they offer a keyboarding hierarchy which is 3 levels deep: Ribbon tab, group and item. Much deeper than the 2-level hierarchy of the menus. But in any case, groups are hard to navigate through or explore and are thus useless. Have you done research on keyboard users? Blind users have stuck with Office 2003 and refuse to upgrate for this reason. Some screen readers even offer a mode which tries, (unsuccessfully), to simulate the old menus over the 2007-2010 Office ribbons. This is the level of disatisfaction that you find around tthe blind community.
I hate WIndows Explorer. I have been using Directory Opus for years, it is so much better! Why don't you guys take a look at Directory Opus or just buy them. DO allows you to have both a source and destination screen open on the same screen, which makes copying files from source to destination to be much easier.
Steven, looking at the final result it's very hard to read through the rest of this article.
I just think the final result is wrong. There has to be a better answer. A better innovation. I don't know what it is, but one thing that immediately jumped out at me was that the Windows XP design is surprisingly good, simple and attractive.
Food for thought, but I vote for XP on this one.
I was so happy so far with Windows 8. But now this ribbon crap in a main component like Explorer is has ruined all. Please, people, rethink what we saw here today. Please.
It is a wonder how MS is still playing with cosmatic and metaphor, honestly, will there be any upgrade to notepad?
Excellent work. Please make sure you force this down user's throats without thinking about what they actually use explorer for.
I'm banking on Windows 8 being the product that actually BREAKS Microsoft.
I really like the ribbon! For those who think it looks cluttered, minimize it and keep using the context menu and keyboard shortcuts. As a power user, I'm really thankful for the removal of the menu bar, and the much better exposure to keyboard shortcuts.
By far THE MOST ANNOYING thing about the Win7 folder tree in Explorer is how it moves the selected folder to the BOTTOM of the screen when you click the folder. You have to constantly scroll back up over and over and over again… How this could possibly pass QA testing before Win7 was released is an absolute mystery. Is this ridiculous design mistake going to be in Win8 too????
Love the comment in the video about preserving the heritage of Explorer. Ever since the new shell and Explorer debuted in Windows 95, it has seen fantastic improvements with each Windows release (Windows Desktop Update/IE4, Windows 2000/Me, and finally XP). Windows Vista and Windows 7 also brought extremely cool features but removed a lot of existing features as even Microsoft admits in this blog post. I hope they will fix the issues I pointed out in Explorer with this release.
I forgot to include suggestions for the common Open/Load and Save dialogs:
1. Because these dialogs aren't full screen, having the same full navigation pane as Explorer introduces a scroll bar and makes things too cluttered compared to XP where there was 5 simple favorite locations. For these dialogs, the Vista design is great where only the Favorites section is shown by default and the folders list is collapsed by default. In short, make the left pane less cluttered.
2. Because there are multiple versions of these dialogs (legacy, Vista style and Windows 7 style, there is no consistency). Can you update at least the Vista style dialogs to use the new Windows 7 ItemsView control?
3. It's time these dialogs also globally saved their last view mode settings. (List/Details/Tiles etc). Users get really annoyed when the view gets reset.
4. Right clicking in an empty area in these dialogs is even more cumbersome, so if the sort/column headers could be always shown, that would ease sorting.
And some more new feature suggestions for Explorer:
1. The search tools GUI is much needed, which was lacking in Windows 7. For location, you need to support a user type-able path where the user wants to search, not just current folder or All subfolders. In XP, the location field also supports environment variables, so you could quickly type: %tmp%, or %windir%, or %ProgramFiles% to search them. For Date, Kind and Size, you should include more advanced options like Before/After particular Date, Date created or accessed, Size smaller than/larger than in MB or KB. In fact, the Windows Advanced Query Syntax is so comprehensive and powerful, yet very few users use it because we have to remember it. The search tools section in the Ribbon can be greatly expanded to expose the full AQS, like find only encrypted files or find compressed files etc that will make searching in Explorer extremely effective. The more detailed the filtering GUI, the more powerful search becomes. Are partial word matches supported by Windows Search finally?
2. The command prompt could open at the current location if no folder is selected in the right pane and also at the selected folder in the right pane if one is selected!
3. Why not support spring-loaded folders, that is, open a folder when you drag and hover over it for an extended period.
4. The folder thumbnails are not very helpful in Windows 7 as they are 3D and tilted. Windows XP showed flat thumbnails with 4 images per folder whic was easier to identify folders with many photos. Can we optionally revert to flat thumbnails please?
5. The ''Choose details'' dialog which allows selecting columns in Details View can categorize all the metadata properties by Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, Recorded TV, Calendar, Contacts etc. Also, you can allow drag and drop for the many properties so it becomes easier to re-order them.
6. In the size column of Explorer in Details view, files sizes should be sensibly shown. That is, sizes below 1 MB should be shown in KB and below 1 GB in MB, not show huge sizes in KB.
7. I cannot select one Word document with DOC extension, another with DOCX extension and open them both at the same time.
8. How about a button in the Ribbon to regenerate/refresh all thumbnails for a particular folder?
9. The search box does not work for Default Programs control panel. Default Programs File association dialog search box could search file associations or extensions.
10. Preview pane should preview music and videos. Windows 2000 had such functionality. Windows preview pane is limited to showing pictures, documents and music album art.
11. Thumbnails are not generated for files not in view. Only when you scroll to them, the thumbnails are generated slowing down the whole process very much. Can you improve upon this?
12. Desktop sorting order is not consistent. Sorting by any criteria should sort in Ascending order first, sorting again should sort in Descending order. For example, if you sort by Size or Date modified on the Desktop today, you get Recycle Bin as the last arrange icon instead of the first, not something anyone would want.
13. Allow adding more than 1 folder to a library at a time and saving a search as a library.
14. When Shift+Shift is held down, any items from Start Menu or Taskbar open as administrator. Do the same for Explorer so we can open documents from UAC-protected folders in the associated program as administrator.
15. All downloaded files get added to them an alternate data stream and they need to be unblocked one by one or using cmd prompt which is not easy. Unblocking multiple selected files downloaded from the internet should be possible from Properties.
16. Previous/Next buttons in Properties of any file to move to the Properties of the next/previous file without closing the Properties window and opening it again.
I forgot to mention this, but I agree that the up button is unnecessary. I'd much rather have that space be used by the breadcrumb bar.
A small feature I would request in the Windows Explorer is showing the size of folders too in the Details view.
I second the earlier comment about a button to "Expand to current folder now". I have the "Automatically expand to current folder" option switched off in 7 because I want to see my favourites all the time – that's the only reason. In Vista, having it sync automatically was not a problem because the favourites were in a separate splittable area which was always visible. (Could you bring this back for 8?) A new button sync to the current folder on demand would be very easy to implement, and extremely useful.
And, the up arrow is useful, because it doesn't move around.
What about tabs? How seriously were they considered? Tabs were the domain of power users until tabbed web browsing became the norm. Microsoft were very late to the party with IE tabs; can we ever expect an MDI interface option for Windows Explorer? Even something as simple as two panes in the same window would be useful. Visual Studio and the Productivity Power Tools have showed us how flexible and fantastic tabs can be. And after all, the ribbon interface itself is tabbed! What if IE could show a Windows Explorer session in a tab? I would use it.
I'm very confused as to why you choose to expose features that only function when an object is selected intermixed with objects that relate to selecting objects or file creation. The presentation of these controls should be dynamic, context aware, and their use should be demonstrated by their placement near the element being modified as opposed to at a predefined location.
It would make much more sense to move the elements, in the first tab for example, related to object interaction (open, copy, edit, delete, rename, etc.) into a flyout menu which is similar to the hotformatting bar in Word.
Looks great! I'm a big fan of the ribbon if for no other reason than it combines all the commands in one place (in Win7 you have the menu bar, the command bar, the right-click menu, etc). I liked the comment to minimize the ribbon by default and hover-expand it on single click.
What a bunch of truth that is entirely rubbish. It sounds sexy and I'm sure you guys spent a lot of time on it. But the real reason for the change is the universal canvas. Go watch the fusion 2000 keynotes people. This is just an end game step to an entirely new windows rebuilt on a ten year plan (with two extra for the vista reset).
If you don't see this as "universal canvas is next", you don't understand microsoft .
Microsoft need to learn from Apple in their finder window. Less is more.
A user doesn't want to be confused with a million buttons it makes the UI ugly and pointless.
While the intentions of this new UI are good, it looks too busy. A context menu could provide all those commands, while making the UI cleaner
I hate to say it but the interface isnt a pretty sight – surely these menus could decluttered and given some bling?? With the average PC now packing some fairly astonishing GPU power surely some cosmetic de-uglification and common sense could be applied – Microsoft user interfaces all too often look like they were designed by someone with A.D.D and a box of crayolas.. how about something a little more sophisticated instead of walmart?
FILE menu that has NOTHING TO DO WITH FILES?????
Dumb!
Placing all those statistic just to show that "Windows is my idea"? That is all nonsense. Seriously, when will Microsoft team learn that less is more, usability is the key, not placing EVERYTHING under the sun to "ease" user?
Lot of cool stuff here. I'm not fond of the Ribbon, but even so, I'm looking forward to finally, finally, finally getting one-click access to New Folder (and not having to wait forever for the New submenu to open). And a built-in "Command Prompt Here" menu. And the Up button. And the quick-launch buttons with keyboard shortcuts should be very cool (the only downside is they won't be consistent when I'm at a colleague's computer, but hey, you can't have everything).
I'm glad you're taking time to pay attention to the little things.
If you really insist on the Ribbon, please see below link for my vision of them.
i1182.photobucket.com/…/Explorer.jpg
That said, I'm not completely sold. The concept is great:
1. expose commands to users.
2. contextual menus are there only when you need it.
Honestly though, what you came up with is too short-sighted and unimaginative. Just a read from the comments here and on Engadget is more than enough for prove that.
You are satisfying no one. New users will be confused by the shear number of buttons, some hidden away in tabs (I am constantly helping out more senior personnel with Office 2007) and any user that is moderately proficient will continue using shortcuts and the context menu, both for speed and because it's easier to see where things are.
Content is king. Minimalism is key. A grid of buttons could cover 100% of use cases and be 100% useless. It's not about making all the comments visible, but making an interface that is a "delight" to use, to work with and to look at.
I dont like this complex ui
with increasing size of explorer, i guess it does needs a bigger monitor as well to utilize full power of windows 8 http://www.dual-monitor.biz/…/dual-monitors-or-one-big-monitor
are they going to fix the bug where you move files, but folders are still left behind? oh and the bug hwereby a user can create a file thats name is too large for it to be subsequently used/copied/moved/renamed.
Have you guys ever thought about adding tabs to explorer? I think that that would be a very useful feature.
Steven,
My only problem is that this seems cluttered relative ot the sleeker Windows 7 alternative. I am fine with a ribbon, honestly, and like the idea, and agree with the functionality and usability, but I hope that the chrome/shell of the ribbon is actually very different from the screenshots you are sharing. Explorer suddenly looks like a cheap freeware application, as opposed to a sleek lightweight part of the operating system. Again, my objection is not about the rybon itself, but how the ribbon looks like. Perhaps more glass, or less of that blue shade, or something, and it would be better.
The ribbon design is horrible, i believe you can keep the now unhidden options, but please redesign it, KISS, keep it simple stupid. it's gotta be more clean
Metro needs to be worked on from a usability standpoint for the desktop. Zune software is a good example. While elegant, clean and simple. It needs to be worked on to be used across all programs and applications (or explorer) in windows 8.
It's beautiful but needs work on it's usability. Using the zune software is difficult to just do simple task like add the now playing song into your collection etc. Adding to the points I had made previously.
As long as its configurable both ways, Microsoft can relax. It's not a case where a feature is absent or removed, nor a case where a feature is forced and can't be hidden. Just figure out a proper default setting.
The delete X is terrible, put a garbage like icon instead
the new ribbon bar gotta be smaller.
There is too much icons, too much information for my head
@Arcyon — I would probably say that nothing is "obvious" from the comments. There's obviously a lot of emotion ("11"). We're seeing a lot of language in the comments that does not reflect the level of dialog we were hoping to have, but so be it. (note, no comments are manually withheld, only the automated system does filtering).
I think there are people who do not like the ribbon. One comment has suggested that menus do just fine. Our lesson has been that experts can navigate menus and that is proven out with the data. Our goal was to enable more people to use more functionality of the product. Maybe others don't share that goal and would prefer a different approach? The ribbon has been incredibly successful as a mechanism, and there are plenty of comments saying they either like it or were skeptical and grew to like it. Statisically, we know satisfaction with our Office products is higher and people are using more of the products, which seems to be a win-win.
There are people who have said the ribbon is cluttered or that "less is more". I won't argue that we think the ribbon is actually less user interface–fewer pixels devoted to user interface, in a more consistent model. I understand that will not win over the folks who just don't like the ribbon. But if you look at the comments, very few people are saying they actually want fewer features. In fact most every comment (postiive or negative) is also asking for more features. Those features have to go somewhere in the user interface. Our goal was not to hide features behind context menus that are not seen by the vast majority of customers.
Even with things that some folks don't like, shining a light on the design process and showing people the rationale behind our choices is why we are doing this blog. We recognize the special place Windows has for many of you and it certainly is like that for us. We're going to dive into comments every day (I've read every single one today along with the hundred emails on this topic, some very postitive telling me to ignore the negative comments, and some very negative telling me to ignore the positive comments). The essence of product design is making choices and delivering on them. The blog is about those choices and the discussion around them.
One thing I would touch on is to keep in mind the scenarios around Explorer. You can imagine that most people routinely manage the files on their hard drive or a network share containing their files. Many of the comments talk about managing 10's of thousands of files, many drives, and so on. It might just be that there is a notion of "professional" in terms of using explorer that is different than a broad base of people. It might be something like Paint compared to Photoshop (at extremes). When using these tools for these "jobs" you might have different needs–you're likely using a big screen, sitting at a desk or at the very least using a large screen laptop. However, for a very large set of people we can also make more routine tasks much easier. As we said, we didn't set out to replace third party tools ("professional") and it might be those are a better path for some folks. Part of Windows is that we embrace those elements of the Windows ecosystem and value them highly.
Some folks have also asked abotu touch. It is worth looking at the first video demo. We showed file browsing and common dialogs that are touch oriented. These are very powerful relative to today's common dialogs in Windows, but are much more tuned to those touch scenarios. There's way more to talk about here. For the early posts we wanted to start by talking about how we are improving (or changing) some of the areas you are obviously more familiar with.
We're all getting a lot out of the dialog. More than anything, the passion and interest is itself energizing. It reminds us of the responsibility we have in designing and developing Windows. But do please keep the comments constructive and insightful when possible.
–Steven
Screen resolutions.
For some reason, it's impossible to buy laptop with 4:3 screen ratio. 1440×900 (8:5) was used for some time in business models, but in 2011 it's always 16:9.
If the trend continues, we are going to deal with displays with, say, 100:1 ratio. How is Microsoft going to accomodate such ratio? 🙂
I…I uh…I simply cannot believe the above explanation is the process of how Microsoft came to design their Ribbon. From the visual aspects of user interface design, this is the most idiotic logic I've heard of…in a long, long time.
@Steven Sinofsky
You said : "Folks that are saying this is cluttered, cluttered relative to what other interface exposing >200 commands?"
You are right, for exposing 200+ commands the interface is clean. What I think you are missing is that A) Explorer is first a browser application. B) 10 commands make up the bulk of what we do. C) Those 10 commands make up a fraction of what people actually use Explore for, browsing (Yes, C is redundant).
If you managed to add 1000 more commands to explorer, it would not make it a better product. 9 times out of 10 I open it up to find a file I can double click on. I would wager most people do the same thing. Where is the focus on that process?
The goal from your comments and this blog is "We are making the stuff no one uses easier to find". I am a power user, I never use that crap. I know it's there, I know how to find it – it is not useful. More commands just force me to think more. Explorer != MS Office. Explorer is not, nor should it be, a confusing or featured filled application. Most importantly – If you built it right, you shouldn't need a ribbon!
This reminds me of the early Longhorn mocks where the actual usable space, where the content lives, just got smaller and smaller, while the shell at times took up the majority of the screen. Luckily that never made it very far. And some good things from OSX made it in, the whole left pane of Win7s explorer is very finder like, and thank you for that. Logical groupings of my content for quick access.
UI
June 2008 I posted this: Application Continuity – Pick one! http://www.aerotaskforce.com/…/77
Admittedly I was more of an arrogant *** back then, I have added a dash of tact since then. However, it was the third most popular "Quirk" of Aero – how nothing had continuity, it was just a melting pot of UI ideas with no direction. MS couldn't even reuse back and forward icons.
Fast forward 3 years – Is it better? NO! Why?
I used to be the only person that would point out "Hey MS, why do I have 3 different version of the ribbon on my Win7 machine?" Now, after reading about every comment here – there are at least 25 people that picked that up. This is progress, and this is important to pick up on.
Why? Because people have now seen what application continuity is from our friends at Apple. It is now a feature. Take the ribbon vs the OS X toolbar. Every app on OSX looks like it belongs, they share a common set of UI Widgets, Xcode sets the developer up for success by directing them to reuse the native UI widgets and not roll their own. This is not just the look of it, but also how the user interacts with it – every toolbar on OSX is customized the same way.
Most importantly if Apple upgrades the look and feel, or adds features to the base widgets – every app benefits, every app still looks like it fits in.
On Windows, I have three different Ribbon UIs, and the ugliest one I can actually use in my apps. Worse, because the platform team/office and the dev div seem to have problems working together, MS gets to waste time making three different version of the same thing causing more and more continuity issues. I hope with DirectUI this problem is closer to being solved.
Metro
The seemingly unthinkable happened – MS actually produced a solid UI Language. One that is easy for almost any artistically challenged dev to actually use. If I remember right, this was produced by Frontier Studios, an external MS design house, since shutdown (ugh), but you got the most important thing out of it.
Where is it in these examples? I know the Touch UI is sporting a UI that looks good, by why not windows proper? Why are we still working with Aero?
I have often thought Aero was ugly. I have seen a few comments here agreeing with me. The problem with it is simple – it is too much eye candy. Too glossy, too shiny, too transparent. Style and taste are the foundation of a good UI not window dressing.
So, I ask again – Where is Metro?
Dream
All I really want for Christmas is MS to get their UI house in order. To have Windows, Xbox, Phone, Tablet, TV/Media Center feel like they came from the same damn company. It seems that Xbox, Phone, Tabet, Media Center are moving in that direction but Windows is forever lost. I hear people make excuses all the time. Some do not believe it can be done. This is not true, Apple did it. Every one of their products feels like it came from them, yours should too.
Good job continuing to ignore 'Refresh' in your new design despite your own data. I was afraid I might not be disappointed with Win8 explorer.
Back in windows xp when you were exploring a folder with no files selected it would tell you the total size of all files in the folder. Now you have to manually select the files to see the size. WHY DID YOU TAKE THIS FUNCTION AWAY?!?!?!? PLEASE BRING IT BACK!!!
Hey, how about after 16 years improving the CMD window to be at least 1/2 the features of the putty window, you know the stuff maintained by a single f-ing developer? Things like resize = add/remove columns, decent select, copy, paste (like select by text line not by block, and right click to paste, maybe a decent font, add the posix color recognition, maybe even port common linux commands to cmd like ls, grep, etc, things we use daily but have to beg for or install cygwin to use)
SUGGESTION: Cut down on the number of horizontal lines that clutter the UI.
For example, is the extra horizontal line between the address bar and the listview really necessary? The- listview already has a frame, why add yet more pixels?
Otherwise looking better than W7. That UI was a mess.
imageshack.us/…/unledkeb.png
I'd love to see a set actions strung together into one action/button/keystroke. Quick example: I want to ZIP a set of files and then send it to someone in email = 1 button that ZIPs and then preps an email with attachement for me in one button, not two. Love to see improvements to the explorer experience. Curious to see how third party systems, or systems like SharePoint, can take advantage of Explorer or even assert their own commands/buttons native to their interaction with Explorer as a front end to those possible repositories. Guess that begs the question: is explorer extensible to the UX of other file stores?
Good,work keep it up 😀
Mr.Steven , what edition will Windows 8 have ?
very pls reply , i always waiting u to reply my question
I'm OK with using ribbons. Can we just have a "Search commands" option like the Task Bar's "Search programs and files"?
Definitely need to make the ui more consistent with the ie9 styling instead of the faux glass look that vista/7 has.
Steven, I love the functionality that ribbons provides. And as an avid Office 2010 user I love that its being implemented. However, I absolutely dislike that way it LOOKS for Windows 8. As it stands, it clashes way too much with the look of the Start Screen and Metro design language in general which is now your most popular design language. The last thing you should want is to willingly give end user a sense that its 2 completely different OSes, but instead meld them together to the point that its seamless and makes sense. What I'm seeing here is colorful icons and shadows and inconsistency. Keep ribbon yes (its works a great deal for Office), but change the look of it to be more Metro.
I would like to see WP7's "app bar" icon design where a solid color icon fits in the middle of a circle with the name underneath or on the side. This would make explorer much more elegant instead of kid like. We should not be distracted by the icons at the top of the screen, thats the actual contents job. Get rid of the shadows and colors, and when you need to use color (for tabs and such), don't add chrome, instead use solid concise colors.
blog.markarteaga.com/…/image_6.png
What would be amazing to see — and I've always wondered why Windows Explorer didn't feature it — is the ability to organise file-copying in a queue. A frequent operation in Explorer is surely the copying of a large number of files from one drive to another. Wouldn't it be great, then, to be able to drop files from the source drive into a container and then specify an action against a target? You could then drag files or folders from various folder depths in one 'transaction' and copy them to your device (or devices!) of choice. What would be even better is a way of prioritising these files during the copying process — in this way you'd be able to prioritise, say, the files to copy in ascending order of size. I've often had to refer back and forth between the source drive and the target to make sure there is still enough space on the target drive.
Additionally, with a queue one could pause the execution — halt copying or deleting between files — to allow you to perform other activities and to review the selections you've made. Also, you may like to remove files from the queue in case the bulk file copy takes too long — which one often only knows for sure once you start copying.
I would love to see real functional improvements — or re-thought features — than simply expanding the visible range of controls on the ribbon …
Hello,
Couple of comments:
1. On very large monitors (HD) ribbon wastes a lot of open space to the right
2. While ribbon makes shortcuts discoverable through the Alt key, its more important to realize that new shortcuts have to be learnt (Alt+h+c for copy, alt+h+x for cut), can the Explorer ribbon continue to promote ctrl+c, ctrl+x type short cuts? Also, the ribbon sequences shortcuts so it is press alt, then press h then press c, that is a short cut albeit a different kind of a shortcut than what's been used traditionally
3. Since telemetry tells us that people use context menus, the assumption seems to be that people use context menus BECAUSE these items are not discoverable on the command bar. What if this assumption is incorrect? There is no mention of data behind this assumption… what if command bars / ribbon is genuinely inconvenient. Maybe the approach should've been to move away entirely from a command bar to context menus
4. Have you looked at how much "mouse movement" is required to accomplish operations with a command bar vs. context menus? Keen to know what investments are being made to spruce up the command menus
5. Add-in ribbon bar (ala Office) would be nice, if there is a good model to maintain Explorer reliability with add-ons
when you say the % of users who actually use the menu bar is <10%, wouldnt it be wise, to NOT focus on making a larger menu bar, and improve the existing right click menu, and add options to remove the unused menu bars
@Chris 2321 — We don't talk about editions ("SKUs") until much later in the development process and closer to when the product goes to market.
Also, have you considered a vertical ribbon?
I saw the video , where Alex show launching administrator command prompt from the explorer file menu , wanted to see whether windows command prompt got any face lift. Better command prompt experience is key to for the people who transition from Linux to windows. Also it is required as people adopt power shell for managing windows.
Oh great.
What if people don't know how to use the Ribbon?
Now lets all wait for Microsoft to add a RIbbon to the Ribbon.
Thank you for the post about this, we better understand now why you put Ribbon UI on Windows Explorer. Personally as a power user, incorporating Ribbon is a big help, but I see that it will be useful also to the majority of users as one of the main goal of Ribbon is to showcase the features that most users didn't even know it exist. The time I first use Office 2007, It feels bit differently but I welcome the feature, not too long I'm very comfortable with and I discovered alot of features in Office that I didn't even know even though I'm a long time user of Office since 95, many of features felt easier to access, thanks to Ribbon.
As for now in this post It shows the new Windows Explorer showcasing Ribbon, but hope we see more changes in the post related to this. Many of us exciting to see the facelift of Ribbon in Windows Explorer, for me its also not consistent to what we expect the Metro looks in Windows 8. We hope to see such change to how will incorporate Metro to Ribbon, also I would like to see some swipe gestures when selecting tabs and such in case for touch-centric approach.
I also glad to see that we can able to customize Explorer again, thanks to Ribbon and without returning to more cluttered Toolbars.
I know that this is just an early stage of Explorer in Windows 8 but I would also like to suggest some features that you might consider.
Like others commented, I also want to see the integrated PowerShell on the new Explorer, as a power user we will love it as an addition.
Allowing to preview media files in Details pane like play, stop and open with default app associated with it(hope also to consider more file format such as mkv and flv). Another is that hope it will fully integrated with plug-ins such as Adobe Reader and previewing Office files if possible without needing to open it.
Maybe an some animations in details pane (I know its not important but nice to see for a modern OS).
Maybe a bit bigger buttons in the status bar, its a bit hard when using touch I think. (Maybe we will see this in the near final.)
Zoom slider might be good addition also in the status bar.
A bit bigger preview in the details pane, or maybe able to zoom using mouse-wheel/pinch-to-zoom.
Make use of right pane (details pane) in search, its really empty and waste of space when using search if left toggled-on.
WP7 style jump boxes when grouping files in Explorer. (By name, type…)
More modern and consitend Ribbon UI, maybe similar to Office 2010+Metro. (I think its already been working on Office 2012?)
In Sharing tab, does it allow third-party? Hope we see able to share in other services like Facebook, Twitter, SkyDrive, Picasa, Zune, and etc. I think its possible on third-party though.
Hoping to consider if possible to implement.
Thanks and more power to the team!
I like how this is looking, but the 22 vs 24 files comparison is bogus. You are comparing a Library folder. The Windows 7 Library header eats up 3-4 files. For power users, most folders aren't in a Library, so really the Windows 7 file count is more like 26. So we are losing a few files in the screen real estate battle.
Ok, it's official – this page has the most instances of "Power User" ever!
Does your gut tell you this is a good design? I understand there is a lot of research and justification and concepts ("ribbon") but at the end of the day, do you look at this and go, "yeah that looks awesome, let's ship it!"
I look at this, think of my parents, and groan. I would not want to have to explain such an interface to someone. Also while comparing to other versions of Windows is good I'd be tempted to go look at Lion just for comparison's sake. Someone posted a screenshot of Dolphin from KDE, and even that looks decent.
This is a wonderful blog, the idea behind it is wonderful… but it is hard to read this particular article. I look at the result and groan instinctively, then it becomes all about reading the justification and figuring just how we ended up with this result. It's painful. Steve Jobs stepped down recently and somehow I wish he had taught the world just a little more about design, instead of keeping his secrets with him and Apple…
So well done with the honorable intentions. Teach us more, learn something, and maybe surprise us with the end result? You're the leader… 🙂
I am blown away by the fact that the word "favorites" only appears 4 times on this page. How is it that so few people can see the need for a proper Favorites system. The little yellow star is scrolled off the top of the page most of the time so it's not accessible unless I push the left slider all the way up. Pretty worthless. Why not have the option–since we all have wide screens now–to have a second left nav that has a stack of the most recently visited folders. Or at least a dropdown list of folder paths on a command bar like we had in the old days. Web browsers have had this almost from the beginning. Is it such a stretch to think people don't want to save their favorite locations on their local drive, too?
It occured to me that maybe the different in opinions amoung us here, perhaps, is file "explorer" vs. "Manager." I'd argue and agree with the team that, for a file "manager," Ribbon is unbeatable here. It exposed a lot of features in an organized way. On the other hand, for a file "explorer," IE9's content-focused approach make more sense. Unsurprisingly, of course, since Ribbon has its root from content editior application, Office, and IE is an application to consume content.
Now, Windows Explorer is both. We use it to browse files and folders, and to manage them. So it is indeed hard to find a nice balance. To me, a minimized Ribbon sound about right. It's there to show you the features when you need them, and hidden away when you don't. Maybe minized should be default, or, alternatively, have a popup for first-time user telling them that they can minimized it? Or maybe Windows Explorer's Ribbon has to be completely contextual; it will pop up only when user start selection a file, or something along that line. The latter maybe too late to implement at this point, but I kinda think that's a better solution.
Or maybe the team want Windows Explorer to actually be a file manager, and a real file explorer is in the new Metro-style UI?
Make the Forward and Back buttons like IE9's and I'm sold! The buttons pictured look very dated.
Pictures are worth 1000 words.
img199.imageshack.us/…/metrothreescreenwaitami.jpg
Anyone notify the Phd's at Microsoft that screens are now WIDER than they are TALL ? Maybe they would reconsider taking up that much vertical space with a ribbon.
how about making the back and forward buttons like ie9 and zune
The Ribbon UI looks awesome in terms of usability and efficiency.
I really really would like to see you guys move away from Aero and toward Metro though. I never used to have a problem with Aero, but Metro is just so beautiful. I will be very disappointed without it. That could be one of the biggest factors in whether I am happy with Windows 8.
So please please please! MORE METRO!
Do you call these "Improvements"? hahahahahahahahahahaha
Microsoft is hopeless.
Definitely we are in need of larger screens!!
Love the Up button.
The truth is that the current explorer is very good and I'm not complaining. I do not see that this new more efficient. In my opinion is very saturated with functions that can hinder instead of enhance appropriate use.
I'm not sure whether Windows Explorer or some sort of JPEG "driver" is doing it wrong in all Windows versions but I would be happy to see my JPEGs automatically rotated when they are in portrait mode.
My camera (Sony Alpha 700) is storing some sort of information in the EXIF tags and Software like Faststone or ACDSee is correctly rotating them. ALso the RAW driver which comes with Windows Live Photo Gallery rotates my RAW files but not the JPEGs 🙁
After that is implemented you can remove 2 buttons from the ribbon 😉
I can't believe the "smart" people at Microsoft actually think this user interface is good. It seems like UI design has gone downhill sharply with successive operating systems (and Office versions). The Ribbon is a particularly good example of bad user interface design – it's just plain confusing, ugly and takes up way too much screen real estate.
Of course, I'm still bitter that they broke the start menu and took the "up" button off explorer in Windows 7, so now I have to install "ClassicShell" – a third party piece of software to bring back reasonable functionality to Windows. Is this what's going to happen in the future? Are users supposed to install optional parts of the OS to get the functionality they require? Does this mean in the future we'll see a whole host of 3rd party window managers existing on top of core Windows (e.g. KDE, Gnome, XFCE, etc). I hope not. The one thing that Windows can do better than open source options is consistency across machines. But they're going too far the other way and packing in features to make the OS more power user unfriendly, like OS X (seriously, try using OS X without grabbing the mouse – no chance).
tl;dr – Ribbon is bad user interface design. Please stop.
Love the data analysis but some of your comparison is not fair.
1. Why not include Windows 95/Windows 98 explorer in your history?
2. In Win7, most explorer window does not include the lines related to "Document Librari". Therefore, in most scenario, the screen realestate wastes more on Win8.
Just give me toolbars that I can add on my preference. Please let this ribbon interface go. You might have invested a lot into it. But, everyone makes bad investments.
"The problem with Microsoft is that they have no taste/ And I don't mean in a small way – I mean in a big way"
Ribbon is a great thing, but not a good idea for simple applications
Please, please make the sort headers a configurable option for all views.
Do you have telemetry data on how long it takes between a copy or cut and the following paste? It always seems to me that the navigation between multiple folders is the problem with Windows Explorer. As I see it the new design does not help with that. Either you have to open multiple windows or you have to fiddle around with the navigation pane or explorer bar or back button etc. to switch folders. Usually that is the complaint I here most about Windows Explorer.
On a side note will the Windows API Code Pack work with or be updated for Windows 8? I really like that.
I'm pretty biased (I use os x and ubuntu mostly) but this ribbon thing seems simply awful.I just don't see what this jumble of icon+text gets you that simple hierarchal dropdown + contextual menus do not. My litmus test is trying to describe how to find a target to someone over the phone or in an email. In that respect, the icons are so similar that they are not memorable or even easy to describe. That leaves the menu/ribbon target text, which would be just as easy to describe and much easier to find if targets were just in a text-based menu rather than mingled with 2 or 3 different scales of icons.
Also +1 to the comments about screen space; I'd be curious to read what exactly is the rationale for the horizontal orientation (beyond status quo).
I felt it was the greatest thing in Windows GUI design when Ribbon came to Office 2007, but applying the same thing to every application is just killing the good feeling about it. For a large application like Office that provides countless features, Ribbon is a great way to present the features to users, but for Windows Explorer? Seriously, who will ever want to have the big two "Cut" and "Paste" buttons taking over so much place on the screen? Who will use that?
As expected, nothing new. It came in MS Office so naturally it has to be there in Windows 8 too.
Have you tried unifying the "path-bar" with the search box? Like you did in IE9. Other than that, great work Microsoft!
This is Awesome. I like the new design. This new windows explorer is different, a lot easier and looks good. Using ribbon for windows explorer is good. All customers would love to see different and improvement for the windows 8. So far windows 8 team has done a good job. Keep it up.
I was also like "NOOOOOOOOOO" when I heard about ribbon a few month back but now I think its not that bad. The thing is, like I said before in my loooong feedback post, I'd love to see a Metro version of this UI.
More like a METRO RIBBON
There are some poeple out there that use Metro like they should and create awesome software like MetroTweet but the MSFT people fail to do that?! Isn't it a shame?
good work.
About "show file extensions": I think you should make showing file extension the default or even consider not making it optional but always show them.
Malware has been using this feature as hiding place for ages, as was recently highlighted again on the Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog (blogs.technet.com/…/can-we-believe-our-eyes.aspx).
When I first started reading the article I was not feeling the ribbon at all, but by the end of the blog you had convinced me that the changes to Explorer are really great! Often I try to use the Back button as an Up button and get confused when it doesn't take me Up so that'll be good. I'm on a netbook so with the ability to hide the ribbon it can be out of my way when I don't need it and then convenient for when I do need it. I am very excited for the Windows 8 beta. I will definitely be testing it out! Assuming you give us a public beta like with Windows 7.
This is way better than windows 7 explorer.
In Windows 7, Windows Explorer was 'dumbed down', instead of icons representing tasks, we now have "Organize", System Properties, Uninstall or change a program, Map network drive, open control panel.
And to make matters worse, the view and preview icons are way way way over to the right, same as the show desktop icon.
If it aint broke, don't fix it!
You call it improvement, i call it PERVERSION. One reason more to abandon Windows a little bit quicker. Why can you leave a proven design as it is? It would be no problem to use the classic style explorer side by side with a ribbon style GUI file manager for the few people who like it. I expect that an os vendor fits me needs and not to rule how I should use my computer. Sorry Microsoft, this is a complete fail.
This post reminded me of a question I have about the default music player in Windows. It seems that Microsoft wants ZUNE to be everywhere and everything. It is deeply integrated in many consumer products like the XBOX 360 and Windows Phone 7. The baffling thing to me is why is it not built into Windows as the default player. I can understand why such a consumer oriented product would not be warmly welcomed in the enterprise but Microsoft usually releases an enterprise edition of Windows that could exclude the product just like they do for games and media center.
What does the future look like for Windows 8 in regards to the music player and media management???
Love the BLOG!
Please, make this available ASAP for Win7.
Also, the Import photos from Cameras should be integrated and have some power user settings.
WinXP is way better than W7 imo.
@Steven
Sir, Ribbon is awesome, neglect the negative comments. I understand it’s too early to finalize the styles and it is just a prototype (I wish). Now bring your design team to streamline the design like more Metro-ish or Office 2010 Ribbon, a bit flashy.
Also find more ways to hide or minimize or ribbon-less alternatives who are whining about ribbon.
One more thing please comment something on the upcoming style to the explorer UI.
Always loved Windows and will go on…
Not another ribbon PLEASE!!
Just ask users who migrated from office 2003 to office 2007/10 and most of them complain about thye ribbon approach.
I consider myself an advanced user and love to play with new UI designs. But honestly I hate the Ribbon concept and do not understand why microsoft insist on using it.
My misgivvings about the ribbon UI are:
1. It takes a lot of real estate. If you look at your own telemetry data, most users have screens with less then 800px heigh. Yes I saw that you gaind most of it back by removing the bloated status bar, but you replaced it with a bloated header instead of increasing work space.
2. Its not customizable. I admit that I can search for long minutes for some feature in excel (which I use a lot)
and trying to figure out where to find it in the ribbon. Why not use a simple customizable tool bar which will help me put what I use most of the time where I need it? You can use the same techinique you used in visual studio ato add a context specific toolbars when needed
3. It relates to item 2, but you actually force items I do not need often to the front and remove features I do use (like search) to some obscure tab. I know that this is because this is what the MAJORITY of the users use, but from my experiance there is no real "average person" – otherwise we would all go on 1.98 legs instead of the 2 most of us have.
Simply speaking I find that using ribbon (even in MS-Paint) causes me to spend much more time trying to figure out how to do things, which makes me revert to command lines and context menues.
This is not just my personal opinion, but a lot of peaple I work with share this opinion, only few of which I work with (some of them heavy MS-office users) sayed they "adjusted" to the ribbon UI, most of them complain about it and ask if they can switch back to office2003 style menues and toolbars.
This is not a step in the right detection… It's like you took it back with even more confusion. You guys should hire some young UI engineers, otherwise you'll never get it.
Is it possible that the Back- and Forwardbutton could match with the Aero colour in all applications (Explorer, IE)
Still no tabs? Are you kidding me?
Really like the new Explorer. I especially love the Share and View tabs, because accessing many of those operations previously via the right-click menu was always slow and clumsy. A couple of feedback points:
1. From the video, when selecting multiple files to zip, a new zip file is created at the bottom of the file list, and the original files remain selected. Even the presenter (Alex?) in the video stumbled for a second as he wasn't sure momentarily where the new zip file was created. I think it would be much more intuitive for the focus to shift from the 4 files I had selected, to the newly created zip file, and scroll the view to make sure the zip file is in view when it is created. After all, once I create a zip file, to perform any operation on it, I would have to select it anyway.
2. In addition to the easy/convenient access to the DOS Command shell, will it be possible to add Windows PowerShell (in regular and in admin mode) as well (since I assume it won't be there OOB)?
Thanks!
I read this http://www.winsupersite.com/…/microsoft-revealed-explorer-windows-8-140353 and its really great job. I love it.
Quote from link above:
“Folder views and preview pane. In Windows 7, the toolbar contains folder view options and a preview pane toggle (and a Help button), but since this toolbar is gone in Windows 8 (replaced by the ribbon), these options are now available instead in the bottom right of the window.”
Now I see maximize, minimize, close button larger. Indeed it’s better to have these larger, since they don’t take extra space, and it’s easier to click on them and see them. cnBeta screenshot: img.cnbeta.com/…/LonelyJames_132005889346728.jpg
Caption buttons:
One other nice thing I like to see is the ability to reduce windows to their title bar (Minimize to Caption) , as this does do in Windows 7:
http://www.nirmaltv.com/…/control-windows-of-your-programs-with-window-manager
The Aero Snap is already perfect, so i don't use the same like Aero Snap thing in that app.
But other features, like reducing the window to its title bar, is very nice thing to have, as an option too.
Ribbon:
The button up in the top right corner of the window, beside the New Folder button: it will act like the ALT+SPACEBAR (Open the shortcut menu for the active window)
Currently in Office 2010, in Word for instance, when you click the Word icon up in the top right corner of the window, beside the Save button, it opens the shortcut menu for the active window. So its great we have the same thing in Windows Explorer.
About Ribbon interface in Windows Explorer see my reply on forum.thewindowsclub.com/…/31443-what-do-you-want-see-windows-8-a-6.html in which I also mention why it so innovative, and useful and it provided a way to make previously hidden functionality far more discoverable.
At first, my eyes rolled – look at the SIZE of that behemoth! Then, after reading the article and understanding the reasoning, I felt a bit better. Then, when I realized the ribbon can be collapsed and the QAT can be highly customized, I felt giddy with excitement. My Explorer windows are gonna be lean and mean, and I applaud the Explorer team for making the ribbon collapsible and the QAT customizable.
The ribbon will definitely work great for others, but QAT for me all the way!
@Steven Sinofsky:
1.
I like the Ribbon in Explorer, but we need some more consistency with Microsoft Office 2010. Maybe: Ribbon UI in Windows 8 Explorer should be hidden by default, just like in Microsoft OneNote 2010.
2.
We also need a bit of consistency with IE9, for the back/forward buttons, and Address Bar/Search.
3.
I think the problem on why the Ribbon appears to take up a LOT of space, is the fact that the Navigation Toolbar has the same background color as the Ribbon.
4.
It will make more sense now to make the Navigation Toolbar Background White (especially now that it's below the Ribbon and not the title bar).
5.
SOLUTION: Windows 8 Explorer Ribbon with a White Navigation Bar and a touch of IE9, looks cleaner: http://i.imgur.com/kfmcP.png
Why, Why, Why have you forgotten about tabs? I thought you would have tabs on explorer windows. It will speed up work sooo much. Also because I don't like dragging files over the taskbar with it's long delay and then finding the right window then still dragging to put it somewhere especcially with a laptop. Please include this feature or make it optional atleast.
This might be a joke, or a hacker diversion. The new explorer interface looks like a bad parody of the worst UI I have ever seen.
Kill it with fire. Then fire your UI designers.
OK, I'm a "stick in the mud". I've been using Windows since version 1.1, and I like my keyboard shortcuts. I'm happy with a command prompt, and I still use vi when I connect to a *nix computer. I'm also a fan of Jakob Nielsen.
I have to say, I hate that ribbon: I still use Office 2003 for that reason.
The thing that REALLY annoys me about the Microsoft W8 Engineeing post above … is that the logic was all good as far as "the top 10 commands represent 81.8% of total usage".
There is no logical step from saying that people use Paste (^V), Properties (alt+Enter), Copy (^c), Delete (Delete), Rename (F2), Refresh (F5), Cut (^X), CommandBar (F10) and New (no shortcut) – to saying that the awful ribbon should be used.
It is annoying because in the previous post there is a complex write up of how different designs for the filecopy dialogue boxes were tested.
Not for the awful ribbon, it just gets adopted without being tested on any users at all. What is worse if that the "top ten commands" are not actually provided on the ribbon without being hidden around lots of other clutter.
Microsoft isn't listening, this is very clear indeed.
I think the proof that the ribbon is an awful interface design is that it has never, ever been adpoted by a third party or used on a SINGLE WEBSITE.
/rant
Up one level is back! YES! Tell me that I'll be able to bind backspace to it and I'm upgrading all 3 of my machines to Windows 8 just for that.
Someone mentioned the current behaviour is consistent with other programs and alt+up arrow works fine
1. the behaviour is not consistent because if you open from a shortcut backspace works as up one level the first time and as back after that. That's pretty inconsistent in my book.
2. alt+up is hard to press with one hand. When I am browsing files one hand is on the mouse the other is on the keyboard. I should be able to utilize the hand on the keyboard and it can't be done with combination such as alt + up.
if this happens, i would never use windows again…. keep things clean yet powerful. People do not want thousands of options in front of them, any experienced ui designer would tell you that. This reminds me of that ipod box parody…
more bullets, more lists!
Sorry for my English. But I think most of these posts are beyond conceptual discussion.
We are all on one way with three major directions: OSX, Windows and Linux.
OSX is a totally hardlocked system (most unfriendly to power users, imo), that rules in major segment of "zombie-fans", who don't care.
Linux is an open source system for "hyper-users" (in most cases it's only words). And it explains why they are below the market.
Windows on it's own way, BETWEEN these two extremes. And this is one of the reasons of it's success.
Imo, ribbon is a VERY efficient tool and a logical continuation of the path we take.
Keep up the good work, guys! I hope the minority will not hurt you.
Well, first you have to try it, then judge it. It may appear clumsy to you at first, but I guess it can really adapt well to one's current workflow/tasks. I'm still not sure though, if it is wise to offer so many functions directly accessible in the toolbar. For experts too much space is wasted, for beginners it may be too confusing.
I can imagine the majority of the users is happy about the buttons for basic file operations, because this is what they do, when they use explorer. Either look for a file and open it, or do some housekeeping once in a while and copy/move files. This changes will also make "Working with removeable media" a lot easier for them, i.e. copying pictures from hard drive to USB etc.
You have done a good job. From my own experience I know how hard it is to create a user experience that suits everybody from novice to expert, as they expect completely different things.
Looks good but PLEASE HIDE THE RIBBON BY DEFAULT . Also
use the flat office 2010 style ribbon ; It's much easier on the eyes
You've obviously done some serious research into user behavior, so how come you still designate significant screen real estate to commands that nobody use? It seems very clear from the overlay of command usage that many of the buttons are not being used at all – still they remain in this prominent position.
I was made aware of this post by reading this blog: seldo.tumblr.com/…/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a. It is a bit harsh maybe, but has some good points.
Windows Explorer team is a joke. They fail at everything.
Its really nice that so much of thought has gone into the system that we would be using in the future. I wonder if the "ability to remember the View(Details, Extra Large Icons, List etc)" for various folders we have accessed before is done right (Windows explorer never remembers the way we view a folder). This has been a great pain point in the past. I suppose the team would look into it.
I wonder if Microsoft ever heard something of readability, cleanliness and screen space! You should consider a word which is essential for everything in life especially interface design: "LESS IS MORE"
And you should let design your interfaces by interface designers, not by programmers and certainly not by statistics…
Agree – less is more. CLEAN, LIGHT AND SIMPLE. CLEAN, LIGHT AND SIMPLE.
And the same old yellow folder icons? Really??
Come on guys – Metro that baby!!
Why is the QAT in the window border??? Who's idea was that?? Surely it should be a section in the the default HOME ribbon
I've been using Windows since 3.1, and the ribbon is the worst thing yet. It takes up valuable vertical space in the (also lame) wide format screen, and is organized in a seriously confusing way. I hate the ribbon, and I'm already leaning toward OS X.
Before adding more silly 'enhancements' can you PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE fix the EXISTING BUGS in Explorer in Win 7?? And then release a quick Windows Update. Admit your error and correct the BUG.
The most annoying Explorer usability bug here:
answers.microsoft.com/…/50a81b05-da98-4d55-821d-55ffbbd0e998
If something like that can slip through the net – how on earth are you going to get the ribbon right??
It would be great to show a clipboard of the items copied on the ribbon. This would be useful is selective copy functionality in different windows (locations). This would give flexibility in copying multiple files and pasting it in different locations without going back to the source location.
It is not 4 me. I don`t know how use it….
It shows that people dont really need so many functions at all.
http://www.shearstudconnectors.com
Keep it simple and free of bugs must be the key to well designed product
3d Studio Max and AutoCAD uses the ribbon UI.
The story of the ribbon by Jensen Harris: blogs.msdn.com/…/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx
Ribbon, is primary reason I don't use MS Office for last few years. Call me a power user, but I prefer Google Docs now. If Windows 8 comes with this, I better order a Mac.
Clipboard history hotkey (ala clipX) would be great
Note: Ryan LM actually articulates the point far better that I can. I would suggest carefully reading what he has to say.
_______________________________________________________________________________
"Folks that are saying this is cluttered, cluttered relative to what other interface exposing >200 commands? Let's talk about that a bit rather than just saying things are cluttered in an absolute sense." –Steven
_______________________________________________________________________________
@Steven Sinofsky
"… cluttered relative to what other interface exposing >200 commands?" That's one of the problems right there. At no point will any user ever need access to all 200+ commands; especially never at once
.
(I touched on this in my massive post above, but I’ll try to reiterate it)
(edit: apparently this is equally as massive)
Yes the ribbon UI was an improvement in Office over the previous method of endless lists of menus in the menu bar and an ever growing mass of action bars. In fact given the task of exposing hundreds of commands, the Ribbon UI is quite effective in much the same way it would be to organize a pack rat’s hoard in different shaped and colored boxes in stacks around his home. While yes the massive mess is now piled and organized, making it easier to comb through and find individual items, the fact remains that the vast majority of these items are and most likely will remain unused waste, unnecessarily occupying whatever space is left.
No matter how organized it is those unused items will continue to waste perfectly good space unless they are removed and hidden until (if ever) a certain ‘context’ calls for them to be used again.
For tasks that we do every day it would be completely maddening to have out every item we own simply to use ‘one’ of them here and there. When you got up in the morning you wouldn’t want your entire closet laid out on the floor just so you could grab a shirt and tie as there would be no place to walk. If you were cooking a meal you wouldn’t want all your cupboards and drawers pulled out with every fry pan and pot on the counter along with your Snoopy shaped holiday cookie cutter no matter how organized it was. And if all you needed was a screw driver for a single screw does it really help you to also have out your hammer, saw, drill, leaf blower, wrench, pliers, tire iron, razor blade, paint brushes, sanding belt, leather punch, wire strippers, grinding wheel, masonry bit, and snow shovel? Or would you far rather just grab the screw driver use it and put it away with the entire area clear to work on? Even better wouldn’t it be great if your tool box understood that you were working with a screw so it handed you just a screw driver?! Heck if you were working at your computer desk would you appreciate it if when you wanted a single paperclip that a coworker would remove your drawer and place it on top of your desk and then leave it there?
When it comes to daily tasks people don’t want their workspace covered with every possible item they may or may not need, no matter how well it is organized. To have every tool or even just all the related tools out constantly means there will always be space that is wasted even when one tool is used. People instead want to grab that one tool they need at that moment then promptly put it away when they are done; not worrying about all those other tools taking up space. This is where the Ribbon UI fails to fit the needs of the task and where the context menu is superior, just as your own data shows.
Whenever you have a limited work space – and whether by the physical limitations of real-world objects or by the limitations of available screen space you are in fact limited – wasting that space for unused elements is a terrible idea. By your own measurements the most common task happens 19% of the time, so every time a user wants to use only that command from the ribbon the entire space of the ribbon must be occupied for the use of that one button.
Essentially if a user only wanted to use the paste button, that button could be as large as the entire ribbon and still remain as effective and use as much space as was required when it was only a part of that ribbon. Of course that concept seems ridiculous; who would have a paste button that takes up a 1/5 of the screen?? But 19% of the time that is exactly what is happening, that entire space is used only to access one button. So now 1 out of every 5 actions basically includes using a button that covers a huge portion of the window.
Hmm…
Well what about the other 4 out of 5 actions? Well even if you could add 100% of users actions to fill that space you will never use all of them at once and very rarely (if ever) use more than one action at a time. So at any given time since the Ribbon must be open to use any one of those actions; any action used requires the space of the entire ribbon bar to not be usable for anything else (such as for a larger workspace), thus the effective size of each action at any given time is the size of the entire bar… which is ridiculous given how much space it takes up. (This is compounded by the fact that the wider the window is made the more space the ribbon UI wastes.)
To make matter worse, in the way it is presented now the top 10 items (or about 82% of used actions) only take up about half of the ribbon’s UI leaving the rest to be filled with actions that users almost never (and in some cases actually never) use. That means that the Ribbon UI could be cut in half and shortened compared to how it currently is and end up saving a large amount (50%) of the wasted space while retaining 82% of the total user actions in existence.
Smaller and more regular icons such as the metro style icons could be used to save even more space and could even be added to the current Windows 7 action bar without requiring any more space be wasted. To improve this even further common actions could be consolidated based on the type of tasks at hand (read: context); copy, cut, paste; new folder, new item; open, edit, properties; etc. With this method of task based actions being wrapped into single icons that expand based on the items and context at hand, most or possibly all actions can represented without requiring large portions of the UI be rendered useless.
This type of context based UI could still expose the 200+ commands, while remaining uncluttered, and without wasting large amounts of space on unused actions. But even this concise context UI and a ribbon UI (minimized or not) for that matter, require unnecessary mouse movement away from the content the user is acting on and up to a menu above that content and then back down to other content. This is where the right click context menu shows why it is by far the preferred method of user interaction: it’s fluid, fast, and non-interruptive to the task at hand.
The right click context gives the benefit of a full menu that you would see at the top of a UI but at your finger—err—mouse tip. While it does cover a portion of the workspace it is only temporarily there until the action is called on, and also doesn’t prevent from the space behind the menu to be used. Nearly every action (actually… every action?) possible is literally a click away with little mouse travel distance, which is incredibly useful when manipulating files between different folders/locations… a quite common task. But the most powerful attribute of them is the fact that they are ‘context’ sensitive, meaning they show the user what is relevant and hides what is not, as well as adapt for the task at hand. Granted the current right click context menus are limited in Windows Explorer at the moment, but many other programs show the power of correctly improving them. This context again allows for the 200+ actions to all be accessible while not overwhelming the user when they are not needed, which is generally 98%+ of the time.
It’s not hard to see why the context menu is the greatly preferred method of interactions by users with over half of all interactions being invoked by the right click context menu, but it does concern my why you would state this, “Our goal was not to hide features behind context menus that are not seen by the vast majority of customers.”, when it is obvious by your own metrics that context menus are the preferred method for interaction. If half of every users’ action are through these context menus why not improve them even further? Why if the vast majority of users are using context menus as their preferred interaction method would features in those menus not be ‘seen’ as you described? Wouldn’t that be a “clear opportunity to improve the Explorer user experience to make it more effective” just as described in the blog? It seems that the interpretation of the data to what was a “clear opportunity” was a poor one by the results shown so far.
In the end, it’s not that the ribbon UI is bad or ‘disliked’ but instead that it is a poor choice for the task at hand. The ribbon UI has its place in specialized tools where several and different complex actions are required like in Office. Too a point if a bunch of explorer actions required repeatedly going back and forth between lots of different commands then the ribbon might be worth to be turned on, but that scenario is rare beyond rare and even when it does occur it only happens very sporadically and when it was completed it would be best to turn off the ribbon (which is the usage case I expect to see if this current ribbon is allowed in the final product). When it comes down to day to day tasks, it simply uses too much space to be left open, contains too many unnecessary elements for the average user, and in the rare cases that an action is needed it requires too much travel from the content to the action to be convenient.
It’s possible the actual UI that should have been created was a right click context menu similar to the ribbon concept but better optimized for that style as well as for adapting to the context of the content at hand. Furthermore the use of the system being aware the users habits could help forge the context menu into a perfect glove fit for each user’s needs rather than trying to throw every tool available at them. I could also see using Metro’s guidance through moving UI elements to help the user find what they actions they are looking for. For example instead of simply opening another menu next to a context point, a metro type transition could morph into the context desired; transforming the menu into what is needed. This would allow for depth into the context menu without losing the user’s focus as well as limiting the overall size of the pop up menu. And instead of being limited to simple text lists, the use of icons and animations would help convey information to the user. This type of interface could be just as powerful (if not more) than the ribbon, while remaining elegant, and true the style in the rest of the platform.
I truly wish anything I said could make a difference, but unfortunately I think we’re kidding ourselves he we think we could. Even if a team were persuaded, the logistical timeframe is unlikely to allow for much change at all, to which I wonder is there a point this all this ‘discussion’ in the end. As to why I would bother myself with all this, it is because I am incredibly passionate about Microsoft and what they create; as I see so much potential (and success) in what they do; yet while I respect the enormous effort, work, and time that went into such a feature as this, I can see that it doesn’t reach the potential that it could, and I want to see Microsoft reach that potential and success it deserves rather than settle for anything less.
Well, that…. and I want use a truly great UI myself. 🙂
Regarding keyboard shortcuts, why did you remove Alt+D keyboard shortcut that was available up to Windows XP? It is a really common keyboard shortcut to bring focus to the address bar to type an adress without touching the mouse, and is quite common, as it is used in multiple programs (a lot of browsers, like Internet Explorer, for instance, use this shortcut).
Since Vista, this keyboard shortcut doesn't do anything. Why did you remove this shortcut?
Otherwise, great job, with the ribbons. I am quite sure we will need some time to adapt to it, but having such an easy access to some advanced functions (like accessing ACL's properties. This has become so much complicated since Vista!) will makes us power users and administrators save a lot of time…
I like! 😀
Btw, if you want the TV behind Alex to not flicker, set the camera to a slower shutter-speed, like 1/30, if the camera has manual controls. (the vid is likely 1/80 or faster) Shutter-speed isn't to be confused with framerate… it only controls how long each frame is exposed to light.
What did the UP button ever do to you in the first place?
Feature request: Bring back Microsoft Clippy. Now it could be used for the explorer, too!
Jeesus – Ribbon ! Windows 8 is so dead. Look at the Office Ribbon – all the competitors I selling their Office with adwerst NO RIBBON! This should tell a lot to you. Hello – ribbon is useless. Please don't mess this up! Please please…
Words cannot describe how awful this is.
This is just terrible.
Why would you expose so many buttons that won't be used anyway ? All popular functions are already easily available today in the windows 7 explorer, according to your own studies.
Don't you think that the other features aren't used because they aren't so interesting and not because they are hidden ?
The detail pane on the right sounds also bad to me.
I hope this blog really makes you take all comments in consideration and that you will change your mind about these "improvements".
What a nasty UI fail, OMG, get some decent UI designers and stop producing such a awefull bullshit.
Hey guys, if you don't like the ribbon, just hide it and keep using the context menu and the hotkeys (or your favorite third-party tool) ! Where's the problem ? No one will ever force you to use the ribbon if you don't want to. But let the folks who like it use it.
@Nir Rotshtein
1) When I do not use extensive editing of the documents (in excel or one note for example), I simply minimize the ribbon and use the shortcuts I've created on quick tool bar for the commands I use most (such as 'save as', 'format painter' etc.). This approach allows to have most real estate, completely uncluttered view and in the same time having the tools you need at hand.
2) I believe that what you look for have been in Office 2010 (I think that it is so in 2007 as well) from day one. Go to 'File' -> 'Options' -> 'Customize Ribbon'. You are able to create complete tabs the way you want them to be as well as turn off those you don't need.
3) I've mostly covered it in #2, but also take a look at the 'quick access toolbar'. Click on little arrow pointing downwards on the top left of the Office screen next to 'save' button and click 'more commands'. You can also get there from 'File' -> 'Options' -> 'Quick Access Toolbar'.
I believe if you have not used these customization options – you will love Office even more.
My experience with users upgrading from Office 2003 to 2007 or 2010 was mostly very positive. (imo) It's not even about little time to get adjusted, it is more about open-mindness and willingness to learn and improve one’s workflow that make people explore the new interface and eventually like it.
Even though I consider myself 'a power user', in many cases I find myself very reluctant to explore the menu and see the possibilities of the program at hand. This I believe is the very thing that makes a big part of 'classic menu users' not liking the ribbon. And what's actually good about it (the ribbon) – you come through the commands and do get to know what you can actually do with the software. Eventually you get into it and finding using much more then you used too (this behavior I found common for most users I’ve interacted with).
Again, if only Explorer Ribbon will allow customizations as in Office 2010 (or better bring them to a new level), I can't see how any 'power user' can be unhappy with it. Such approach would be able to make the majority of user base happy.
As shown in this article, the considerations about valuable vertical space is taking very seriously and after closely comparing the explorer window in Windows 7 to the screenshot from Windows 8 I've realized that in present Explorer pretty much the only two buttons I use is 'create new folder' and 'change your view'. With the 'ribbon' approach I could use so much more commands when I need them, as well as minimizing it when I don't and do the 'basics' easily as well. To my surprise I've noted the way I would use 'ribbon' – I would have much more valuable vertical space then I do now.
As for the design touches and metro UI:
– Making ribbon more ‘metro like’ and making it look lighter is something I guess should be (and can be) done. However, (imo) the evolution is going in the right way/manner at present. After all, as Steven noted – most users want to use more, not less. So the functionality should be 1st priority, with the design come 2nd. It’s like first writing down a list of things you want on you webpage, then the design elements and how things would work together… with final design touches or even complete overhaul coming closer to the moment when the functionality is more or less ‘finalized’. Yes, it can evolve more or change during this stage as well.
– It would be nice to see an option to just show icons (without the text), so that the layout gets a little reorganized/compact with this as well. Again, (imo) the more personalization/customization options integrated into the core of the program – the better it is. Think about being able to customize your favorite web browser exactly the way you like it to (adding and deleting toolbars, adding/creating new buttons, inserting extra blank space where needed, scaling the elements to your preference etc.). The idea of ‘scalable interface’ that I’ve mentioned a post earlier comes to my mind here again…
I hope my post helps some of the ‘ribbon haters’ to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 🙂
Thanks for your hard work! I am loving the changes!
I don't get why people are so negative towards the ribbon. I think it is a great improvement. If you don't like it you can collapse it and that will be the end of it. I however think I would more than likely take advantage of the ribbon. I do own both Mac OS X and Windows 7. While I like the simplicity of Finder, I think it is way to basic and it is harder to navigate than the Windows Explorer.
Just few suggestions for the ribbon:
1. I do like the Ribbon UI, but I'd like it to look simpler and going toward the direction of Metro UI. If not, Office 2010 style is good too.
2. I think it will be a good idea to have ribbon collapsed by default.
3. I'd request to have an option where ribbon could extend when mouse hovers over it for a short duration of time, and then collapse again when mouse hovers off.
I hope we can disable that stupid ribbon thing. I've always hated that, wasting space for the same old commands: stupid! Lookin' hours for that easy control that once was so clear: stupid. I f****n hate all that stupid ribbon thing.
No please. Don't add the menu system from Word! The way it looks in Win 7 is really nice but you could use the width better since almost everyone has a wide screen.
qs7000, i'm working in support for years and i know how people can mess up when extensions showing is turned on. It is better to hide them and use antivirus software. Most users just don't understand and don't care what those extensions are for and delete them when renaming files and then i get a support call "something terrible has happened to my very important spreadsheet and it doesn't open anymore". You know, showing the extensions photo.jpeg.bat won't stop dumb users from opening it either. Maybe Windows should have some protection mechanism and emphasize files with double-triple extensions and say that this file could be dangerous.
blogs.msdn.com/…/8422.Figure-21-_2D00_-Real-Estate-comparison_5F00_2.png
What's this? Close bottom bar in Windows 7 and then you can compare this ones.
MS-DOS have the best UI, anyway.
I now understand the meaning of Ribbon when I saw the iso mount in explorer video. Tabs use less space but it could be better. I made another concept: img221.imageshack.us/…/windowplorer.png
Please watch
Great work guys.
i especially like the fact that you can also minimise the ribbon if not needed.
The UI looks very childish and outdated, especially the back and forward buttons, please spaek to the IE9 UI Team to get some help
Microsoft logic: "Almost nobody uses the content bar – Let's make it bigger!"
Seriously, this solves nothing.
Real world problems i have with explorer:
1. While dragging files i can't use the mouse scroll wheel.
2. I want to see the total size of a folder! Instantly, just as for a file. People are so used to this feature missing that they don't even bother asking why it's not there.
3. Tagging of files – all files. Let's say i have a folder of 50 PDFs or word documents i have to read, i want to be able to mark them as read/good/bad/etc/etc… And then sort/search based on this.
4. Reliable search. The search today is such a joke i don't even dare to use it anymore. So many times have it said "no results" when i have the file just in front of me containing the exact search time i used.
5. Better integration with source control, backup tools and other third party tools. Perforce for example is stuck in your context menu, when accidentally opening the menu it attempts to connect to the source server locking the whole explorer interface for 30 seconds. Other example is overlay icons, i think it was tortoise that had some blog post a while ago complaining that explorer only allowed 16(?) different overlays making it very hard to do any serious marking of files. Don't remember the exact details but something along these lines. This also comes back to tagging and searching of files. I want to search for versioned files. Impossible.
The ribbon would be great for adding menus like this for third party tools but apparantly you won't allow this?!
6. Built in pdf preview and search. Adobe refuses to create a 64bit version of their previewhandler and IFilter. So on windows x64 it's very hard to get those features, you have to mix third party tools. One for preview, one for searching and then still it only works with certain pdf files.
7. I want to rename 10 files in a folder that requires admin elevation. => Have to log in as admin 10 times.
8. Drag and drop from explorer to admin-elevated programs doesn't work.
9. Preview and searching of more text files enabled by default. IIRC you have to manually add and enable common files such as .cs .js .cpp .sql .htm .css and most other programming text files to be previewed in the preview bar and indexed by the windows search.
10. Preview pane reacts too slow. When i use the preview pane it is because i want to PREVIEW files QUICKLY. If i want to view a file i open the main application. Now when you step through files in the file list it takes almost half a second for the preview to update to the next file, even for small text files. I guess this is an artificial limit to not open every single file if you move over files quickly but the limit is set too high.
11. Date modifed/created is cryptic, why not use natural language such as "2 minutes ago" "Last week", etc. Dropbox does this very nicely.
12. Quickly switch between which detail-columns to display. If i'm looking at music i see length/rating etc. If i want to quickly see the size and date created of these files and then switch back to the music-look. How to do?! You have to go into select columns, tick and untick and ghaa!! IIRC windows xp had this feature, "optimize view for" or something like that.
13. Indexing of network drives and external drives. And keep this index localy. I want to be able to browse and maybe even search my external drive even when it's not connected. "This file might be located on your external disc, please connect the disc if you see if the file is still there and access it".
Hate to sy it guys but it looks like you just took UI design back in time about 10 years.
Some of the features are great (especially like the share functionality)… however the designers should be fired and quickly. It's a massively over complex solution that looks cramped, messy and extremely clunky.
As another user said, the file browser should be kept clean and simple (much like a browser), and if you look at OSX file managers it's SIMPLICITY that makes things work. How exactly this classifies as 'STREAMLINING' when you are basically just chucking a million and one options on the screen at once I don't know.
The windows phone 7 'metro' experience is beautiful and simple to use because of it's SIMPLICITY, this is where you need to be going, not in the complete opposite direction.
I hate to say it but the idea of these features is very good, but the implementation is horrific. You will be putting a lot of people off that are already switching over to other platforms, and these are the people you need to be attracting. New users will see this all as way too over complicated, and power users will know how to easily do all of this with a simple menu selection and keyboard shortcuts… so you will be loosing both audiences by overcomplicating things like this.
Have a chat with the WP7 ui designers and maybe there will be a chance to save windows… otherwise this route will just be the extra nail in it's cofin!
Hi guys,
nice features so far.
But zooming should be consistent across the MS Programms (slider in lower right) 😉
Have a nice day
Wow!
Great job Microsoft!
I love these new ideas, the ribbon is just the coolest thing in Office.
And implementing it in Explorer is a bright idea.
Keep up the good work!
You'll crush Apple who thinks easy of use is what users want.
The single most annoying things in the Windows 7 explorer are the constant "are you sure you want to do this and that" -dialogs.
Could you please add an option to get rid of all these dialogs completely? For example, by giving a possibility to answer "yes, I am sure, and please do not show this dialog ever again to me, including when I am using the explorer next time or after I have rebooted the computer".
Another item: Please do not hide the "size" -column by default in explorer. That is far more useful than e.g. "file type" -column.
Ugly! How could users like such a goofy design!
C'est une faute de goût !
Batch Rename and Find Duplicates (w.r.t MD5 or CRC checksums) would be great additions IMVHO.
I'm genuinely baffled how anyone can think this looks better than the Windows 7 explorer. And as this post details, even based on MS's _own_ metrics, this is a failure:
seldo.tumblr.com/…/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a
P.
Custom grouping: GroupBy should provide the leeway to select bunch of files randomly and tag them with a color. (if it’s not an offense, check out mac 10.6.6 for reference)
I think power users are over reacting about the Ribbon UI here. You know that the ribbon can by minimized if you don't like it. Besides, us power users use the right click anyway to do things we wanted to do because it's far quicker than using the menu bars (and that is true for every version of Windows since WIn95.) In fact, the top ten most commonly used functions can be found using the right click.. What the Ribbon UI designed for this case is for touch and for normal users to discover new features, which MSFT did achieve here. However, until the higher resolutions on screens becomes the norm (especially on laptops where most of them have only 768 vertical pixels to play with instead of 1080 which is more suitable for the Ribbon UI), I think it's unlikely that a power user will have this Ribbon UI permanently on.
Suggestion: If the navigation bar was white instead of the blue, it will create an illusion that the Ribbon isn't as big as it seems (especially if you replace the 3D icons on the navigation bar with Metro UI icons). On the other hand, it may appear ugly when minimized and appear inconsistent on other aspects of the UI (such as what it would look like on a “wizard” window for example).
One more suggestion: When we open the folder from the search page, the path to the folder is replace with the query-string. Can you guys change it to show the original path while retaining the search link in the back? Because we are not expecting the breadcrumb in the address bar but the actual path to the folder w.r.t the entry point of disk?
One more suggestion: When we open the folder from the search page, the path to the folder is replace with the query-string. Can you guys change it to show the original path while retaining the search link in the back? Because we are not expecting the breadcrumb in the address bar but the actual path to the folder w.r.t the entry point of disk?
Unfortunately the ribbon most of the time will reduce vertical screen real estate (unless collapsed) compared to Win7, as shown here: http://www.winsupersite.com/…/vx4b2z-140385
The ribbon tabs are very difficult to follow. You have to sometimes navigate all of them to find out where a certain feature is hidden… sometimes I need to use two features very frequently and they are in different tabs, so I keep switching and that's time consuming. Shortcuts are confusing to have to memorize. Is there a way to customize your OWN ribbon with only what you need? I think you need to make the selected ribbon tab more obvious because in a lot of causes, I just don't know very quickly which tab is selected because the colors merge together. Use something more bold to define a selected ribbon tab. But then again I think many users will hate this suggestion as well!
Great Job guys,
Some comments:
1. I would have imagine a smaller ribon that is not as high as the current one, that stand on 2/3 lines instaead of 4 currently.
2. Please build smooth scrolling 🙂
3. Make the sharing option consistent between explorer, mail, photo gallery (especially for photo sharing: attached file or online album)
4. expose old versions of the files (backups) in the UI.
5. Use aero like in Office 2010
6. Try to have consistency in the back and forth buttons between IE, Explorer, Zune, WMP, etc…
7. Get rid of the useless borders of the windows
8. I think the select box should be enable by default
9. build a great preview tool, something that respect the layout of the document and that is fast. I would say Quick Look on OSX is great 🙂
10. Try to have some consistency in the UI between the touch interface and the classic aero interface (font, shape the icons, etc,…)
keep up the good work !
Oh, one more thing I noticed: Why not have "Size" as one of the default "arrange by" tabs? In Details view there (looking at the video), the "Type" tab looks pretty big, and I'm not sure how many people will use "Date created". (I know SOME will use it, but, if it turns out to be a tiny audience, maybe they could be left to enable it on their own (system-wide?))…
Also, will the "arrange by" tabs be visible in view modes other than Details? (if even just as an option) Vista had them visible in all view modes, and it was fantastic.
PLEASE, DON'T EVER MAKE THIS IN VISUAL STUDIO!
Mr. Sinosfky… Have you lost common sense? Did you see that pictures? Did you really read that stupid telemetry thing? Did you ever see IE9? I can't believe it.
I don't want to be a jerk with someone else's job, but this is insane. I was expecting something else. I was expecting a beautiful Metro UI or at least something minimalist. But this is insane…
Sorry for my tone. I feel impotetn.
Please, please, please for the love of god get rid of the automatic sort functionality added in vista / 7.
A very common action is creating a new file via right click, pasting files via right-click as you've shown in your findings, and extracting a zip to a folder using something like WinRAR and the right-click menu.
In XP, the newly extracted / created files would be sitting right there for you to use – an automatic F5 sorting refresh was not invoked. In 7 and Vista, files are sorted instantly and thus any new folder disappears into the stack of items and we have to go find it.
THIS IS NOT CONVENIENT. Look at your research, take a poll, and learn from what worked – Windows XP's style.
Are you kidding?
And Ribbon again?
heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh
Its a great information with pictures. I like you strategy of understanding
Please also bring back the "sort-headers" (introduced in Vista but sadly removed again in Win7): http://www.windows7taskforce.com/…/461
You must shift to Office 2010 ribbon. I hate this old style 2007 ribbon. Also Back/Forward/Up buttons need to be redesigned.
I like the ribbon if we can completely remove it from all explorer windows!
The good news is the number of keyboard shortcuts that are going to be implemented.
But looking at the pictures of this post, I'm afraid of one thing : is it the end of CTRL+C / CTRL+X shortcuts? Are these default shortcut keys to be changed?
toutautop.blogspot.com/…/windows-8-file-explorer-end-of-ctrlc.html
Looks nice and well-usable at first sight. 🙂
OMG! Is that suppose to be a good design?! Not event taking into account aesthetics, the hole bar is messed up with elements on different sizes and some of them are not even used at all according to you own statistics!
Please add COLOR Customization
WHITE windows burns my eyes – I wanna use a dark grey with black fonts
By extension many people would like to use their own preferred color in place of the white windows background
pls !!!!
pls !!!!
pls !!!!
Up Button, yes. Option to launch the command line, yes. Getting rid of the useless statistics bar at the bottom: yes.
Adding a giant menu ribbon with tons of useless buttons: No, just no! (Please add a 'do not show ribbon' option next to the 'minimize' one.)
@Steven Sinofsky
You know what other interface exposes >200 commands? Office 2010, you know what doesn’t look cluttered? Office 2010. This explorer however, looks cluttered, convoluted and put together by engineers, not designers; however you don’t need me to tell you that Office and Explorer are not the same beasts. I’m using Office to write this comment so before you think I’m one of those people who hate the ribbon I’m not, bringing the ribbon to Office was the best thing to happen to it and the refinements that have been made since show how good it was and still is.
In you other comment you mention how people are asking for more features, which is very true, however you’ll also notice and hopefully realise that not every feature needs a UI behind it.
To be honest you’re treating your customers like idiots, just because we don’t use a feature doesn’t mean we don’t know HOW to use said feature in other ways. If you want to know why no one uses the command bar it is because you’ve simply put the wrong buttons up there. In 7 today if I open the Documents Library the following in located in the command bar:
Organize | Share with | New folder
Not very useful I’m sure you’ll agree, all but two of the commands are hidden under the Organize menu. Why not instead surface library management buttons?
If I select a word document the following is instead shown:
Organize | Open | Share with | Print | Email | New folder
Which of those are unique to the docx file I’ve selected? I’d argue none but to be fair we’ll say 3 (Open, Print, Email). Why not instead surface more context specific controls for that file?
The problem is shown even more so when I select local hard drives:
Organize | Properties | System Properties | Uninstall | Map network drive | Open CP
Again surface more context specific buttons like you are doing in the ribbon now.
What I’m trying to point out is that we don’t need a whole ribbon control to perform such simple controls. No one at the moment selects a bunch of files and navigates to Organize>Copy to copy a file so why do you feel they will suddenly do it in the ribbon? You have had 400 million customers last year and you’re telling me none of them know how to copy files because your telemetry shows that they don’t use the command bar to do it? So your solution is to surface those mundane controls because your users are so dumb that they don’t know about ctrl+c or right click>copy?
If this ribbon is for Grandma then why are you screwing up your entire UI for small gains? Grandma is probably still running Windows XP for all you know, she shouldn’t be the basis for which to design a UI, she also shouldn’t be an afterthought but do NOT design for her. She isn’t your main customer, business users are, mainstream users are, soccer moms are; they believe it or not, already know how to copy a file. I repeat we are not idiots.
You also keep insisting that the ribbon takes I'up less space, now the last thing I’ll ever accuse you guys of doing is fudging but that screenshot comparison is anything but fair, not only is the details view bigger than what comes as default on Windows 7 but in any other non-library folder Windows 7 will show more files. A dishonest comparison really and something I wouldn’t expect from you guys. It is what it is.
If 16:9 is the push for Windows 8 then why add a top heavy control to every explorer window? A command bar expands horizontally, makes more sense to do that don’t you think?
I also want to quickly touch on “Share with”; can you PLEASE change the name and make it pretty? Apple announces AirDrop and everyone goes crazy, they act like it’s a brand new feature and give it a thumbs up. Windows has had file sharing like that for years and no one cares, why? Because it’s called “share with” and the UI for sharing is boring. Make it pretty and people will use it, give it a brand name and people will talk about it. Simple stuff guys simple stuff.
Why not make Homegroup the place where all files can be shared? Add the profile pictures, make it pretty and people will use it, I’ve tried many times to get homegroup setup around my house but it’s so boring that I resort to USB flash drives. I just never think, “hey, lemme press that ‘share with’ button up there to send this file over to my laptop”.
I actually thought Windows 8 would be different, you promised a beautiful new UI and while I’m sure that is still around somewhere the ribbon isn’t the answer. Why don’t you at the very least work with the office team to use the very latest edition of the ribbon? You got a guy from the Office team commenting on the ribbon as if he has never seen it before. He works in the SAME company and has to resort to a blog post to point out design problems with your biggest product?! That shows perfectly that you are very much a disjointed group of engineers (and one designer :p). Office team pioneered the Ribbon you’d think that they would have had a say in how it would look, function, work, feel, etc.
–
In a nutshell I propose you make the command bar more context sensitive, centre all the controls on said bar to match the title. Perhaps even make the bar slightly longer like you did with the “superbar” in 7, that way more controls can fit and potential squeeze in the odd icon or two.
Finally (because this is over 1000 words already) minimising the ribbon as an answer to so called power users isn’t an answer at all. The QAT toolbar isn’t an answer at all (we are now forced to deal with 16×16 icons on a non-maximised window, seriously?)
Please look around; the press are (already!) bashing this Ribbon and it’s not even beta, don’t make 8 another Vista. Btw have you guys wiped that from your minds, you don’t even mention it anymore on your blogs, I’d hoped you learned from the mistakes rather than simply pretending it never happened.
I’ll leave now but with the final message of don’t design for Grandma, she doesn’t bring in the bacon, we do, she doesn’t talk to her friends about how great the OS is, we do, she doesn’t pre-order the OS so she can install it the day of its release, we do, she doesn’t go to her grandchildren’s houses to install the latest OS’s, we do that for her. No offence to grandma btw, love you 🙂
We are the majority when it comes to Windows (by ‘We’ I don’t mean hard-core geeks, I mean customers who care enough to post on your blog, email you, etc). Please make us proud to use Windows.
For sure we can not say this time that Microsoft copy from Apple…
But I wish they did so that we could have a nice looking explorer instead of this ugly things…
the return of the "UP" button means you can again use "backspace" key to move to upper level directory ?
I hope so because it's something I really miss in Win7
Still that rounded corners! it doesn't look nice. why cant you find some nice ones for back/forward/up buttons. They are so out dated. At least make a new icon set available for the users like WP7-style. It hurts to see those ugliness still existing. ;(
Good lord, get some designers before you do mock ups.
That is one hideously ugly tool bar.
PowerShell please!
I've been reading and enjoying these posts but haven't been moved to comment till now; but while reading this the "Cmd Prompt" item just had to be remarked upon! Luckily it seems a whole bunch of people agree with me and have commented so already. I'm adding my vote.
It would be great if it was customisable (as some folks have asked for) but at the very least let's bin cmd.exe and use the contemporary replacement.
Thanks!
hi, thanks for your efforts to improve windows,
i have 2 things on windows explorer topic.
* folder size!!!! it is so needed !!!
mkv container information – today only avi is supported when mkv container will be supported ?
I never understood why so many applications are using this horrible, unintuitive ribbon interface. I have remained with earlier Office versions simply because I find it so slow and clumsy to use. There was nothing wrong with the traditional toolbar/buttons interface… it's fast, easy and does the job. Hunting around in the ribbon to find a simple menu action is not for me. So unless explorer can be configured to use the normal interface, WIndows 8 won't be for me!
Looks nice, I like it very much.
As far as my wishlist for the new Explorer goes, I would like to see the following features implemented:
1) A more powerful rename-capability for multiple files. Explorer can handle multiple files but it can only rename them like this: filename (1), filename (2) , … , filename (n). It would be cool, if you guys could implement like an 'adavnced options' menu that lets the user specify the structure of the file names by letting them add certain expressions to the file name or the extension.
For example: Photo[N] – [Date].jpg where [N] acts as a counter and [Date] inserts the current date and all marked files are renamed to Photo001 – 08/30/11.jpg etc…
2) Every halfway decent file manager today has the ability to synchronize directories. Please build robocopy into it.
3) Does the search mechanism in Explorer make use of regular expressions? That would also be very cool.
4) A 'secure erase' option that lets the user specify how many times a file is overwritten with zeroes or random data before it is deleted. Of course it would then have to be removed from the shadow copies as well.
5) I think it is a pain in the … to find out abouot a folder's size. Why not provide an option that shows the the folder size on demand? (like i.e. when someone marks some folders and then presses 'spacebar' – then the folder sizes could appear in the 'size'-column).
That's all I can think of for now and I really hope some of my ideas find their way into the new product.
Keep up the good work,
Steven
tl;dr
I do recall that the Office team is the one that gave us Windows Installer. Thanks guys for showing us once again what you're good at – wielding power.
I would like to see much better SharePoint integration, e.g. if the folder I am looking at is in SharePoint, I want to be able to check out and check in the file as necessary.
Sorry – but the ribbon is going to be nothing more than a barrier to adoption for me.
Office 2007 is now 4 years old. Working my way around a UI which changes the location of features depending upon the width of the window is still a daily horror.
Perhaps you could release a "super ultimate (retro) enterprise" edition which presents a UI familiar to your loyal users of the last 20 years just get on with the task in hand using the skills they've acquired in that time.
Windows 8 with Ribbon? The Whoa-there starts now.
Ribbon in explorer looks very nice 🙂
Few more suggestions:
– Native support for CVS, SVN and Git integration in explorer. Also, the ability to sync with SkyDrive (and/or sendto->SkyDrive).
– Easy and intuitive file sharing: Other than the usergroup and same username on each PC, a network map can be shown (like the one in Network and Sharing Center of WindOS7) with each end-node (PC, Laptop or SmartPhone) clickable and based on the MAC or IP address, the machine should be granted the permission to access the asset. Similarly, the resource/asset can be shared to selected LiveID(s) to make it available over the Internet via P2P transfer.
– (A little off-topic) Built-in support for torrents download via IE download manager and ability to create the download: connect.microsoft.com/…/create-download-in-ie-download-manager
How about adding tabbed UI like Internet Explorer?
Will Windows 8 GPL? Forget IE, preinstall Firefox!!! Really your GUI sucks!
Can't believe this post! Lets dedicate valuable display real estate (Especially on a Netbook) to an oversized ribbon/toolbar that not many people use. The best thing which ever happened to Explorer was to simplify the display! Yes easy access to key commands and functions is important, but make them readily accessible. Really hope the ribbon can be turned off.
Just wondering why the usage of copy is 11% and paste is 19%. Where are the folks copying from which they are pasting into explorer?
@Linus Torvalds ROFL. SO TRUE. INSTALL LINUX. ITS BETTER INSTALL FIREFOX!
Window 8 is shaping up to be a real beauty!
@Roy Simons – Why dont you actually try reading the post instead of just looking at the pictures before making a comment?
Window 8 is shaping up to be a real beauty!
@Roy Simons – Why dont you actually try reading the post instead of just looking at the pictures before making a comment?
And why you don't use 2 panes (like total commander for instance)?
Many users would find it usefull
Windows 8 will only use ribbons. That killed my interest of Windows 8. Ribbons+widescreen=crap. Ribbons fill more than classic UI.
Ugh. I didn't like the ribbon in Office, and I won't like it now. Keep Windows SIMPLE like it's always been. I'd hate to have to switch to solely running Kubuntu.
Windows 3.1 was ok, Windows XP was also ok. Windows 7 is already worse. But these ribbons are the most idiotic stuff microsoft ever invented. I hate them in Office and for that reason I don't use Office anymore an prefer Openoffice. If now the ribbon stuff comes into Explorer this will be one more very good reason to use Linux.
Here's my concept of the Windows 8 Explorer Ribbon,
that adapts the OFFICE 2010 STYLE:
http://i.imgur.com/jflXZ.png
See? It looks less cluttered. That's why I like Office 2010 than Office 2007.
I removed the Up Button, because I can move to the upper folder using the address bar (that's true, since Vista).
The problem with applying the Ribbon on Windows Explorer, is that Windows 7 Explorer what designed to be uncluttered and they chose lighter colors so that the emphasis is still on the content.
On the original screenshot, there's too much emphasis on the ribbon.
In my version, the emphasis is back to the files and folders you are managing.
As a bonus, it's ONE STEP AWAY from looking like METRO UI.
http://i.imgur.com/jflXZ.png
In the video Alex says that the command prompt is useful for running batch files.
Batch files!? Why not make PowerShell the default command prompt, and add a button to run .ps1 files straight from explorer?
It is hard to balance between the folks who post/comment here and the average user. maybe the ribbon is a great interface for the average user and it *does* have some benefits over the old menu system, but I still don't like it. It takes too much space and offers eye cnady over functionality. It hides important commands that, while not frequently used are vital to find quickly when needed. This point is key to me and I suspect others here. How frequently something is used is an important criteria but for admins there is a need to get quickly and easily to some features becuase we are troubleshooting or fixing a critial problem.
I'd like to suggest the following: Have an item on the home tab that is called "Commands". When clicked it opens a box where I can start typing the name of a command. As I type a list appears and narrows as I type more letters. Make the match a contains type match not a starts with and enter exactly match. When I have selected the command execute it or give me the options or move it to one of the special tabs like you do for libraries and show me its options.
I envy you… Love the idea of having ribbons.. Die Apple and Linux.. Hail Microsoft Windows forever!
– Jobs, Steve.
This is a wonderful improvement!
"Copy path" and the open command prompts are absolutely fantastic!!
Thanks for the preview!
Robert
Enjoy Ribbon in Windows 8:
blogs.msdn.com/…/2538.Mounting_2D00_a_2D00_new_2D00_ISO_5F00_7AB5E1E9.jpg
Don't worry about all that empty and useless space.
Where is the tabbed interface, just like internet browsers?
I thought the biggest mistake in Windows ever was renaming "File Manager" to "Windows Explorer" with Win95. It took "control" out of the hands of the user – instead of "managing" your system, the system was now an unknown, unmapped quantity that you had to "explore". This paradigm leaves bits of the system which you may never "find", and means that Windows Explorer itself is not a "definitive" view of the file system, but just a "best guess" at what you've managed to locate so far.
Introducing a ribbon (or indeed any additional UI) for me further deepens that disconnect with what's actually in my file system. Explorer used to be a "bare metal" tool – you could trust that it accurately reflected the reality of your filesystem, because it WAS your filesystem. By building in more and more functionality, it becomes an "application" like any other rather than a building block, and loses the inherent "trust" and certainty that a low-level tool can provide.
I still use (and am happy with) WinXP and whilst I normally skip a release when upgrading Windows, I can't see myself feeling comfortable with a Win8 environment that loads so much "extra" onto tools that should be "simple" by virtue of their inherent simplicity and low-level interface (after all, a file is a file is a file!) rather than being made "simple to use" by adding more and more complexity.
I think we've been patient guys, for long enough, and yet, again, the same old ugliness thrown together.
WHAT are you waiting for!!??
This is your opportunity to go for it, to DELIGHT us with a something new — something clean and simple and elegant — something consistant, contextual and beautifully functional. And what do we get? The same old Fisher Price ****.
Listen to what your users are saying to you. Unbelivable.
So excited about 8, love metro, please don't spoil it with more of these lazy half measures, please.
Please keep it simple – a filemanager must be quick, less icons….
Just looks cluttered and unfriendly. I'm not a fan of the ribbon in general. It's just too cumbersome. They made the start menu worse in Vista and 7, not they're making this worse. I just hope there's a way to revert to the old style.
Edit: *now* they're making this worse.
Personally I will go for a windows 3.1 filemanager with a context menu. If they don't make one available, I will make 1 myself.
I believe power users would jump at a fast, crap-graphics interface with freely customizable and bindable contextmenu interface. I will.
Been planning it loosely since my venerable winxp was replaced with win7 last week, and my citrix provided 16bit-look-alike filemanager disappeared.
Imo this is the ribbon control summed up in one, simple image.
http://i.imgur.com/Cp9jx.png
Wtf, are you kidding me? That looks terrible. You're taking the crap ribbon from Office and working it into Windows? Time to move to another operating system…
Please fix search. It has not worked since Windows 2000. I have developers who complain that they can't find their code. The persistent handler for ASP files only searches the HTML, not the code. If you try to find your database connect string you can't. As a sysadmin I sometimes need to track down error messages. I can't search for text inside of DLL and EXE files. You need a dumb (indexed) search for basic users and a power search for power users.
May be the MS guys should read this- you guys are just making it more and more complicated for the rest of us. Why not create a special edition for the 2% power users and keep things simple for the rest of us? Sucks! Big time!
parislemon.com/…/we-agree-it-sucks-but
Like it. Still have a few reservations about the amount of screen real estate taken up by the ribbon, but at least it's an improvement over what always seems like a big unused chunk at the bottom of Windows 7 Explorer windows.
Going to have to add my +1 for replacing the old CMD command line with Powershell, it's a much more powerful tool and making it a lot easier to get to would be a major improvement. Running BATch files is so old school (even though Powershell can still run them too!)
Ribbon again? Ugh. If Microsoft's goal was to finally look and feel as "Romper Room" as OS-X, bingo you win a prize.
Apple vs Microsoft http://yfrog.com/mg5l0yj . (Explorer vs Finder)
Great, more real estate lost. I hope we have the option to hide the ribbon completely and not just "minimize" it.
In figure 19, you display the percentage of users with various resolutions. Could you add a comment about how this data is impacted by the use of setups with multiple monitors? eg Do people who have 1280×1024 often have two screens, and thus higher overall real-estate?
Like the addition of the ribbon. I would echo @harishv 's second point (29 Aug 2011 9:12pm) about promoting short shortcuts, eg Ctrl-C, over the Alt-H-C-O alternatives that are new for the ribbon.
can you just get rid of the Navigation Pane? its taking too much space imo the ribbon is fine as long as i can autohide it and from the looks of the screenshot it can be autohide
and also can microsoft make the search bar and the address bar fuse together like the omnibox of google chrome that is one heck of a feature imo that is trivial but will be more simplier looking and easier to work with
The biggest complaint I have with explorer keyboard navigation in win7 is when you are using the keys to arrow around the files (what you call this area? the Contents Pane?) then moving to the address bar and back to the contents pane. Or back to the contents pane from anywhere else. Maybe its there in 7 and I've just missed it.
My other gripe that I had forgotten about is how hard it was to pin "My Computer" to the task bar (and Win+E). They always defaulted to "Libraries" but in a corporate envioment where you are mostly working with mapped network shares "Computer" is a better default.
Hi Everyone!
I respect the Windows Team work, and the functionalies seems to be very interesting, but about the design… I don't know what to expect from Windows Team anymore…
Where is the guy that created Metro UI, is he killed or something?
I don't understand why you guys keep doing things so cluttered (and bad designed), and get so much angry in the people.
In the top of this post reads: "we know this is an important subject so we expect a pretty engaged dialog on the topic."
Ok. I think you alredy get what you want, so:
1. Please take the time to read what users wrote about this cluttered "Ribbon".
2. Most commens reads about: "We Want Metro UI"
So: Why you don't want to implement Metro UI? I just want an explanation.
People cares about the design. You know it! Do you expect to sell Windows 8 with this cluttered interface?? Really?
I'm tired of waiting… You will ruin a company doing things like that…
I'm feeling very sad and dissapointed.
I really like @P Cause idea of a 'Commands' tab where we can start typing a command and have it filter like the Win7 start menu does for programs and files. This should be part of every ribbon experience so advanced users who know the name of the command have the option of jumping right to it.
As part of the improvement process to Explorer you should include a tool along the lines of Unlocker (www.emptyloop.com/unlocker) so that when I get the message that a file is locked I have some options concerning what I can do instead of a fatal error.
I would like to be able to have a button that opens either two explorer windows side by side aligned to the sides of the screen or two panes (or four panes with two for the tree and two for the files) inside explorer. This way I will not have to open two explorer windows every time i want to copy a file from place to place and that happens a lot :(.
Thank you
How about adding Macros and custom shortcuts?
Thank you for asking for feedback and making us a part of what will become Windows 8. I skipped Vista entirely over the "UP" button. When 7 came out and it still did not have it, I found ClassicShell and was able to get my "UP" button back and you where able to make a sale. So, take us seriously when we moan 🙂 … Having said that I like what I see here … your giving crazy people like me choices … I can slim down to the QAT and minimize the ribbon. I think I'll be very pleased with this.
Its still missing tabbed file browsing. I want to work in multiple directories without multiple windows open. nautilus has it, konqueror has it, dolphin has it. when will this feature be delivered.
So you wanna proofs???
Here is another proof that EVERYONE loves Metro UI
1,268,543 (1,039 today) of people canno't be wrong!:
fediafedia.deviantart.com/…/Omnimo-4-1-for-Rainmeter-158707137
People, we have to raise our voices!!!
Not allowing add-ins to add a tab to the explorer bar is very poor.
How well TortoiseSVN and TortoiseHg works will to a large extend effect if I like Windows 8. Given how many people ask computer programmers they know about new versions of windows, I think you MUST get this right. (Think bad to vista and how it was hated by “power users”, so can a unfair reputation given it was liked by a lot of normal users if they tried it)
I hope the user can HIDE the ribbon. Like permanently. It is cluttered.
Its not like it matters. 20 years of windows and I still use Orthodox File Managers. Doing the same common tasks is 30 -40 % faster using TotalCommander. I know. We measured it once at my workplace.
One of the first things I had to do when I got the new Office was to BUY the Addins so I could get the menu bar back. The Ribbon, I am sorry to say, is TERRIBLE. It reminds of why I hated WordPerfect so much and loved Word. I suspect I will be buying the addins for Windows 8. Why did you break something that wasn't broken in the first place?
Add to my previous comments the addition of an Add-Ons tab, displaying buttons to installed Add-Ons, would also be extremely helpful.
It is a MISTAKE to make Windows 8 more touch friendly by default. It should have a touch mode but vast majority still use mouse to interact with the OS.
hi,great work…
just one thing is still missed,i think….
when we enter a folder that contain both file and folder and we want to sort them by size ony files being sorted not the folders….and that is a little anonying…cause we must go to properties and see the size of each folder or hold the mouse on it for seconds….and that doesn't make scene when you have a lot of folders…
is there any solution for this problem in windows 8?can both files and folders being sorted in any way?
I wish Microsoft would address problems with Windows Explorer & Intenet Explore!!!!!
I've had Vista & now 7 & in both Operating Systems Both programs have demonstrated annoying crashes!!!!!
In Windows Explorer, attempts to RENAME or Make any other Property change seem to cause the problem!!!!!
The crashes of IE (both 8 & 9) they are extremely random & don't seem to have a definite cause!!!!!
Very disappointed.
I've always found the Ribbon interface confusing and ugly. I can choose the tab, but then have to hunt through the sea of icons and check-boxes in order to find what task I'm looking for. At least a standard Menu interface one can scan through the options in a simple vertical column format and find what one's looking for quickly.
Even the "QAT" looks ugly. Bring back the good mix of "small icons and text" that older programs like Outlook Express offered, with separators and user-sortable options.
Outlook Express was a fantastic mail client. Windows Mail was a step backwards, and now Windows Live Mail – with its discarding of the standard menu bar in favor of the Ribbon Bar – is awful.
Windows 7 does a lot of things *really* well, and the team should be commended. And Windows 8 looks pretty good too. But the adoption of the Ribbon Bar interface in more and more applications seems to be discarding years of good UI design in favour of a visual mess.
Hi,
from Germany the same opinion like "Adam Koncz" said.
Leave the oldscool one window explorer style, and do it like Total Commander, with two windows and tabs like every modern browser does.
It's much faster for every type of work!
Best regards
I think by using the address bar from Windows 7, the Up button is now obsolete. I would love to be able to drag and drop files/folders onto folder names in the address bar.
I would agree Windows XP had a great Explorer – always customised mine to Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete and Move/Copy To commands, then removed text labels to remove clutter. I think Windows 8 Explorer is just trying to do too much. Simplify, simplify, simplify!
I believe this is really about making Explorer more user-friendly to people coming to Windows for the first time, but being pitched to the advanced users as something that cares about the "heritage" of Windows. I don't believe it. The last several years Microsoft as been trying really hard to make Windows more user-friendly. I think that's a great Idea, but it ultimately frustrates me (usually by burying advanced things further and further down).
Tabs a la QTTabBar. Please. Everything else is just fluff.
I quite agree with the suggestion to have a Power User view.
http://www.computerworld.com/…/Microsoft_ribbonizes_Windows_8_file_manager
After reading this and Microsoft is saying there will be no fallback to the traditional menus, it looks as if I will be on Windows 7 until the absolute bitter end. That Ribbon is terrible. I am sorry. This is a AVGN "what were they thinking?" moment here. Again, it was not broken. Fix is NOT needed.
There's a reason so many users use the context menu….it's quick and they like it. It makes no sense to say it's the most used way then go into a whole article about icons and tool-bars. For me, using context menus in Explorer is so 2nd nature that I don't even think about.
More and more I'm seeing MS try to make Windows easier for novices. That's a great idea, but it ultimately frustrates me, someone whose used Windows since 3.1. Couldn't you make 2 versions of Windows Explorer (a "simple" mode and an "advanced Mode") so that we could choose which one to live in???
why would anyone bring the "up" button back when you can quickly choose where to go in the address bar?
Haven't you learned from the epic failure of IE 8. Make it simple. Make it clean.
It is great that you care about heritage, but that is what make you lose the competition. Do something innovative.
…. HATE IT! hated ribbon since it was made… Windows XP is and will always be simply the best…
IF i do end up getting a new windows OS im totally gonna pirate it cause it's shitware and not worth the price…
I really like the QAT customization! Great idea!! Thanks for letting us minimize the ribbon so it stays out of our way unless we want to see it.
Oh great more ram usage even from folders ¬¬
Agree on a poweruser feature! This version clearly (to me) demonstrates when technical people are designing a GUI for non-techies. It fails. Why would a normal user wants so many buttons? What was wrong with just 2 panes where you could drag n drop between them? The ribbon also looks like it is designed for working with a mouse, is I was MS, I would worry about a good touch interface… just my 2 cents
Now that we discuss Explorer… why is window theming of menus disabled if there is an owner-draw menu item???
There is not a single logical reason why menus have to look ugly. How I draw my menu item is my own business.
I always tend to give positive critics towards Microsoft products. But this? This is very very big bullshit you are doing.
Windows XP configured for productivity (i.e. configured like Windows 2000) 35 files:
imageshack.us/…/60443267.jpg
We have a winner! Pretty much everything that's on the ribbon can be achieved faster with shortcut keys or the right click menu so it's nothing but a hideous waste of space.
The wall that's covered in pictures in the background of the video makes it quite clear that the Windows UI design team have no idea how to organise information and present it in a structured manner that allows for easy access. The ribbon is exactly like that wall, with variably sized crap plastered randomly all over the place.
Any chance of a second desktop environment focused on productivity instead of catering for retards? Any chance of you ever listening to your users and giving them what they want instead of dictating to them how they should use their PC?
I love Ribbon but I prefer tabs for folders on Explorer like to QTTABBAR (sourceforge.net/…/qttabbar) for Windows XP
I love Ribbon but I prefer tabs for folders on Explorer like to QTTABBAR (sourceforge.net/…/qttabbar) for Windows XP
I love the "Copy Path" clipboard function. Can we also have "Copy File Name" as well? Both are highly useful; as in multiple times per average day.
I love the "Copy Path" clipboard function. Can we also have "Copy File Name" as well? Both are highly useful; as in multiple times per average day.
Laurie Voss summarized my initial thoughts pretty well:
seldo.tumblr.com/…/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a
I *despise* the ribbon!! I am not a luddite, but really.. it was *so* much easier to find things on the old style drop-down menus…. really it was!
The Ribbon simply doesn't work. Why are Microsoft championing this awful control ?
The Ribbon was used to poor effect in Office and has subsequently been used in places where it really does not apply, it looks like Microsoft are a one trick pony. There are enough employee's in Microsoft to be inventive so give us something new and innovative and don't re-hash poorly executed idea's where they don't fit.
The ribbon is the most unattractive, illogical, complicated, unintuitive thing I've ever seen.
Especially the label 'Home'. It makes me laugh.
Could you also includ Copy Folder Path into the Ribbon?
wtf? this is the most convoluted piece of shite. no wonder i switched to mac os x.
looks crazy and, at my point of view, useless.
This is the Photoshoped image from the original one in this post and re-inspired using Office 2010 Ribbon style to deliver the cleaner and better look for the already-cluttered Windows 8 explorer. Hope this style's not only for explorer but also for existing apps like word pad, paint, next windows live essential etc…
Here is the image:
img64.imageshack.us/…/ribbon001.jpg
Please allow the favorites to be pinned so they never scroll out of view. I hate having to futz around trying to get my Desktop in view so I can move/copy to it.
I appreciate this design, and i'm sure you can shrink buttonsize or/and amount of buttons.
The ribbon may have some benefits – they are hidden to me. I am not a power user and usually find my way around myself. Menu trees are ok – they have even been better before Office XP. Why ? Because I generally tend to need waiting time before the full menu appears.
Maybe MS needs to make people more aware of the many possibilities of its programs, but leave personalization and customization as option for people.
I am very happy with still being able to work with Office 2003 in my job, once I have seen the ribbon desaster on a 1024×768 laptop screen a few years ago. And – at that time – no option to get this ribbon away without help of third party software ???!!!
I also develop MS access applications as part of my job – the ribbon surface would interfere with my own "UI" on forms.
The browser Firefox currently follows a minimization path concerning menus – MS forces fixed ribbon area ????? I do not get it ????
FINALLY the up button returns! Thank you!
What is up with the comments? I've had two different comments not show up after Posting. I spent a lot of time on them; I should have typed it in Word first and copied them over I guess.
@nowuniverse – While that looks better it doesn't take away from the face that the ribbon shouldn't be there in the first place. It has its place in Office, not in Explorer. Also what's the point, leaked images of Office 14 show a different revision of the ribbon control so instantly it'll be out of date because seemingly the Office team won't share.
Btw why isn't anyone from Microsoft addressing the concerns? The two-way blog has gone decidedly quiet.
I think you have such amazing new feeatures and etc. But I'm still not sure about the new interface with tiles you showed before. Are you gonna show us more? I cant imagine about how's this related to the new interface.
Now see the second version of my reinspired photoshop of what windows 8 explorer should be, and do you guys notice 4 changes from the original one of the team? Cleaner, glassier, less clutter, gain one more file space in view while windows size is even shorter than the original one.
Here is image:
img64.imageshack.us/…/ribbon002.jpg
Now you just need an easy way to change the color on the control panel, because this blue baby is ugly.
Love the ribbon UI! keep it up guys. Now I have a bit of a suggestion about the snap feature in windows 8. Perhaps you could have a corner snap feature witch will allow you to have a window take up 1/4 of your screen when you drag it into the corner. I tend to need to have more than two windows visible at once, and i find my self manually adjusting a couple of windows in order to fit another into view.
And on the topic of dividing screen real estate, perhaps you can include a add column/row feature into the explorer. This will allow people to have multiple locations open in one explorer window.
E.g. Concept
dl.dropbox.com/…/colume%20UI%20disigne%20basic.png
I figured that the active column could be maid more visible by reducing the alpha of the icons in the inactive panels. As you can see this would be very efficient, and i think it would add a very nice feel to the explorer.
will Explorer 8 still be unable to globally set, say, file views to 'details' and why oh why are they still hiding default file extensions .. lets talk security here… anyone ?
When I click a file (any common type) it should pull up a tab that allows me to work with that file. Pictures can pull a tab from photo gallery, documents; wordpad etc…
When I click a file (any common type) it should pull up a tab that allows me to work with that file. Pictures can pull a tab from photo gallery, documents; wordpad etc…
Hello to all,
i don't know if someone already mentioned it, but why is the button top left called "File" and not "Folder". I mean the entries in that menu is made for folders and not for files, isn't it?
Was I the first one who noticed that?
"Change Paste button to be left of Copy. Usability study says make more common things closer to the left and then it's also in the same place as Office for us that suffer from severe cases of muscle memory. :)"
Big +1 on matching more of the Office ribbon layout/style for consistency (per my expectation that as usual we're not seeing the final interface styling at this stage).
Also, since you've made my two most-used Explorer tasks much easier with this, could you confirm that the option to turn on checkbox select is still there? holding down the Ctrl key for complex multiselect is tiring, unergonomic and errorprone and checkboxes work perfectly
"Change Paste button to be left of Copy. Usability study says make more common things closer to the left and then it's also in the same place as Office for us that suffer from severe cases of muscle memory. :)"
Big +1 on matching more of the Office ribbon layout/style for consistency (per my expectation that as usual we're not seeing the final interface styling at this stage).
Also, since you've made my two most-used Explorer tasks much easier with this, could you confirm that the option to turn on checkbox select is still there? holding down the Ctrl key for complex multiselect is tiring, unergonomic and errorprone and checkboxes work perfectly
"Change Paste button to be left of Copy. Usability study says make more common things closer to the left and then it's also in the same place as Office for us that suffer from severe cases of muscle memory. :)"
Big +1 on matching more of the Office ribbon layout/style for consistency (per my expectation that as usual we're not seeing the final interface styling at this stage).
Also, since you've made my two most-used Explorer tasks much easier with this, could you confirm that the option to turn on checkbox select is still there? holding down the Ctrl key for complex multiselect is tiring, unergonomic and errorprone and checkboxes work perfectly
Are you mad, guys? You want me to browse folders through Word or Excel? Are you kidding? No way, I moving to Ubuntu.
Ribbon will make more people to switch to other OS. The ribbon is the worst thing that MS has come up so far.
Thanks you MS for alienating your users.
Dear Microsoft,
If Windows 8 is meant to be a redesign, from the ground up then I believe your initial paradigm is flawed:
1. Optimize Explorer for file management tasks.
2. Create a streamlined command experience.
3. Respect Explorer’s heritage.
Firstly, Rule #2 should be Rule #1. Furthermore, it should be reworded so that it is not a goal, but a standard.
Something like:
Windows Explorer is a smooth, user friendly way of navigating files at the tip of your fingertips -or-
Windows Explorer allows you full control the files & content of your device
These statements become a DESIGN paradigm that allows standards to be further refined for devices that Windows 8 will be loaded in.
A Table PC THESE DAYS is about smooth flowing windows/avatars/icons that have smooth transitions that are futuristic and, dare I say it, "magical". You cannot ignore 4.7 million users in the other camp – alot of these users are non-technical people who do not want to be exposed to all 200 commands that you can do with a File Manager. Your research already tells you that some buttons are not being used, and yet a significant number of your commands are being invoked by a context sensitive menu!!!
This tells you that users want things done at their finger tips, let alone their mouse pointer/right click.
Wny would you then add significant geographic realestate between where they are positioned and what they have to do?
If I was a young boy wizard, I would be able to command my files by holding my magic wand… not having to drop my wand and go to a large, cluttered ribbon to search for a menu of buttons that MAY do the trick.
You are all forgetting the User Experience from a non-technical point standpoint.
The latest UI for Windows 8 looks superb… on tablets and smartphones, this will be done by fingers. Why on earth then would you be designing interfaces where you must move your hand from one point to another? Has your recent tablet innovation where you a keyboard split for left & right thumb operation not taught you anything about the ergonomics of User Input?
Rule #2 can be about optimising the Explorer commands. Your discussion paints the picture that significant work has been done on this part. This is engineering and it seems to be where you all excel and focus your efforts. But you must marry this with design – design is what makes your competitors more competitive. And in that regard, your Rule #3 should be completely discarded.
Your heritage is to the future users of Tablets and Smart Devices. These are not devices that are going to have menus for people to discover function. The device IS the function, so the choices should be so intuitive that the feature within reach of fingertips – not the ability to translate syntax/context from an icon/button or an arrangement thereof.
IDEA:
The movie, Minority Report has been a landmark film showcasing alot of technology characteristics well before its time. Handswips and gestures being the most memorable.
If Windows 8 is truly going to offer a wonderful Windows experience on a tablet form factor, then the menus should be devised around that hand or index/middle finger/thumb combination.
Open:
Explorer Opens from generic icons for drive/compute/search. I am looking for an Excel spreadsheet. I know where it is.
I hover over the Compure Icon with a Closed pinch action. I expand my fingers and it opens up a Window with predefined folders, My Documents being one of them. I point/press this folder and previously opened windows disappear and full screen shows me the contents of My Documents.
The spreadsheet has sales targets for 5 executives but all are combined in one file. I want to filter each spreadsheet just for 1 executive and save as 5 separate files. I want to send a copy of the master file to my Manager.
Copy: Pointing with my finger on the Excel file icon, I wiggle it. It produces a Circular Menu, colour coded. It doesn't matter whether I release the touch or not, the menu stays. I select COPY from the menu and it produces the second Copy With the File Name ready to Edit (not highlighted).
Send: I point to the file and the same circular menu comes up. It has a Send function which I point to. A fanned menu comes up with an email icon right next to my fingers. I click on it. Done
Rename: I again use the CONTEXT MENu to Copy. A second Ring menu has an option for the number of copies, default to 1. I point to this and swipe up. It increases to 5. I acknowledge by tapping the screen. The menus disappear and the file is copied annotated with a "- 1.xlsx"
I can't even begin to imagine how many ways you could trigger various menus from finger/mouse gestures. But these ideas come from the fact that it is not confined from heritage methods or efficient engineering – it's about designing first from the user experience and how fun it can be to do mundane tasks such as File Management.
Yet again, this is loaded with fail.
Keep trying, it makes you cute, but leave software development to the real coders.
Now, go make a powerpoint of that 😀
The best innovation ever is the the "Up" button. It's annoying not having it in 7. As a power user, I could care less about the ribbon.
Please implement dual-pane viewers. This would be like the ancient, DOS-based XTree. I use the Explorer replacement PowerDesk, which hasn't been updated in a decade or so, simplly because it does a decent job of dual-panes.
As a work-around with Win-7's Windows Explorer, I will often open two instances of WIndows Explorer, This works ok, but is yet another tedious step to do at start-up. Also, it can be difficult and a hassle to keep both visible when I have many windows open.
Thanks for considering this.
Or perhaps I don't know how to get Explorer into dual-mode? Or a good work-around? PEBKAC?
@Mary Branscombe — Hi Mary. Checkboxes still there and enabled by default when there is a pen or touch digitizer and you can turn them on the same way as always.
We need folder size column Please we beg of you
After watching the video, all I can say is I love having features, but I'm never willing to sacrifice screen real estate. The ribbon will probably serve novice computer users well but since I'm a production oriented computer user, I look for the fastest shortest quickest key command to do EVERYTHING. If I have to mouse up to that giant ribbon bar thing, it's already failed for me. I will disable it best I can. And the way he demonstrated the shortcuts of first hitting alt, selecting a bar, then a letter should be called a "long cut". Just using keys doesn't automatically make it a shortcut. It's amazing how poor Microsoft is at UI Design.
Diddo Ravellar Folder size Column in Windows Explorer
DO NOT TRY to create OS both for tablet and PC. There is no way to provide good UX for both of them on one device. Can you see it by yourself in your videos?
Also, I hope this ribbon UI can be turned off to free some RAM and get some speed.
I would love,love, love a folder size column in details view.
To l_d_allan,
http://zabkat.com/
There's a free ware version. Having an extremely complex computer work life, I could not live without it. It does for Explorer what Firefox did for web browsing. Let's hope MS can catch up in a few decades. There is hope, win8 will support iso, something MS recently discovered existed.
@nowuniverse
your version looks really much better.
@Steven Sinofsky
will we ever have more than 16 overlay icons in the Explorer? Install dropbox and TSVN you are in trouble and some overlays are no longer shown. This sucks completely. Increase this limit please to 128.
unbelievable. its like a post on how UI design DOESNT work.
Its way too cluttered, contradictory and complicated. Just because i can see all the options i have doesnt make it any easier to use or understand them. My mum has just about got her head around copy & paste. She would never know which button does what. Those who do will know where to look for it or use shortcuts. 98% of people will get confused and overwhelmed.
Have a read of John Maeda's book "The Laws of Simplicity" or any book on UI design and you will see why this will fail miserably. Do yourself a favour and stick with the Windows 7 one !!
Comments for posts shows that no matter what you do somebody will be dissatisfied. One can observe three basic groups of posters – those who like,dislike and have no direct opiion(don't care that much)
And their ideas are often wholly incompatible.
As far as ribbon goes doesn't look bad and ability to minimize it is present…
Only one of my 3 comments went through (not counting this way). If you (MS team) want to continue this "dialog" or just get all the comments, then this system must be optimized somehow..
So i repeat. I see no "Map as network drive" option as well as "Show system files". Is it hidden somewhere in the Advanced options?
For those bugging about space, you can put favorite buttons into Quick Access Toolbar, put it under the ribbon and then hide the ribbon. Should be another 4+ lines..
seldo.tumblr.com/…/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a
I agree with this guy. By your own research people that like computers DON'T like or use the command bar or the menu. SO WHY MAKE IT BIGGER?! I don't want Windows 8 if I'm forced to use that. Ugh.
Great job you guys! If you were to include tabs and or split views it would be unbeatable.
So your statistics show that 90% of the commands are given using context-menus and keyboard-shortcuts and your "Solution" is to increase the size of menus and buttons that next to no-one is using?
How about removing _everything_ and moving even the address- and search-bars inside title-bar together with just the back – forward – up buttons?
It's amazing that MS can get all of this fantastic data about usage, and so completely misinterpret it.
7 of the top ten commands concern file management and only two are available on the tool bar.
That doesn't mean anyone wants the other 5 on the tool bar! When you are manipulating files, you want the mouse, the selections, the commands, and your attention on the files, NOT THE TOOLBAR … that's why people use the context menu (as the data clearly shows).
So instead, the toolbar is now a command bar, takes up way to much real estate, and is so packed with icons that it is impossible to navigate. A simple menu bar with drop down menus is much better.
It's amazing that MS can get all of this fantastic data about usage, and so completely misinterpret it.
7 of the top ten commands concern file management and only two are available on the tool bar.
That doesn't mean anyone wants the other 5 on the tool bar! When you are manipulating files, you want the mouse, the selections, the commands, and your attention on the files, NOT THE TOOLBAR … that's why people use the context menu (as the data clearly shows).
So instead, the toolbar is now a command bar, takes up way to much real estate, and is so packed with icons that it is impossible to navigate. A simple menu bar with drop down menus is much better.
2011 and ribbons are still a bad idea.
@Steven – Are you seriously going to ignore every comment and only answer to Mary Branscombe because she's a journo?
Way to make it mega complicated. Far out.
Also, and this is really simple: default to a list view with the file properties showing. Look how much time people spend drilling down to file properties. Answer: show the file properties.
@thenonhacker
Good job with the color change you've made on the ribbon.
For those who have not seen the change:
– Before: http://i.imgur.com/UNhTM.png
– After: http://i.imgur.com/jflXZ.png
What I would do additionally:
– Make the scroll bar stand out less, making it smoother looking and lighter in color (maybe add a touch of transparency to it as well).
– Take away the bluish glow on top of the window all together, making the whole explorer window in a smooth consistent color.
– Update/change the icon set used to more streamlined. For example change the big red 'delete sign' to a trash can image. Don't go for the icon set from Windows XP though. 🙂
– Start changing the 'old ribbon style' to Metro look.
Basically, (imo) the new 'Ribbon Explorer' should change its look from present 'Office 2007' type to a blend of 'Office 2010 + Metro' look, with more emphasis on Metro elements (consistency of icons and buttons in Windows throughout the GUI should be taken into account).
Get some designers from Office 2010 and Metro UI to bring some ideas to the table. And, hopefully, let the programmers make it possible to implement an easy way to personalize/colorize/customize the UI as well (the more the better).
Office 2010 showed that ribbon can be attractive (a definite improvement in looks in my eyes). The ribbon used in Windows 8 could be or a ‘revision v3’, bringing even more to the table design & functionality wise.
As for touch orientation approach:
– The top of the ribbon (tabs etc.) could be horizontally scrollable for easier reach if needed (for example on tablets). Just like one have scrollable widgets on a mobile platform. Dolphin Browser HD (http://www.dolphin-browser.com ) also has some handy features related to working with touch interface on a limited size screen.
– I hardly imagine a person managing hundreds of files on a touch surface (most likely it would be a 10” tablet). Tablet would need a more compact/basic explorer. ‘Scalable interface’ to a degree could help here too I guess. I think ES File Explorer (http://www.estrongs.com/…/es-file-explorer.html) is a good example of pretty efficient design. In no way it is ideal; however one can easily do all the things necessary on a small device with a 4” screen size.
– That is, I would imagine some form of ‘light/full’ mode switch could be implemented into Explorer ribbon to switch between a full blown customizable desktop version, and a very light and basic ‘tablet’ version which would be touch friendly and have only the most available features at hand (maybe with a possibility to swipe for example to the right on the ‘navigation panel’ which would lead to more options/bottoms exposed).
– The UI of a ‘full’ Explorer view could have the same Metro Style as a ‘tablet view’ and as a ‘compact view’ when the ribbon is just minimized.
‘Ribbon bashers’ please be more productive and bring valuable content to the table. Also, try to stay open and honest with yourselves.
Please, tell me, how on Earth is a boring looking outdated classic menu in Office 2003 can be more user friendly or faster to work with than ribbon in Office 2010, taken into account that every single bottom can be placed in it where you want it to be, with every single tab having your chosen name/position etc. You could literally create a ‘main tab’(s) with ‘tool tabs’ that you use specifically for a particular task/work or just on daily basis (that would otherwise be all over the classic menu) and hide the rest of the stuff completely. That is – all the functions you use will be right there always staring at you or be maximum one click away.
Ribbon can be just as good for the Explorer as it is for Office 2010, of course one need to optimize it and shape it taking other considerations into account (such as overall GUI of the OS, Metro UI etc.). That’s what people are trying to do here.
And yes, one more thing – please stop leaving in a cave. 🙂
If you are happy with the way your room/flat or house look like – well, leave it as it is. If you are happy with Windows XP more then you are with Windows 7 – maybe you should just stay with XP? If you do want to change something then most likely there will be some learning curve weather you want it or not (unless you are quite good with intuitive knowing).
I bet I could show any person using Windows XP how I could do the same thing at least as efficient or better/faster/easier in Windows 7 in about 90% of all the possible tasks at hand. Of course there will be tons of things that are simply not possible with XP in the same time. Just give a try to some educational video (such as ‘Windows 7 Essential Training’ from Lynda.com) and I bet you would be at least curious to do a switch (again, don’t fix if it is not broken for you – nobody is pushing you anywhere).
Read the reviews and look around – it is no coincidence that Windows 7 is considered by most (who actually used it) – the best ever OS created by Microsoft. Of course it is nowhere near perfect.
We all hope Windows 8 will be near perfect. Right now it is not the best time to understand why and how Windows 7 is better than Windows XP, it is time to help making the successor of Windows 7 to shape in the best possible way, bringing all the best from the past versions of OS, improving everything that is possible and slamming some new eye candy onto it (and all this while taking into account overall IT evolution, new form factors, cloud computing etc.).
Keep this in mind and please, stay on topic. 🙂
Win 8 Team
Do you find this ribbon explorer attractive and .. delightful ??
@steven please think about the ribbon structure of office 2010.. dont save it for windows 9!!
I just want to ask, "Does this new GUI play well in portrait mode?"
I am in the same boat as @Chikn. At home I have two PCs with two 22" widescreen monitors each. At the office my workstation has three 24" widescreen monitors. All of my monitors are standing on end in portrait mode. 1200 X 1920 resolution. I have found this to be extremely useful for every situation except video playback. I get to use more of my screen when viewing webpages, file documents etc. When I use my tablet pc I usually keep it in portrait mode as well.
I would like to make a request on behalf of us portrait mode users. In some future version of windows could you please make it easier to snap a window to the top and bottom half of a screen? With windows 7 you can press Start – Right or Left arrow to snap the windows to the left and right of the screen. However when you press Start – Up or Down arrow it will maximize restore or minimize. I think snap up/down would be nice. Even if it is similar to the current Start – Shift – Up or Down Arrow commands. Perhaps Start – Ctrl- Up or Down Arrow to snap to top and bottom. I don’t know. You are the pros I just want to make the request.
Just found the perfect description what would help me a ton to work faster with Explorer from Kyle R.:
-> The uselessness of the preview panel. 99% of the time it's just taking up tons of space while offering the helpful 'No preview available' message. This leaves 'normal' users operating files in a tiny space where they are constantly horizontally and vertically scrolling. Many of the users I run into at work that have this pane open have a tiny space to actually see the file list, and just leave it that way because 'they don't know how it got there' anyway.
While I would LOVE for W8 to implement the superior OSX style preview with the 'spacebar' key where you actually get a large preview when requested that provides the ability to display and read though almost everything imaginable, I know there is about zero percent chance of that happening. At least hide the small useless preview pane automatically if it can't do anything with the file. OSX's file management is terrible on just about every count, but there is no denying that the preview program is amazing. <-
Additionally please finally preview those damn files that everyone as a designer or programmer needs, like OS X does out of the box: PSD, PDF, AI, PS – PHP, HTML, CSS, …!
And also backup/index every file properly – just because you don't know a file extension doesn't mean that you shouldn't include them in full text in Windows Search and Windows Backup!
And yes, I would LOVE for W8 to implement the superior OSX style preview with the 'spacebar' key where you actually get a large preview when requested that provides the ability to display and read though almost everything imaginable. There is no better way to do it – preview pane is just what it is – PAIN!
If I open Home commands in ribbon, it should be possible to go to Share, and to View without clicking a mouse just by mouse overing them.
This is the biggest mistake of the ribbon in Office, that you need to click on each one of the ribbon groups headings.
To Kjell who wrote “2011 and ribbons are still a bad idea.”
Criticism is fine, but pointing out flaws without a solution is just crying
AMAZING! can't wait for Windows 8
Not to be pessimistic but I really hope there is a way to turn off the file explorer ribbons for power users, that looks like a terrible mess that I'll never use.
Although Ribbon is quite controversial feature, I like it, especially after seeing the video.
BUT – please fix the file search feature! It's almost unusable slow, even on a fast computer with Core-i7 and SSD. I use for file search Total Commander (it's faster even without using Windows indexing!) and in most cases I can find the requested file faster either using TC, or by remembering, where it was 🙂
It's crucial to support partial file name search, even part in the middle of the file name, AND fast search in file content – I got for example very large Visual Studio project and I'm looking for all source files containing "MyFileSortHelper".
Fix file search and I'm gonna buy Windows 8 Ultimate for sure 🙂 … after testing it in beta of course 😉
really?, using space for thing's that th users do really fast with keyboard shortcuts?, ¿why!?…
really don't know what stuff to make windows 8 more interesting? :/?
I was hoping for something far more sophisticated in terms of folderand file management – the word ‘Explorer’ suggests something more exciting than a list of folders and files – we should have a 3D layered folder inspection and management system with a way to group and manipulate folders or files that is revolutionary which considerably speeds up workflow – looks like most of your developers are just sticking to the normal boring stuff and you will rely on a simple touch based interface ‘add on’ to justify selling the next version, am I wrong? prove it!
Great job you guys! If you were to include tabs and or split views it would be unbeatable.
I would personally thank each and everyone of you if there were a folder size colomn
A lot of these suggestions are sound, especially the improved Ribbon concepts. (Make it more like Office RIbbon 2010!!)
Also, I agree with those who want options for portfolio view improvements. Their reasoning makes a lot of sense, and Aero Snap could use some improvements for newer form factors/ edge cases. And the Start Menu could use some improvements too, orientation-wise and functionality wise.
I'm sorry but no. That is not good. I dislike all of my ribbons I'm sorry. I hide all of them because they waste space and make everything too cluttered. It reminds me back in the day when there was no control of toolbars on IE and there was just a MESS of crappy tool bars all over the place. this is going in the wrong direction in terms of minimalism and simpleness.
if you want a point of interest check out google chrome and how they have their menus. simple, sleek, clean and very easy to use.
A collumn with folder size would complete my windows explorer experience! Please put this feature in, Please.
Wow, that is a great work 🙂 I'm happy with that. Thank you 🙂
A UI with full of buttons and texts only makes users panic. It's too complicating.
Horrible redesign
The Ribbon is a total deal-breaker for me. I'd rather go back to Windows 1.0, which I used and liked. More realistically, rather than use Ribbons all day long, I'll stick with Win7 and Office 2003, and accelerate the migration of my business to GNU/Linux and Libre Office.
The Ribbon is a non-feature that nobody asked for. It wastes space, wastes mouse clicks. It's inflexible, awkward and just plain bad ergonomic design. Way to insult your most devoted users, Microsoft! If you're trying to make yourselves irrelevant, you're going about it the right way.
@Affan — but the thing about Google Chrome is that it barely has /any/ features beyond standard browsing operations. It it had the extensibility of Firefox, the interface would get cluttered quick with buttons, toolbars, and what not. You can of course clean it up by customizing though.
Now, the thing about Ribbon is that is works for applications with a lot of tasks, features, and "commands". There really isn't a need to "clean-up", just customize the selection. That's why Office works well, that's why Wordpad and Paint look a bit awkward with Ribbon (or maybe that's just 2007 Ribbon and not 2010 Ribbon). And the customization comes with the QAT.
Minimal and simple do not mean the same thing; minimalism isn't the goal — its to expose the functionality of the program with little to no effort by the user. VIM can be the most "minimal" application, but it is by no means simple; it has more capabilities than any other text editor I know (sans Emacs — that thing is an operating system in its own right…). Unfortunately, the features are not easily discoverable unless you are actively seeking out how to use the editor. This is what HCI-oriented people call "affordance" — secure.wikimedia.org/…/Affordance
Ribbon offers a lot of affordance — exposure to previously hidden features that are features for a good reason.
Course, the interface could be cleaned up and prettied up here and there. But that's why the blog post was made, to gather comments and suggestions. right? I just hope its not too late to implement improvements…. Aero and Ribbon icons are a bit funky (simply because of the style Aero was designed it — the color scheme is jarring) — but it can work.
And yes, bring the Office 2010 UI and Metro UI teams to gather together and brainstorm on how to make the existing functionality have a look and feel it deserves. Don't get me wrong, I like it — but it can be so much more.
I like how the XP would automatically expand/open a folder when you clicked on it through the left pane navitgation. I would navigate the folder structure from that left menu. can that come back in Win8?
Excuse the caps please but I just want to say one thing
NO RIBBON
NO RIBBON
NO RIBBON
Bill Gates – please come back and save your company! The ribbon is worse than TB!
Excuse the caps please but I just want to say one thing
NO RIBBON
NO RIBBON
NO RIBBON
Bill Gates – please come back and save your company! The ribbon is worse than TB!
PLEASE Please please, what ever you do, GET RID OF FULL ROW SELECT! This is one of the most inane features implemented in Windows 7. Based on your own research more than half of all commands originate from the right click context menu. However the context menu changes when clicked on white space in explorer than when clicked on a file. So, if there is Full Row Select and a pane full of files, guess what?? There is no white space to right click on anymore! There is absolutely no benefit to full row select.
Awesome post. It’s really nice to see you’re putting some thought into what your users are doing and customizing the interface to their needs. However, I’ve got to say: that Ribbon has got to be the ugliest UI I have ever seen. It’s too big, too busy, too just about everything.
There‘s a reason Apple’s OSs are running away with the show, guys: it’s called SIMPLICITY.
Yes, as "bug finder" mentioned. Please dont make me find "white space" anymore, please.
The article and most comments here address primarily "cosmetic" issues. I am far more interested in usability issues. If Explorer is supposed to be a file management tool, why do I need a separate utility to check for duplicate files, another one to manage space and figure out which file/folders are "space hogs", another one to find empty folders, another one to compare files / folders and another one to undertake bulk re-names….etc. etc. Should not a file management tool offer those capabilities?
The ribbon in office and other usages needs a "focus follows mouse" option. The toolbar's had a "click / hold focus follows mouse / action on release" type behavior. I, and many, would love to have that same (or similar) behavior with the Ribbons (both in Office and Win 8). As it stands now, with the Ribbon, it seems all a user does is endlessly click, click, clickity-click….
… on my brothers's Mac … its the "click / hold focus follows mouse / action on release" mode for everything — it gives the user the impression of ease of use.
Some suggestions:
Make the explorer tabbed as IE9 (It is Chrome you should copy)
Make sure you can snap tabs to both side if the window and perform actions between them (copy,move,compare etc)
Sort on file extension is a must have!
Provide shortcut for everything.
Add an advanced multi rename feature.
Add WebDav
Make it small and fast.
Preview Pane is useless the way it is implemented now. make it separate window and make it fast. Now it is just takes up space. COME ON!! 90% of the time it is empty. 10% It does not adapt to the content. It is on the side when I open a landscape image the image shows up tiny,space wasted, If it is an mp3 or video player is landscape so waste space. Just make it separate and give it a shortcut for toggle.
Fix the search.It is useless the way it works now. I use TC every time I need to find something. Works 10x better.
Hire the guy who made Total Commander and put him in charge. I mean it is 2011 and since I first started to use PC in theearly 90's I had to use third party file managers like DosCommander and TotalCommander I just dont believe that you cant put together one that is remotely decent. (That's ranting but I am so fed up with Windows Explorer it is so slow to use that is unbelievable )
You can have your ribbon as long as you can hide it completely and you can remove the button that puts it back so you dont click it accidentally . Because just seeing that clutter is a pain.
Oh yes and only show touch features when the user use a touch based computer. No I do not want to see huge buttons and tiles on my desktop. EVER!
I really do miss Windows 3.11 File Manager. It was just perfect and when I see what we will be able to do with explorer on a more advanced level, more it looks like a huge cycle coming back to file manager. Looking forward to the first betas!
This is really bad. Too mutch complex.
letmebingthatforyou.com
can i please have the option to STOP Windows telling me every time i do a search to turn on "indexing" ?
i don`t want to turn on indexing
Gizmodo – The News Windows 8 Explorer Looks Like a Mess
gizmodo.com/…/th-new-windows-8-explorer-ui-looks-like-a-mess
Doesn't take a genius to see that if you guys go through with this the media are going to treat it like another Vista, and with that the success of 8 will be non-existent.
Bduaaaack, ni al case con su winows 8. WTF!
Some stuff.
I see that the ribbons are collapsible just like it is in Office. For me that would be just fine, I barely use menu items and like I do in Office I would have my favorite commands in the tittle bar.
I actually use Windows Explorer for most file operations but sometimes I use Free commander or MuCommander for large file operations. That is the main issue with Windows Explorer.
Sometimes moving a whole directory takes just too much time, half of it wasted on Windows "counting" the files, there changes are needed. Also a function to make explorer show "folder size" and "items in folder".
Also there is another important issue in explorer, the Preview Panel, you must give more options. For instance, I have codecs for .flv files installed, but explorer would not use them or not will show the preview. Give the ability to do plugins for it without using 3rd party tools (in x64 it is more troublesome).
And Finally my biggest complain. Separate the Desktop, the Super Bar and the Explorer Windows in different process. Sometimes, for several reason a computer fails doing file operations resulting in the user being unable to use the start menu, the desktop items or the explorer Windows.
I like the up button idea, but it is kinda redundant having the breadcrumbs, maybe in those the current directory should be marked more clearly or in bold.
The new Windows Explorer interface its very ugly, everything you need is on the right click.
Suggestions:
Although an improvement over Windows 7, the advanced search experience still appears to be lacking. I suspect that hunting through ribbon menus to select from a limited set of search options will not be a fun experience. I want to be able to easily customize my searches (e.g. for a specific date range or data only in file contents) without having to memorize and type the advanced query syntax or use the awkward and unpredictable "search filters" that appear in the drop-down menu.
Surprisingly, I find the Windows 2000 search interface to be much easier to use than Vista's or 7's. All of the common search parameters are located in one column, and you can define specific search parameters (e.g. a date range). A column also makes good use of screen real estate on widescreen monitors. With a bit of polish, I think a Windows 2000-inspired advanced search interface would be a great enhancement.
On another topic, I don't know how customizable the quick access toolbar will be, but it would be nice if we could add separators, adjust the icon size, and maybe support text next to the icons. Then it would be just as customizable as XP.
Other Comments:
Thank you for bringing back some of the useful features that were removed in Vista (customization, a more informative status bar, the "up" button, and even titles in the title bar).
The ribbon interface also appears to be a well designed solution to the numerous commands of Explorer. It may not be perfect for everyone in all situations, but the ability to minimize it and use keyboard or quick access commands should make it more palatable.
Haha what a joke. You have no clue what UI is.
Since Windows 3.11, (with the exception of 95 and 98), through XP, Vista and 7, I have been using the NT4.0 file manager and more recently the 3rd party tweaked version called FMNT32 which retains all of the features of Winfile NT 4.0 plus adds the ability of a user to make their own configurable "right-click" dropdown menu. Additionally, FMNT32 gives the user dialog windows which are big enough to use without having to use a slider to bring stuff back into view. The very fact that Winfile keeps and remembers the last directories that were open in its multiple windows (only limited by screen real estate) when it is closed and reopened later is reason enough to use it. Speaking of real estate, I see that the proposed explorer screen with the horrible ribbon is going to "increase" the number of files viewable from 22 to 24. You have got to be kidding me. I'm running 1280×800 on my 15.4" laptop, and display 38 files on ONE Winfile pane, and I have TWO panes, for 2 drives, which means 76 files. If I was running the "out-of-the-box" 768 pixels vertically, I would loose two files in each pane, for 36 files in one pane or 72 in two panes. This is my "beater" laptop, and most higher end 15" laptops are now running WSXGA+ (1680×1050), which would give a user at least 65 files viewable in each pane.
One feature of Winfile, which is very important for an IT when working on any PC is the confirmation dialogue when moving or copying files which prevents an errant finger-slip-off-the-mouse operation from moving and dropping a file who-knows-where on the PC (with disastrous results). Another REALLY NICE feature is the ability to collapse a desired directory tree AND all of its roots merely by double clicking on the root of the directory you want to collapse instead of having to individually collapse every expanded tree. Winfile preserves screen real estate without a bunch of worthless fluff AND provides more information at the same time. When I want to see a file size, I want to see it to the EXACT number of bytes (as Winfile does), not a rounded off KB or MB size like Explorer. This is a very important piece of information when it comes to verifying the validity of a file when checking for infected variations.
I use Winfile for 98% of my file manipulations; I only use Explorer when I want to see thumbnails. If Microsoft had merely taken the good old Winfile when they released Windows 95 and added right click plus the new "good" features of Explorer, they would have had a lot more user support than when they released Explorer, the "file-manager-for-sally-secretary." It would be nice (but probably too much to expect) if Microsoft actually listened to both my suggestions and those of other users of their products instead of wasting time in "Focus Groups," which vaguely remind me of Dilbert and the pointy-haired boss.
Well it must be so easy for home using but i dont think the ribbon be very usefull…
any way thanks for this wondering news. 🙂
I've never liked the ribbon UI and I have no use whatsoever for a touch interface. The more I see of Windows 8, the less I like it.
One more +1 for PowerShell in context menu. Also I think this option worth placing not only in context menu, but also in the toolbar. It very useful and will look great 🙂
"I would probably say that nothing is "obvious" from the comments."
Well Steven, you are right on that one.
————–
I would say however, that functions not commonly accessed should be tucked away – menus are pretty good at that, and you can merge commands and menus into a single neo-toolbar (that Vista and Seven Explorers had) or, even better, you can use a click to execute command – left click to show menu toolbar that WMP 11 (in Vista) had.
The key problem with ribbon, I believe, is that it looks cluttered, it tries to present many (near all) the commands/options and is really good for word processing apps (WordPad in W7 is miraculous) but doesn't fare well for other types of apps (Paint is quite difficult to understand and Movie Maker is a disaster – but then MM always was a …).
————————————————————
You can make Ribbon worth of users’ time (and space) however, by putting in some more functions (that is why I suggested Advanced search, Batch rename, etc).
But showing multiple (not just two) folders _at the same time_ is what can really give value to Explorer (and Win8); as I said: "if a certain other OS' file manager can do it, so can Explorer" (especially, given that you have already copied the "folder tree pane" layout from them).
(Apparently, filters ate my previous comment – but I shall persevere, ahem, repost.)
colocar o ribbon no explorer ficou ridiculo.
não gostei
I recently bought a new laptop with Windows 7. My old one had XP and I have to say that I prefer the Explorer UI in XP. The ribbon approach in Win 8 looks horrible. My biggest complaint about Win 7 is that I have to use Windows Live Mail and I absolutely loathe the ribbon in it. I wish I could go back to Outlook Express which to me is still the best email application ever made.
Unlike many "power" users who believe that managing files are all about the files themselves, and managing them, I believe that most of the common users of Windows view their files as CONTENT, and how to get to it (or share it). That folder of pictures isn't simply a location on a drive with image files in it, it is their captured visual memories that they wish to share. The .docx file is their master's thesis, or their shopping list. The files themselves hold no intrinsic value to the majority of users. It's the content held within that 'file'. Opening the basic interface of Windows (i.e. Explorer) to focus more on getting to (viewing, reading, etc.) the content rather than file management will allow users to focus their time on what they want. I do however understand that large populations of users still need to manage files for a variety of purposes and this needs to be accessible as possible. The ribbon is great for the management side, and can offer some benefits to the content seekers too with a comprehensive set of context and content aware tools that really unify them both.
I would like to see built-in content previews for commonly used file types such as DOCX, AVI, PDF, mp3, etc. Perhaps use metrics to determine most commonly used file types and use those as a base for inclusion, with options for Windows Store downloads for more types (such as PSD, AI, RAW, etc.)
This video has been floating around for quite some time and I am sure you have seen it at some point, but I would like to put it out there as a base of how I think Aero and Metro could be fused into something grand. The interface and animations are what I am looking for in a 'modern' UI. Including a metro-ized ribbon in there would complete the whole UX. http://www.vimeo.com/4255076
What you are not implementing Metro UI? What are you affraid of? !!!
Can't survive windows file management tasks without Total Commander… ex: view last line from a 500GB file, switch between ASCII and binary/hex view, compare huge files (bin and ascii), zip/rar/gz/etc, batch renames, files merges, splits, CRC checks, compare 2 dirs contents, bookmark folders, wilcard files select/deselect, powerful search (by filesize, date modified, contents w/ regex, etc. … without counting the tons of features you can add through plugins…. explorer is no go for me… it's still a joke no matter how colorful the toolbar is :p
+1 on PowerShell option in the file menu
Dear Windows Team.
I've seen your work about Windows Explorer Ribbon.
I would like to show you a concept that I've made, that shows basically, that the Windows 8 Explorer can use the Ribbon, but with a sleek design.
Please take a look here:
http://www.moquo.com.ar/…/Windows8ExplorerConcept.jpg
Thanks for viewing my concept.
Do not hesitate contacting me if you have any doubts.
Best regards,
D.B.
Hahahahaha!!! ROFL!!!
This is the worst user interface I have ever seen!!!!
I was going to add my take, but scrolling to the bottom of the page to get to this dialog box made me too tired to do so.
Instead, see the following:
Microsoft 'ribbonizes' Windows 8 file manager – Computerworld http://jstnfrd.com/rkfMMA
I would like to be able to set the level of files displayed, system, hidden, in the explorer independent of the folder options system setting and NOT folder dependent.
I would like to be able to set the level of files displayed, system, hidden, in the explorer independent of the folder options system setting and NOT folder dependent.
About the Ribbon layout, one thing I feel that MS doesn't seem to take into account is the years of habit formed by the many years of repeated Windows and app use. Take the Dvorak keyboard layout as a prime example, if you look at the info and stats about it, it clearly should be the layout of choice over Qwerty, but there's user habit and an entire industry built around Qwerty that make it near impossible to permanently switch. The same really applies to the Ribbon interface – even if it is the theoretical ideal interface that every OS and app should be using, there are many years of habit that counter the use and practicality of the Ribbon interface, and as a result, make it somewhat counter-intuitive for experienced users in practice. I’m an IT pro, and I learned Office 97 inside out, and I still need to refer to web searches and other sources, like Office Help, to locate and work with features in almost every app in Office 2010…
while windows 8 will be used with tablets and touch should be intuitive and useful; laptops, netbooks, and desktops are NOT going away any time soon. windows 8 and the explorer need to address both user paradigms with equal success.
What is this "Microsoft Windows" people keep talking about?
Do they specialize in glass?
I want you to add my documents and my pictures online (cloud) in windows explorer using the msn account.
And improve the performance of windows using the cache in all processing tasks, storing processing in some way already done previously when the program has already been opened, so the program could be opened 50% faster, could even improve the boot overall system windows.
ass: herbert misson
when i see "cut" and "delete" on the same ribbon, which do I use? is there a difference? is cutting a file different than deleting a file? hmmmmm?????
What I really like to see is a functionality like "click there it is"
We often also work with file open and file close dialog boxes.
Very often you navigate to a folder you are working on is already open in an explorer window. there should be a click (right, or ctrl- enabled) to make that path the active open directory in the file open dialog
Nice trolling there Theta.
Stay Classy. 😉
Have you ever considered allowing wildcards into the "address" bar of explorer? It would be very useful especially for very large folders where I want to see the *.txt files or the *.doc. Search just isn't the same or as simple. I knowit would be difficult to expose this feature, but it would be great.
@LudoMatico aka, David Bianco, It's amazing how much better your simple rendering looks and how much less space it wastes compared to the ribbon UI. Now that is how you make a clean modern UI. Very nice.
http://www.moquo.com.ar/…/Windows8ExplorerConcept.jpg
@LudoMatico aka, David Bianco, It's amazing how much better your simple rendering looks and how much less space it wastes compared to the ribbon UI. Now that is how you make a clean modern UI. Very nice.
http://www.moquo.com.ar/…/Windows8ExplorerConcept.jpg
Why did you forget to include a screenshot of Explorer in Windows 98? That was the most useful UI for Explorer for a very long time. Now with addition of many extra features its "not enough", but the concept is still the best. Simple and easy = win.
Regarding Win8, I was never a fan of the Ribbons but at least it’s still better then Win7' Explorer. My biggest annoyance is the wasted space and the need to switch tabs. I much prefer a lot of small buttons all on one tab. Like many people have mentioned, Office ribbons are not intuitive, and it is now hard to find options which were "right there" before. Luckily custom QAT seems like a winner for me.
Windows Search is finally "fixed", hooorray! But please return "proper" file size info, which was the MOST annoying removal of a "component" in Windows… ever..
And today's PC should be able to open more then 15 text files, why doesnt Windows let you?!?!?!
Just another reason why I won't upgrade to win8
Watching my *mom* using a PC I see that the problem lies much deeper than Windows Explorer usability. She does not have a concept of file system. She does not understand what the C: drive is and where the desktop fits in. The Save As / Open popups confuse her since she has no idea where she is at any given moment (and how can she be in *multiple* places at the same time — in each of the open windows!). All her actions are TOTALLY based on *spatial* thinking. "My Pictures" are here on the right. "Downloads" are here on the left. The concept of *nested* folders is difficult for her — she can "open" a nested folder by double-clicking it, but she does not think she _enters_ it like I do — again, no concept of current location. What's even more confusing is that some apps like Photo Gallery provide an alternative way to organize/browse THE SAME UNDERLYING FILE SYSTEM making it even more confusing.
It is very frustrating to watch her struggle, but I don't think it's *only* her fault. I think the problem is mixing the Desktop-With-Documents (=open windows) paradigm with the concept of Location (=current directory in each of those open windows). This is like playing Portal2 where you can be at several places at once. Instead, Windows UI should focus more on exploiting spatial thinking, were the user is ALWAYS located at a place, with a set of rules, and surrounding objects (file / content / programs) etc. This is one of the biggest reasons I like iPhone UI. You are always SOMEWHERE.
About the prevalence of widescreen… I think you need some new designs and usability test for taskbar being vertically on the sides (left or right) instead of on the bottom.
With widescreen displays, I find it that I need more vertical space (the same inch widescreen display has less pixels than the standard one), so I move it to the left side. And since you can't fit too many icons in the taskbar, I make them small. It works, but I think it can be improved aesthetics- and usability-wide.
When I first heard rumors about a ribbon in Windows Explorer, I honestly thought it was a joke. Alas, it wasn't. I am a huge fan of the ribbon in applications like Office, where it was badly needed. But Windows Explorer does not need it, it needs to be simple and streamlined. Windows Vista/7 was the right direction, but Windows 8 looks ready to destroy all that. It is simply way too top-heavy.
But I imagine you will be implementing it no matter what, so here are some things that need to be fixed to at least make it worth the extra space:
– You seriously need to add extensibility. This would be a major selling point of having a ribbon. I like the earlier example of TurtoiseSVN or similar providing a contextual tab. This would save the context menu from growing longer and longer. Having proper extensibility would be a huge bonus and for me would make worth the space waste.
– The current design is hideous, though hopefully that is just temporary. At least, use the new Office 2010-style ribbon (and that goes for all of Windows). And the address bar looks kind of homeless at its present location. But I hope that the whole of Windows is getting a Metro makeover, and hopefully this would be able to lighten up this ribbon UI.
I hate the ribbon. Especially on a laptop with a limited vertical resolution!
IMHO Explorer has increasingly become bloatware. Unlike zvolkov's Mum I understand what a file system is. Perhaps its time there were 2 explorers – one aimed at professionals and another aimed at occasional users.
@LudoMatico aka, David Bianco:
http://www.moquo.com.ar/…/Windows8ExplorerConcept.jpg
Oh holy crap god damn WOW! That is a very beautiful design concept!
I agree; I like Ribbon, but I very much think that Metro UI's simplicity (and cleanliness) is a good way to mix it all. This is a WONDERFUL user interface mix that puts together the best of Ribbon and Metro UI.
However, it discards many Aero UI concepts…
Though, I do not see the loss of mixing all three VERY successful UIs into a homogenous environment:
Ribbon + Metro UI + Aero. I think no one would mind more buttons in the concept if done right.
It really is that Ribbon+Aero is a bit jarring; the Aero icons don't mix well with a non-glossy UI. I think LudoMatico has the right idea, and I would NOT mind more buttons/ "commands" in that concept. It's just so much more beautiful.
Microsoft — don't skimp out on the money to hire and commission new designers; I know it took a long while to finalize the Aero UI icons and concepts, but the users here are calling for a Metro/Ribbon/Aero mixture, and in order to work well, many of the Aero conventions would have to be forsaken.
Imagine a Metro UI-ified Start Menu. THAT is what I'm talking about. Defined edges and beautiful typography and defined icons. That's it.
I like Ribbon. I very much like Metro UI. If the trade off means letting Aero slip away, I very much would pay a premium for it. (I never did like Aero as much anyway…)
I like the Ribbon. It's so modern!
(Obvious disclosure: I work for Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS)).
In the previous comments there's a ton of arguments already for including Windows PowerShell as well as Windows PowerShell ISE on par with the legacy Command Prompt. So please just count my +1 for both of these suggestions.
And if you need to save space, it's looks perfectly fine for me to throw away the explicit “…as Administrator” option. Provided that the Start-Menu-and-Taskbar trick from Windows 7 with holding Ctrl+Shift would work with regular Windows Explorer File Menu options here.
Anyway, thanks for blogging. That's awesome.
Can you fix the group rename? I would like to select a group of files and rename them as a sequence (like MyFile-###.jpg) without having Explorer change the order. Also it would be nice to be able to have leading zeros so that order is preserved. See ACDSee Photo Manager for how file rename should be done.
this is perhaps one of the best examples how things can go horribly wrong when engineers are given the task of designing ui – it results in well-known disease known as 'distorted engineers reality'….
1. first symptom is engineers will completely misinterpret their own data: e.g. while data shows that people use/need 10 commands 90% of the time the engineer 'logically' figures 'we must find a way to stuff other 190 commands nobody uses down everyone's throat'…
witness this excerpt from delusional mind:
' This data is pretty interesting…. {it} shows us that people overwhelmingly use Explorer for core file management tasks – the top 7 commands (72.2% of usage) are all for managing/manipulating files'
Wow – Who would have thought of that: File Manager being primarily used for file management tasks! Amazing!
However, distorted engineer's reality can not tolerate that: 'we gotta get those users to use all useless stuff we put in over the years and 'respect (our) legacy'!'
2. second symptom: being engineers (i.e. not having the slightest idea how to design ui) they pick up something they saw somewhere else ('no need to design, phew, thank god!') but it was probably some time ago (witness dated office 2007 design all over)
3. third symptom: they take whatever old stuff they find and stuff it in most bizarre way imaginable: witness 'File' on ribbon – if you thought a File Manager's file-manipulation commands should be on File tab you're mistaken – File actually has nothing to do with files as delusional engineer's mind will 'logically' conclude that e.g. to copy a file one should go to Home! Why? Because that is 'the heart'! (quote: 'The Home tab is the heart of our new, much more streamlined Explorer experience.') To expect people to 'streamline' their minds and equate File with Home can only happen in a delusional engineer's mind – we should be lucky at least they didn't call it Heart tab…
4. fourth and most important symptom: engineers affected with distorted reality syndrome are prone to misinterpreting the very goal of the product they are assigned to work on: this project is obviously no longer about making file-related tasks easy: it's now only about finding most efficient way to stuff as many commands as possible down everyone's throat – witness this excerpt which demonstates in painful clarity sick obsession with those '200' commands:
'with our new approach, all of the approximately 200 commands in the ribbon now have keyboard shortcuts as well. (Note that we haven’t finalized the exact number of commands in the ribbon yet. It will likely end up between 198 and 203 when we’re done.)'
oh, it's approximately 200 but it may be anywhere between 198 and 203….?
delusional engineer's mind has lost track of end-goal and just sees numbers in his distorted reality….
so, what to do?
fortunately, the cure for 'distorted engineers reality' disease is well-known although a bit harsh on the patient:
1. remove engineers from the task they simply can not complete (design stuff) and put them on task they do well (engineer stuff) – it hurts their pride in short-term but helps their health tremendously in long-term
2. bring designer/ui-expert in and let _him_ look at telemetry data and make conclusions & specs for ui
3. remove manager-engineer for being affected with same disease (witness: 'how else can you stuff 200 commands but with ribbon?' comments) and get business-manager in place (sadly they are prone to other diseases but at least they listen to feedback a bit more than engineers – especially when told that their shiny new product is going to be extremely uncool and, actually, becoming a subject of jokes….)
@WndSks
2: explorer.exe /separate,c:yourpath
This lets me start explorer in another process, but not as another user. What I read previously indicates running two copies of explorer as two different users is currently not allowed.
How the ribbon control should look:
http://www.moquo.com.ar/…/Windows8ExplorerConcept.jpg
If you're insisting on a ribbon control than don't make it so freaking huge!!
I like the ribbon interface. I would like to see added the option to have dual view (i.e. like Xplorer X2 or have the multi-tabs like IE explorer. There are some folders that I go to often which would be nice to have as a permanent tab.
BTW, I'm fully with Jason from the Office team (above). Especially on (1) allowing us to opt-out from the ridiculous “Up” button and (2) providing the way for 3rd party plug-ins. (Hint: the latter could also help with the highly popular PowerShell demand, so you basically killed two birds here).
Despite my initial dislike, I can see the rationale behind the Ribbon. It is good for a variety of uses, if feels a bit alien compared to the usual menus. However, in ESSENCE it is still a tabbed toolbar, only with bigger icons. It is no coincidence that toolbars were almost always customizable since who knows how long. (Word 2.0, maybe?)
Do you want to know why people say the Ribbon in Explorer looks cluttered? I think it is because, although it might fit your average user's needs according to the telemetry (should such a user exist anyway), most of us have needs that are somewhat different.
I, for one would start customization by throwing that HUGE "Delete" button far-far away, especially if I enable the otherwise welcome "No popup on moving to Recycle Bin" option. Its mere presence distracts me, because I am worried about accidentally clicking it without even noticing. I would also move some things to the first tab, and others which I don't often use to the back.
Naturally, you need to provide a good default UX to the people who never bother (or just not computer-savvy enough) to change anything. But offering the ability to change I think is essential.
In that regard, I feel Win8 Explorer is a step in a very bad direction. Not only does it seem to lack any customization for the Ribbon, you just admitted that you will also offer no way of third parties to change this. Why?? Just leave some back door open through XML, DLLs or who cares what, and let the community pick up the slack, if there is really no other option. (Which would be sad.)
Also: Hooray for the "Up" button. If it would be, heaven forbid, also on a customizable toolbar, the naysayers could also get rid of it quickly. 😉
Just a question, maybe in MS you are yet receiving 4:3 screens?
Why are you insisting soooo much in waste my vertical space??? Yes I can turn it on my desktop TFT (ugly trick), but not in my laptop! I don't need neither in Office nor in explorer a tool bar and a status bar eating 25% of my vertical space. If you keep doing this,
What for next version? Only one line for my information and the rest for ridiculous tool bars (and even more, non-customizables).???
You're kidding, right? This will immediately be followed by multiple third party interfaces to "fix" this horrible design.
I won't use it, i'll continue tu use right clic and keyboard, make the possibility to disable this enormous bar.
Cool story, bro. Epic win doze.
hopefully, the inconsistent keyboard navigation between folders and libraries will be fixed. (e.g. navigating from the selected folder/library in the left tree view to it's content in the right pane by using the tab-key is different)
so far windows 8 done a good job of windows explorer and file managment . when can we see windows media player and internet explorer 10 here on the blog. looking forward to see more features on windows 8.
I don't care where or how BIG the copy and paste buttons are….I'm still going to use ctrl +c and ctrl+v
@ Microsoft Windows 8 Engineering Team,
Adding more layers to Windows Explorer look is the ultimate rubbish. Until Windows 7, it is still unstable, very heavy and doesn’t cope well with multi process handling. I love Office 2010 and its sophisticated interface (the best Office Suite by far) because it’s really good. But when it comes to the Explorer, who gives a damn if there will be an option of “Setting as desktop background”. Does this even work for classic view (non-fancy Aero)? Or for files that are associated with other programs (e.g. Photoshop)? What if the file has no extension at all, what options will be available?
I’m a system architect and a big fan of Windows as the ultimate desktop environment for power users. I understand that the ribbon will make it easier to the average end users to deal with their OS, but Windows 8 is supposed to be lighter, faster, not resource hungry.
All the best – you guys rock!
@ Microsoft Windows 8 Engineering Team,
Adding more layers to Windows Explorer look is the ultimate rubbish. Until Windows 7, it is still unstable, very heavy and doesn’t cope well with multi process handling. I love Office 2010 and its sophisticated interface (the best Office Suite by far) because it’s really good. But when it comes to the Explorer, who gives a damn if there will be an option of “Setting as desktop background”. Does this even work for classic view (non-fancy Aero)? Or for files that are associated with other programs (e.g. Photoshop)? What if the file has no extension at all, what options will be available?
I’m a system architect and a big fan of Windows as the ultimate desktop environment for power users. I understand that the ribbon will make it easier to the average end users to deal with their OS, but Windows 8 is supposed to be lighter, faster, not resource hungry.
All the best – you guys rock!
I think this new ribbon makes sense for less technical people, but forcing it on them first hand seems a bit too much.
You should try educating the user, not forcing a million controls on them.
Suggestion: Hide all the controls and put it into a simple "Controls" button which shows the ribbon upon clicking it.
When the user goes to Explorer the first time, let them know what this "Controls" button is, and what they can do with it. Once they become familiar with "THIS = OPTIONS", it will make sense.
Of course, it has to be more polished to make sense, but that's my general idea to solve the problem.
As a power user, I prefer a minimal UI with little to no controls. Everything I do is with keyboard commands. The only button I really click in Explorer is the "View Type" (List, Details,. Thumbs) and I also heavily use the Address bar to jump between Folder hierarchy.
Is it touch friendly? Doubt it…
My thoughts:
1) Redesign it metro style. Thought i like the current look, it's rubbish compared to Metro style. If you can't figure out how, just ask the guys who designed WP7, Zune, new X360 dashboard, or even your own new start screen. It shoudn't be hard to find at least some of them around. Or the guy who drew the concept few post above. Whatever it takes.
Or at least unify it…still seeing old forward/back buttons, while IE9 has new and much better looking ones (as with metro style design in a whole) is like punch in a face…
2) How about a row of big icons, scrollable to sides, that would appear if desired (click/touch on an arrow?)? With categories as are now. That could make it touch friendly, yet powerfull.
3) And don't want an ipad or even even android tablet (the horror!), but if windows 8 throws away the opportunity of being at least remotely touch friendly, it will leave me no choice… Have you tried using windows 7 with touch? I did. On 22" screen. It's nearly impossible. This doesn't seem to be much of a difference. Now to imagine 10" tablet…it doesn't end with new start screen…come on, i have faith in you!
4) please keep the current style start menu as an option for desktop workstations
5) keep up the good work and effort (and throw awy the bad work)
All of this looks promising and I'm glad to see file management getting some of the care and attention it deserves. It is a fundamental, defining feature of the OS; I suspect that only window management is more widely used by most people.
But what about where these two fundamental areas intersect? What about the very common scenario where the user's high level task concerns two different but related folders? For instance: to understand the differences and similarities between two related sets of files, and perhaps to act upon these (to selectively reconcile the differences?)
This is a file management task, but now window management gets in the way, because the user needs to open a second window, and most people seem to use the various switching mechanisms (alt-tab, taskbar…) to alternate between views. Of course it's more cognitively effective to open both folders in a tiled view (this favours our powerful visual processing circuitry over our very limited short term memory), but that requires even more fiddling with window management to make them tessellate cleanly. Aero Snap helps a lot here, but only if you're willing to sacrifice a whole monitor to two windows. If you can't do this, or especially if you need to reposition your carefully tiled windows, it's a LOT of work.
I spell all of this out because I believe there is a near-perfect design solution to all of the above problems: a standard window splitter, almost exactly as used in Word in Excel (drag to manually split, double click to split 50:50). This introduces some minor complexities around the state of the ribbon and navigation controls (ie, depending on which of the split panes has focus), but it dramatically increases overall file management effectiveness for two reasons:
1 – It makes powerful visual comparisons EASIER than constrained temporal comparisons.
2 – Most of the window management overhead simply disappears from the task.
It seems like such an obvious thing that I can't understand why it's not there already. Several other people above me in this thread are asking for it too, and have pointed out that plenty of 3rd party file managers survive simply by providing this feature in some form and practically nothing else.
Is a splitter deemed too esoteric for Explorer? The fact that Word and Excel both include one seems suggests otherwise. If hardcore power-user features like "Command Prompt Here" are being included then surely this much safer and less intimidating feature deserves a look-in too?
@Sinofsky
Wow – look at what LudoMatico made.
http://www.moquo.com.ar/…/Windows8ExplorerConcept.jpg
Props to you. Very Metro, keeps a slight bit of the transparent look. Not HUGE. Uses bands of color (could even be just a darker grey) to separate content. Metro really, REALLY benefits from drop shadowing, to give it depth and separate layers.
The content areas and breadcrumb bar still need to be metroized, but still the concept is great.
It is coming to the point that you will have to admit failure on some of these UI changes – we obviously need to be thinking about streamlining this into a new interface, more closely along the lines of @DanielM2 concept drawing, because if you don't – this will fail. You should put a dedicated team together to deal with a very important UI challenge – you cannot let this go out the door!
Will we ever see Tabbed browsing in Explorer?
One thing I have noticed about a lot of the really great iPad apps, the ones people always rave about, is that they are so darn close to Metro UI.
Examples: Flipboard, Twitter, CNN
They are not perfect examples, offen just because of corner rounding and a different font. However, all three of those apps would look so hot on a windows tablet with Metro. Twitter's which uses a layered pane approach in particular. Again, the clever use of drop shadow to give a sense of depth. Darken, or slightly blur the bottom layers and you're there.
Overall, I like the new Explorer UI. Some people will not go for it but I think many will.
Could you elaborate as to why you aren't allowing third party apps to at least plug into an Addins tab? My context menu is cluttered with various third party apps and an extra tab for these would be very nice.
Ribbon looks about 5 years out of date – makes me think office 2007.
Although I know that it is in Microsoft's nature to use their investments, i.e. the ribbon in this case, but I find that it just does not suit the scenario for explorer, it makes it way too complex to manage files, and as people have said the ribbons icon size consistency and layouts always makes a user feel that it's too cluttered and they're bombarded with features.
The problem with the ribbon is, for non-savvy users, they quickly become tired everytime they look at a ribbon tab, they need to scan through all those options and it is tiring to scan.
I know that the only accurate tool for you guys is data, but data is giving you quite a black and white view of what users want only, but not how they would feel with the interaction of the UI, and how options are presented to them.
I often find that the problem with a lot of people upgrading to the next version of Office, is being reluctant in adopting the Ribbon, they are so scared of it, because they find it so confusing, and all over the place.
Out of personal preference, I really dislike this new explorer changes, but I know that anything that we all say will not make a big difference to the stance you guys are going to take on this, as it's probably fairly locked down the decision to use ribbon.
How long before this ribbon thing goes away? Didn't we just get rid of that stupid paper clip / dog animation and now we get a screen robber ribbon. I understand there is a minimize thing but please make this one of those features that can be turned off via the turn features on/off section on the control panel. I've had switch back to my old office version and won't be upgrading to PTC Creo or the new AutoCAD because of the ribbon. Are you all trying to drive me to Solaris (Slow-laris)? When are you going to start calling the taskbar the dock?
Oh and one other thing:
I want to know what size a folder is. It is not that difficult. Tell me what size the folders are in the same window you tell me what size files are, please.
Metro styled windows explorer.
Less cluttered, chromeless, more space for content and tabbed browsing:
i1182.photobucket.com/…/Winexplorerconcept.jpg
Well actually – any big changes and you will probably mess it up, stick to the status quo – the office ribbon is fairly good, I do appreciate the Windows experience has to be across a large user base well done on looking at improvements so far.
Well actually – any big changes and you will probably mess it up, stick to the status quo – the office ribbon is fairly good, I do appreciate the Windows experience has to be across a large user base well done on looking at improvements so far.
@Jason MSFT
"…you proved it could actually use LESS screen real estate than the old version!"
You congratulated them on 'proving' that they did it with using 'less' space, but their example is misleading and frankly a lie.
This is an excerpt from one of my massive posts above:
_____________________________________________________________________________
"The Windows 7 example is shown to only have 22 items compared to the ‘improved’ 24 items of Windows 8, but the 7 version is using the large size for the detail pane at the bottom (with the new Windows 8 details pane conveniently hidden from the side).
img683.imageshack.us/…/22itemswindows7largedet.jpg
By simply switching to the smaller detail’s option (or resizing it to any size you want) you can show about 25 items in the same window, while keeping all horizontal space available – which is incredibly useful when you need every inch comparing two folders with aero snap.
img51.imageshack.us/…/25itemswindows7smalldet.jpg
Furthermore you can even hide the details pane under ‘organize’ to see 5 more items than the example putting it to 27 items. (Note: the Windows 8 example doesn’t show the details pane on the side to see how much space is taking up).
img585.imageshack.us/…/27itemswindows7detailsp.jpg
(Cue cheesy announcer voice) But, that’s not all! The library view of Windows 7 includes a header [sic: called the 'library pane' as I found out later] explaining that you are looking at a library and not just a folder, which the Windows 8 example curiously doesn’t show. If you simply open the actual documents folder [sic: or go to 'organize' -> 'layout' and uncheck 'library pane'] you get the same view as the example used in Windows 8. By doing so and keeping the details pane closed – as so to looks similar to the Windows 8 example – we get 30 items viewable in the current Windows 7 UI!
img17.imageshack.us/…/30itemswindows7detailsp.jpg
This comes out to a 36% increase in space compared to the way Windows 7 is shown in this example and 25% increase over the ‘improved’ Windows 8 example, while looking much cleaner and less cluttered.
Now I’m not accusing anyone on the team of trying to maliciously misguide with these examples but I do think it shows another example of mistaken assumptions. A quick look at the example provided can lead to the conclusion, that “wow, yeah even with this clunky top menu I guess I can see more!” but this is an incorrect misconception. Not only are you seeing less [than you would with a smaller UI], but UI elements have unnecessarily been added or moved effectively diminishing the intended positive effect. Obviously if the ribbon can be hidden completely then the sparse remaining UI will have more space than with it open, but to suggest that the open ribbon menu actually saves space is a down right lie."
@Jason MSFT
Silly truncated links. In order:
1. img683.imageshack.us/…/22itemswindows7largedet.jpg
2. img51.imageshack.us/…/25itemswindows7smalldet.jpg
3. img585.imageshack.us/…/27itemswindows7detailsp.jpg
4. img17.imageshack.us/…/30itemswindows7detailsp.jpg
Good, but why don't you let a plugin to create a NEW RIBBON TAB?
In this case, you don't have to worry about backwards compatibility since the new commands are on an independent space.
For example, I use WinRar contextual menu a lot, and it has a set of submenu that could get a lot in terms of usability and option with an entire tab dedicated.
What about plugins that add only one command? You could always allow to add them on the far left of the ribbon, in this case you don't need to worry about compatibility, again. Many of them are available only with certain file types.
Also, please let the "up" button be removable, people who want it just don't get that they can click on the address bar and browse easily and just click that many time when they could just click on the "root". It takes precious pixels from the address bar.
Another thing I found tedious is that Windows 7 doesn't set automatically every "picture" folder like the one I set for the picture library, I have a big screen and I want big thumbnail to better see what they are, often when I check my picture from the flash card of my camera.
Also, great job with copy and paste TO, I have I script to add those on the right click every time I install the OS.
What an abomination.
I didn't think Microsoft could do worse than the MSOffice 2007-2010 interface, but you have outdone yourself.
The more I think about it, the more I feel ribbon is a step backwards rather than a step forwards. Ribbon is a cluttered and complicate design interface. It does not fit in with Metro. I don't think power users alone with use the "desktop" and the rest will move to the immersive UI, and for non-power users most of them won't even know what half the buttons in the ribbon do. The Win 7 explorer was a step in the right direction, towards a more minimalist and simplistic UI. Win 8 should take the explorer towards an IE9 type look. For Office it makes sense, because there are a million things one can do in Office. But for explorer, it is a very basic utility. I don't see why we need such a complicated UI to do the ~10 tasks which everyone does. For those who use more advanced features are techy enough that they can figure things out themselves.
This is the greatest improvement I have ever seen. Thank you Microsoft for continually improving Windows and making the product better with every release. The toolbar is fantastic and makes my life a lot easier (I admit there was an adjustment period, but I get stuck in my ways!). Keep up the good work, it affect so many people lives every day!
Yes but is it built with XAML? 🙂
– Do we really need the two address and search bars just like IE8, when everyone knows that Chromes unified address/search is better?
– No extensibility to plug custom commands into ribbon is a big downer. I am expecting this to come in SP1.
– Its all very well making a better UI but what about the internals? The threading issues/hanging are very common with explorer.exe (in fact I would say one of its defining characteristics!). What has been done to stop explorer hanging at the first sign of network latency? Please tell me someone has looked at this – explorer has had very crappy threading for a decade now.
– Things like Copy Path and Past Shortcut are going to confuse the parents during tech support. In some ways I worry the numerous number of commands will be a bit overwhelming for parent tech support. A simplified command set would be appreciated for newbies/older folks.
Otherwise, looks good. I like the admin command prompt!
Siegler is a very poor journalist, but in this case he is right. I hope Windows team can change the Ribbon mess.
techcrunch.com/…/we-need-an-invert-selection-button
This is my final suggestion (link below) for "windows 8" explorer:))
Hope the teams will success like Windows 7!!!!
img192.imageshack.us/…/ribboncompare.jpg
Just as I was getting excited about Windows 8, this post poured cold water all over. Ribbon could have been simpler than simply shoving bunch and bunch and bunch and more bunch of icons and text. Hoping to look forward to simpler defaults and customizable ribbons for others.
Note:I am sure there are good designers out there… Are you willing to adopt change in thought?
Ugly, my screen is wide screen, which means I will have a smaller "main screen", wasted in some useless menu bar
I am sincerely glad I switched to Mac at home.
As for my Client Deployment in the infrastructure I am supporting, I will do everything necessary to make sure Windows8 will never set its rotten foot there!
I'm curious to know why people are saying that the ribbon UI looks "complicated". All the buttons are in plain English and are ALL self explanatory.
copy, paste, move to, copy to, new item, new folder, delete, rename…
Actually yes. This all does look very hard to grasp. Perhaps I will have to look up what "delete" and "copy" does before I push anything.
*End sarcasm*
Personally I think that you people are severely underestimating peoples intelligence, to the point of being insulting to the human race. If you disagree and you still think it's "to complicated" please. What am i missing? What's so complicated about it? How are people going to be confused?
Glad to see M$ pushing the envelope…
This is my final suggestion (link below) for "windows 8" explorer:))
Hope the teams will success like Windows 7!!!!
img192.imageshack.us/…/ribboncompare.jpg
Just get rid of libraries!! It is an organized pc user's nightmare. If you can't find files on your computer, that's what the search function is for. Libraries is an extra step of navigation we don't need when managing our files, for every software application on our computer.
img192.imageshack.us/…/ribboncompare.jpg
The biggest flaw and frustration in File Explorer is the inability to continue a file copying/moving process after encounter a corrupted file. This is where teracopy come in to fill up the gap. File Explorer functionality has been degrading after Windows 3.1!
@DanielM2 – I have five comments on this post already and also have had my questions gone unanswered. I think there's a lot of emotion (and some not very constructive) so I'm just reading and taking in the comments as is the team.
The Ribbons are awful!!! Too be honest I don't think it's necessary to put those ribbons there… most users only use right clicks and copy and paste and delete and go back, that's it! don't disappoint me windows 8
@Jason MSFT, @BucksterMcgee:
No matter how you look at it, WinXP wins: http://tinyurl.com/3gzawt7
Granted, XP seems to have less padding around each item so it will fit more of them but the pixel area is also larger.
Even if you minimize the ribbon, XP still wins: http://tinyurl.com/3f2yhsh
This, aesthetically, looks terrible. Sorry, it's true.
I like the introduction of the ribbon UI to Windows 8, it will greatly improve touch device use. With that said I don't like how this was executed, the ribbon in these screenshots feels extremely clutter and it makes me feel like i'm in a productivity application.
One of the main tasks I use is constantly switching between views which didn't make it into the "80%" threshold and is now so to speak buried in the View ribbon.
More importantly the ribbon UI to this point has surfaced mostly in productivity applications such as Office, by doing this your now blurring the line between the two. Get 10 random people, open Word 2010 and a Folder in Windows 8 spin them around for 30 seconds then have them point to the Folder in under one second.
For this to work well I think the explorer ribbons need to be significantly simplified, sometimes less is more.
@Bawitdaba1337 on Twitter
It is emotional because we take ownership of our systems (a big benefit of Windows), there are high expectations from technically passionate users and we really want you to do well with the next version. I have found the ribbon a welcome enhancement in Office to improve ‘document creation’ and I think the ribbon can help a broad range of users to uncover those ‘hidden gems’ and discover new ways of working within Explorer, there has also been some anticipation and confusion if the Metro philosophy will carry across into these sections? Should be noted in the screenshots above ‘customized QAT with a minimized ribbon’, which allows the ability to customize the view comprehensively.
Would you do us a favor and give us a compatibility list of stuff that is off the shelf – not to mention the most impoortant question, will it run on devices off the shelf today? Thank you.
huh…really? how is it better? I would rather it has nothing, since I always right click anyway.
wow, this is cluttered, really really cluttered. by the time i have figured out what i wanted to do from that "ribbon," my workday would be long gone.
why don't you guys understand we need the simplest screen for explorer. can't work with so many things. same thing happen with IE, but now IE is going on correct path
I hope this is a joke. If it's real, this ver of windows will sell more MACs than any Apple commercial.
This is definitely headed in the wrong direction. Balmer needs to go; along with anyone involved in this ribbon design.
The "ribbon" drove me away from MS office. Now it looks like the Ribbon will drive me to a MAC. Would someone at MS please wake up?
Please stop with this ridiculous ribbon. It's too big, too busy and too hard to find things in it.
Awfully beefed up :@ UGLY; I think i'll go for a mac now me :/
Great job windows 8 team. Don’t listen to those negative comments. At least now we have a ribbon on windows 8 explorer. Windows 7 and the rest have the same old explorer. Don’t you guys ever get tired of seen the same explorer. Get over it and move on. Windows explorer with ribbon is an excellent idea.
Short: Put "Copy To"/"Move To" in the context menu
Long:
The only operation (apart from viewing/executing files) in explorer is "copy to" and "move to". To do that I currently I have to do this: http://www.howtogeek.com/…/add-copy-to-move-to-on-windows-vista-right-click-menu
I'm not a big fan of the ribbon UI. It's too busy imo. There is too much to process when trying to action something.
On the other hand if i can do everything off the contect menu, that makes me a happy bunny 🙂 Since that is unlikely all i request is that copy to and move to be in the context menu.
Can you add back in the ability to group my favorites into folders like I was able to in XP? In XP I could use my Internet Explorer to save not just web links but file links and could navigate my file system from the File Explorer much like Vista and Win7's favorites by show the favorites pane… only thing is now in Win7 I cannot group them into folders.
Sorry everyone, I just didn't have time to read the whole thread (so I might have missed someone's similar observation) but the screen shots of the walk down memory lane of all the old explorers left out a few iterations of Windows – ME & Vista!! The idiot love children of the WE experience.
Bring back QDOS…that's what I say
that's good future, but i can't make any relation to ribbon toolbars.
i use ms office 2003 just for this problem yet.
Get over with old windows explorer. xp is history. Windows explorer with ribbon is the future.
This is a supreme design. I'm proud that I'm a PC!
When Mac OS was developed it hadn't a blog like this, they were making the GUI as they imagine. There were folks which didn't like the new design and some which liked it. By time get passed THEY GET USED TO IT. The same think is going to happed with Windows 8. Comon guys, XP is OLD, menus are OLD, this is NEW, this is HIGH QUALITY STUFF HERE! Thank you MS for your great effort of making this newly improvements and don't be offensed by the negative comments (maybe Mac users???) which want a SKIN OF THE D**C CHROMISH MAC DESIGN WITH TWO BUTTONS: ON AND OFF. I wish you only the best and keep up the good work!
Useful and popular in 2011: lightweight, chromeless interfaces that embrace the data upon which they operate (e.g. documents, videos, images.).
What Microsoft is showcasing: a chock-full of chrome devoted to shuffling binary blobs around a hierarchy, reassured by telemetry data.
This blog should be showcasing major conceptual leaps in how Windows 8 will change computing. Instead, it features bizarre complications of old ideas.
– the gray caption text will *never* be read by users. It's just an attempt to rationalize the clutter.
– there are THREE separate ways of navigating up: clicking Libraries on the left, clicking the Library breadcrumb, and clicking the up button.
– wouldn't the small "paste shortcut" functionality be subsumed by the large "paste" button to its left?
Files are a soon to be dead concept from an end-user point of view. They aren't now but they will be. Some of us already get it. So is the idea of hierarchical categorization of information and information retrieval. Also, the fact that you have an icon with "C:…" means you are out of touch with the end user. That was legacy.
BTW, I remember being a power user back in the DOS 3.0 days (I was in high school). So I respect the whole legacy thing but you have to let it go. I have switched to Mac OS and IOS for my personal devices but at work most of us still have PC's on XP.
Looks stupid. too many menus crowding eveything up. /fail microsoft
oh yes – TABS, for heaven's sake. Just looking at my system now I have 6 explorer sessions running.
Mini concept with R-button for full ribbon style, on the bottom of the window.
skydrive.live.com
My biggest issue when going from WinXP to Win7 is the lack of some PowerToys features that I often utilize:
– shortcut target menu (very useful for me and very frustrating when I don't have it)
– sent to X (especially "Any folder" dialog)
– command prompt here
– TweakUI (yes, there are many 3rd party programs having similar capabilities, but why not put such panel "officially" in the Control Panel – even if buried into some power user-only sub-sub-sub-section)
Additionally I would like
– player/resizer for images/sound/video/text/etc. in the Explorer sidebar (thumbnail view of selected file + relevant controls) and as thumbnail over Windows Taskbar (e.g. for Media Player minimized window)
– Windows Explorer for Media Center – a way for me to browse the whole filesystem from within Media Center (by remote control and 10ft UI), to be capable of standard explorer "right click" on each file/folder (thus cut/copy/paste/rename/open with/etc.), not to be restricted by file-types detected by Music/Video/Pictures/Movies Media Center libraries (e.g. when I'm browsing "videos" I want to be able to see also the "pictures" located in the same folder).
Suggestion for improved breadcrum/ addressbar visual cues:
So, Firefox and Chrome now have domain highlighting. Windows's Address Bar/ Breadcrum navigation should have *current folder* highlighting. (And I personally would find it useful if the current drive and "home folder" — the documents and settings folder — can have a visual cue too. But I don't know how to pull this off…)
My reasoning is here:
So, what the Explorer-folder pane on the right of Windows Explorer and Breadcrums provided was a hierarchical navigation tool. Where you are in respect to everything. The breadcrum is just a fancy address bar that is the absolute path of the folder.
One reason for needing the UP button is because these did not provide an "easy" (/ similar paradigm) relative navigational tool. I wanted to work my way back up from where I am (relative navigation — the ".." in Unix), not with respect to everything else (absolute navigation — the "/" in Unix).
Now, breadcrums only sort-of solved this problem. Some people were able to adapt and not find the breadcrum hindering/ jarring from relative to absolute navigation; they might have (assumption here) been able to directly look at the end of the breadcrum and navigate in respects to that.
For people like me — that bar has always been the address bar. Click it? I see the full path. To people like me — breadcrum = fancy address path. When I use it for relative navigation — I have to unravel the path to my current path, and then connect what I am manipulating to it. If I had to draw a visual-tracing map of how I unraveled the breadcrum, it would go — C->Documents->Folder… *looks back down at file to manipulate* — oh, so my file is apart of "Folder" — and then I gain the relative situation from that. I hope you can see how something like this is jarring…
That is actually the problem with Explorer-folder pane too — to a greater extent. Where is <something> with respect to <current expanded folder> amongst <hierarchy of folders> ? Amended by both the up button and breadcrums — thank you UI/ Explorer team 🙂
Now, to band-aid the breadcrum solution (where the up-button would be better, but Microsoft isn't removing something that works pretty well for its situation): we need a visual cue of the current directory. The analogy is domain highlighting is to browsers as <current directory visual cue> is to Explorer. However, I am just a user; Microsoft UI/ Explorer teams, you tell me — should the current directory be "highlighted" or should it be somewhere else, like the current drive or something?
So yeah, that is my request: *Address bar current directory highlighting.* I hope the Windows 8 team will consider it. Thanks for you time, and I hope my logic is clear to you guys and my point easy to get through 🙂
Keep up the good work!
Please tell me it is easy to disable the ribbon, as long as we can see the folder tree and files, as long as we can right-click for context menus, as long as F2, F3, F4, CTRL-X, CTRL-C, CTRL-V still work, I'd rather not give up my working area to the ribbon.
If it isn't easily disabled, I can see a big business in Explorer alternatives!
SEE MY CONCEPT!!!
img192.imageshack.us/…/ribboncompare.jpg
It would be great if native support for SkyDrive is added (browse or at least as an option integrated in Share functionality), I tried using some workarounds with Win7, but came up disappointed.
Ribbon is grate, and for those who don't want to use it, preferring keyboard shortcuts, there is always hide option.
Keep up the good work 🙂
You will never be Apple… this is unbelievable bad UX
I hope the next version of Internet Explorer will be presented with the ribbon style.
… english speaker. (comment sys be good…)
Dynamism, Steven S. Ribbon on Windows Explorer 8 is a big mistake. Read the comments. You and your team must accept it. No room for telemetry data driven. You and your team must find a new way to bring us an innovative, simple, clear and powerful user experience. That is what W8 means. Ribbon is outdated. It's awful. Personally I find it useless. You have the resources. Use them right.
PS. It's clear that 54,5% (context menu use) + 32,2% (shortcut use) is NOT equals to "I want a ribbon bar that takes useful content space." I'm right?
would be nice to have the most common operations also next to the mouse cursor after selecting a file. similar to the menu that pops up in ms word when highlighting some text.
btw: a richter paint (like paint.net), a richer notepad (like notepad2 and/or notepad++), and a richter calculator (like microsoft mathematics) will be helpful.
Ok, it's official – this page has the most instances of "Power User" ever! i write this for persian language people in my blog. tortak.com/…/%D8%A8%D9%87%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%AF-%D8%A7%DA%A9%D8%B3%D9%BE%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%B1-%D9%88%DB%8C%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B2-8.html
I mean: "Am i right?".
Anyway, waiting for BUILD. Cheers.
Please do not be discouraged by my long list or passion. UI is my thing. What I see above is a good step towards making this a useful UI again instead of something that slows people down. Additional things I would like to see:
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) Please, please, please add some best fit smarts into this. On my gigantic 2560 x 1600 monitor the very last thing I want to see is giant wide empty columns right next to cramped tiny columns with cut off content. WTF! Life is short, I do not have the time to waste manually making columns show stuff they need to show over and over and over and freaking over again. Please. Fix this. I will personally fly up and take you to Dixie's BBQ if you do.
6) In a similar vein, please, I have a huge monitor, it is OK to default to a large size. Please add settings for me to PERMANENTLY MAKE USE OF MY LARGE MONITOR. If some retarded video card installer makes the screen small but then big again … mmm thats right, freaking restore my large layouts. The only time you remember tiny layouts is if I actually MANUALLY make something small, and then only for the life of that one window.
7) If you allow me to "remember" which folders were open across machine restart or user logouts, please have the common decency to remember the ORDER they were in. It is beyond stupid that I have to close them all down and then reopen them in the order I want each time the machine shuts down. Or, and here's an idea, let me reorder them within the taskbar list.
8) In your jump lists, the reason I pin something is so I can get to it fast. Do not put it beyond the 15 recently used items. It needs to be right there near where I clicked, not half the screen away. Obey Fitts's law please.
9) Search: why am I searching? True, sometimes I am looking for files by name or size or date or all the stuff you make easy. BUT SOMETIMES I LOOK FOR TEXT INSIDE A FILE. Why is it so blitheringly stupid hard that even an experienced programmer has difficulty getting your search to go inside a text file. Please, just assume that an unknown extension is text, or allow me to get at the magic list of blessed text files. Regedit? Really? The current situation is not even wrong.
10) As sure as god made little green apples you better be revamping the file and especially the folder picker dialogs to match this. If I bothered to add folders for quick access to the navigation pane they need to be showing up here as well. There better be all kinds of smarts in how they remember where I picked last time. My blood boils every time the stupid folder dialog decides to go to some dumb default spot even though I just spent 30 seconds of my life telling it where I want it to be using its tiny and completely stunted UI.
In general, please go through all your UI and kill any dialog that is not 1) resizeable, 2) unable to remember the giant size I made it, 3) contains tiny 3 line high "scroll lists" for 4 to 100's of items.
Cluttered, feels complicated, old look
Oh yeah, and while the "Set as desktop background" button is kool, it would be nice to give some love to "Add to Desktop background slideshow" as well. It really sucks having to go fix that since you then have to … ack … pick a folder.
You are trying to use enought space that is no required
I love it. Keep it up!
It's too much! It's way to cluttered. You need to stick to the basics. This is information overload and I think you should at most make it optional, but definitely not the default layout.
Make it more simple!
hello,
thank you Steven for this insightful blog. I would like to share some ideas about the Windows Explorer and the problem when we run out of Space on our HDD´s and especially the small SSD´s.
In Windows Explorer many of my customers find it very hard to investigate which files and folders use much probably to much Space on there harddisk. Sometimes you have to open the property´s of many Folders to get an idea where your free space got lost. Sometimes this job takes minutes.
I found a perfect little freeware tool that does this job in seconds, http://www.rotebetasoftware.net/…/folder-size
I think it would be great to see a similar feature in the windows explorer to measure your used space in seconds and see the result in an graphical diagram.
thank you and have a great day
david
Not a fan of he ribbon I'm afraid. I just gauged opinion in my office and it was very much a negative reaction. But then maybe it's because we've been doing this so long and prefer the old methods. I think XP was probably the most successful OS in terms of longevity, maybe ask yourselves why.
I still use Office 2003 because I hate the Ribbon in 2007 and 2010. I would argue that it takes me MORE time to locate functions and do work within 2007 & 2010 than 2003. If you are going to introduce this controversial feature, at least give users the option to go back to a menu based system. Ribbons are probably good for touch screens, but if you are still using a keyboard and mouse like me, I feel menus are better.
To avoid unnecessary comments please add an image full screen with windows explorer ribbon hidden. This will better show the effectiveness of the new interface. Thank you.
Seriously?
The whole ribbon stuff is already annoying in Office and now Windows will get it as well? Oh dear, there better be an easy way to get rid of it. I don't really feel like occupying 1/3 of the screen with toolbars and the like.
Why don't you make it simpler instead of cramming even more stuff into the toolbar?
The improvements look good overall. There are always going to be arguments over the ribbon making its debut in Windows Explorer but it shows that there is a now a level of consistency and approach across all the major UI touch points in the operating system such that we haven't seen since Windows XP.
Now for my two quick suggestions concerning folder sizes:
– Recyle Bin, please return the simple ability to see the total size of files/folders currently in the Recycle Bin. This was there in Windows XP, was reduced in Vista and totally removed in Windows 7 for no good reason.
– Simirlarly, the most glaringly obvious missing feature from Windows Explorer is to simply see the size of a folder in an Explorer view without having to right-click and select Properties on every one.
What's revealed in this post looks very promising, indeed.
Still, I have some feature requests (which may need to be activated as advanced options):
1) Synchronisation: A synchronisation tab, to synchronize two folders, along with an options panel that allows you to choose whether to keep only the files in the source directory (i.e., to delete files in the target directory that do not exist in the source directory anymore), etc. – cf., e.g., FreeCommander's synchronisation functionality.
2) Closely related to request #1, I'd personally prefer if I could display two directories (including directory trees, if wanted) in a single explorer window instead of opening 2 explorer windows and using Win + left/right (which occupies the entire screen, not only the part I commonly reserve for explorer). This would make it much easier to compare, say, files stored on internal and external devices. (Again, please cf. FreeCommander or Total Commander's functionality)
Maybe this option should only be activated when you go to the suggested Synchronisation tab of the ribbon interface, so that basic users aren’t confused too much.
3) Sequential copying: Allowing a user to pause a copy process in order to increase overall copy speed is a great thing (as was presented in another post before). However, I'd love to see an additional option in that dialogue which allows to automatically pause all new copy commands, so that they are resolved sequentially one after the other by default.
Thanks for listening, and all the best for the development process!
this is so simple and intuitive, my grandmother could use.
i think its a great start, curious to see where its going in the future and how its integrated in the metro paradigm cause to be honest i seems somewhat out of place in a metro design interface
@Steven Sinofsky and Windows Team
In my opinion you're doing a great job! I love the Ribbons and the customizable QAT in the Explorer. Please, go on! There are so many advantages and no real disadvantage in the Ribbon system.
"Minimize the Ribbon" and the fully customizable QAT should solve ALL possible problems which could come with the Ribbon system.
You will never satisfy the Ribbon haters, no matter what you try. Haters will hate forever, but normal users will just love the great opportunities offered by the Ribbons and the fully customizable QAT.
Ribbons and the customizable QAT will improve the whole explorer experience: the usability, the functionality and the customizability. This Windows 8 Explorer shown here is the best Windows Explorer ever! (Yes, even better than XP Explorer!)
Everybody will be happy, apart from some incorrigible Ribbon haters.
Thumbs up for your awesome work! You make a lot of people very happy!
@"Wasted space": Minimize the Ribbons and put the QAT to the title bar. There is not wasted space. The opposite is true: If you put your QAT to the title bar, the QAT uses unused space. So this is the opposite of "wasted space".
@"I want to use my keyboard shortcuts": Use your shortcuts just like today. You can minimize the Ribbons if you want to.
@"I want the buttons the way I'm used to": Use the fully customizable QAT. Put your buttons to the QAT the way you like it and you're used to.
@"I want a slimline design": Minimize the Ribbons and put the QAT to the title bar. It's as slim as the Vista/Seven Explorer.
@"I don't wanna use Ribbons, because I just hate Ribbons": Minimize the Ribbons and don't use them. Use QAT and keyboard shortcuts.
So there is no real problem.
I agree with what BucksterMcgee said. Completely.
And there are also hundreds of suggestions at http://aerotaskforce.com/ and http://www.windows7taskforce.com (by Long Zheng) already.
Windows Team, please take a look at it. Please fix the top-voted issues first, right away and include them with Windows 8.
All bugs left, we can wait until "Windows 9" (v7.0). Thank you.
The ribbon should be more metro i think that the icons should be smaller and direct the text of course clean but not to large. The commands should take up one row because that's how small they should be. The icons should be like 48 x 48 like the icons like in WP7 the icons in the circles but without the circles. Icons could either be at the bottom or at the side but i think they should be at the bottom like usual. The categories just below the tabs just like in the Zune UI. selecting one category shows just that and not the whole tab . This gives one more space and allows less drop down menus and allows nearly everything to be shown at once for that category. It at the same time allows one to do things in more clicks but also doing things in lesser clicks. The concept i'm talking is one that i did in a painting program of Microsoft word with the Metro UI. icons could be different and smaller but it's a concept of what the ribbon could be with the Metro.
twitter.com
It would be beyond amazing if you could do something about selective print screen. For example, even in your posts, you would have had to do a printscreen and then crop the area that you need.
If this was implemented, it would make life a lot easier for many!
1. Select area.
2. Print Screen.
that's a regression; you're not re-imagining anything. You're re-using Office ribbon because precisely you got no new idea at all. That ribbon might have been appropriate in some apps (office again, live mail desktop etc…), but it certainly won't be appropriate at all in Windows Explorer where imho less is better… not even mentioning that this ribbon is ugly, on par with the Win7Phone like rest of the UI. I've been ranting on misc places against people sticking to XP, I for one might either stick to Seven for years, unless I decide to switch to another OS. MS: you need to recreate Windows from the ground up now, not to patch it with old stuff (that ribbon for instance). Sorry to say it but from I see in these preview videos from Windows 8 makes ma actually think that if MS wanted to get wiped off the map by the competition, it wouldn't process otherwise.
that's a regression; you're not re-imagining anything. You're re-using Office ribbon because precisely you got no new idea at all. That ribbon might have been appropriate in some apps (office again, live mail desktop etc…), but it certainly won't be appropriate at all in Windows Explorer where imho less is better… not even mentioning that this ribbon is ugly, on par with the Win7Phone like rest of the UI. I've been ranting on misc places against people sticking to XP, I for one might either stick to Seven for years, unless I decide to switch to another OS. MS: you need to recreate Windows from the ground up now, not to patch it with old stuff (that ribbon for instance). Sorry to say it but from I see in these preview videos from Windows 8 makes ma actually think that if MS wanted to get wiped off the map by the competition, it wouldn't process otherwise.
@Steven Sinofsky
"@DanielM2 – I have five comments on this post already and also have had my questions gone unanswered…"
Firstly, several people have responded directly to your questions, myself included. Secondly, I hope you don't expect every commenter (or frankly any commenter for that matter) to a) read every comment on this page, b) religiously search out your comments from the hundreds here, and c) respond only to your questions.
Admittedly I've used the 'find on this page' (alt +F) function to help me keep up with all these comments, but I wouldn't expect or ask anyone one else to be required to do the same.
People are going to take in what they have been presented here and based on their observations of that presentation they are going to have reactions, considerations, conclusions, assumptions, responses, comments, suggestions, etc. Some may be attentive to details and some may make obtuse generalizations; some might make perfectly rationale statements while others will come off completely irrational and most of us will probably fit somewhere between the two.
Yes emotions may be mixed into all of this, but that’s because we’re talking about something that is a large part of our life every single day. This is something that we have to live with, literally.
If someone came into your home and started moving around your things, removing your furniture, and adding their own wouldn’t you be emotional too? And if they told you they had this data that they believed showed that it was an ‘improvement’ but you knew better because, well you lived there every day, would you sit there and say “ok” or would you try to stop them and help them see what they are missing?
Having emotions or expressing them in these comments doesn’t necessarily discredit what people have to say. As humans completely separating our emotions from our actions is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve; even the best of us struggle at it. To think the words of the greatest minds of our existence would be considered invalid simply because they were emotional and passionate is ludicrous. To think the same of us, average everyday people, is equally as short sided.
In many ways our subconscious is capable of computing and processing innumerably large sets of variables incredibly fast; far faster and more complex than our cognitive brain functions can. The downside to this is the method for relaying the result of these complex processes is a vague one tied into emotions.
For those of you who had have the pleasure of meeting a bear face to face in the wilderness (as I have) you’ll know that before you can cognitively realize the full situation at hand that fear has already swept over you, even before you realize that large furry thing in front of you is actually a bear. This happens because while your relatively slow cognitive brain functions are piecing together the situation, your subconscious has been busily analyzing countless parts of the scene before you and quickly realizing that big + furry+ growling = bad. You don’t even have to have ever been in this situation before in order for your subconscious to come to this conclusion. This because it is able to pull from your vast experiences in life enough to know that this is not a good situation to be in; all of which is done faster than you can blink.
Now ‘bad’ and ‘fear’ are rather vague, but as your cognitive brain functions eventually catch up you’ll realize that these are fairly accurate descriptions of the situation. If you took more time you could use those higher brain functions to consider that yes this animal greatly outweighs me, that it has sharp teeth and claws, and that given my proximity to it that it might be inclined to use those sharp teeth and claws to inflict serious pain and injury to me; but your subconscious has already been able to express this, though vaguely, in a fraction of that time. And this type of fast complex computations happen all the time in our subconscious; such as when you see someone and you immediately like or dislike something about them. It might take a bit of deep cognitive thought to realize you’ve had bad experiences with people wearing trench coats before or that people with a certain style of glasses tend to share your common interests, but your subconscious was able to analyze these attributes, as well as countless other, instantly.
So what does this all have to do with UI design? Well these very same complex subconscious calculations happen when we encounter design. While a UI may be intricately complex or deceptively simple we can very quickly come to those vague conclusions as our subconscious is able to process the vast amounts of attributes before us as well as our entire life’s worth of experiences. So very quickly we can come to those vague descriptions of good, bad, fast, fluid, clunky, etc.; while to accurately describe why we feel those descriptions takes time to cognitively sort out what our subconscious figured out instantly.
One of my favorite examples of this is using my Windows Phone. When I use it I get this overwhelming sense that it’s fast, fluid, and simply delightful. I actually smile when I use it and move through the UI, even though I use it all the time every single day – and that isn’t an exaggeration in the slightest. There is something about the UI and the experience of using it that, for lack of a better word to describe it, is delightful. And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. What’s even more interesting is when I use it, even in this day-to-day daily grind type use, it just feels ‘right’ and everything else feels wrong, old, and outdated.
Now it takes an introspective master to stop and figure out every reason why it seems that way, but my subconscious is able to take all my experiences with every UI in my life and my interaction with my phone now to come to the overwhelming conclusion this is just feel ‘right’.
I can try to break it down by realizing that it feels fast not just because moving in and out of actions is a quick process, but also because the UI gets straight to the point and doesn’t try to throw everything it possibly can at me. I’m not presented with a concentrated toolbox of every action in existence, instead I’m presented with just the task at hand and the content that goes with it. It’s direct and concise, not bloated and cluttered. The unnecessary is stripped away, and what’s left is what I actually care about. It’s refreshing and wonderful, especially coming years of trying to shove more and more ‘stuff’ down our throats.
It feels ‘right’ not because of one thing or even a dozen, but the fact that every inch of it has meaning and purpose and that it adheres to a core of principles that guide it, keeping it true and honest. I would be hard pressed to try and figure out all of those reasons why using my Windows Phone feels so great and why it makes me smile the way it does, but even if I can’t figure it out I know my subconscious has already done it for me; granted the method of description is vague emotions.
So even with all of our emotions in these comments that doesn’t mean there isn’t a point or that they are invalid. It very well could be our subconscious taking it all in and comparing our observations here to the experiences of our life and giving us a vague response in return. Again we’re talking about something we’re going to use every day of our lives.
We want it done right. And we can tell when it isn’t.
Is this for real? By adding MORE clutter to the already weighty windows top bar you think that makes you MORE productive?
Less is more guys, less is more.
Steven, Microsoft, if you go through with this you'll be shooting yourself in the foot.
Steven, Microsoft, if you go through with this you'll be shooting yourself in the foot.
Steven, Microsoft, if you go through with this you'll be shooting yourself in the foot.
I think, having Ribbons is not the core of the problem of this new design. Actually, I think people will adapt and will get more productivity out of them.
This said, most people including me are disappointed that while introducing a new touch-compatible UI technology based on HTML5 and JavaScript, the renewed Windows Explorer uses another technology instead of trying to avoid the emerging gap. So, while advancing in other areas you are making the Windows Explorer and in fact every other program look alien.
This 'alien look' is getting worse and worse the more products from MS you use. Office is doing pretty neat, but then comes Expression and you try to insure the program is actually MS software. Or Visual Studio, the UI of which was completey revamped in v2010 but seems to have nothing to do with the underlying Windows. It also has no Ribbon, while it exposes a lot more than 200 commands. On the other hand VS has a mighty but unique docking-functionality.
As a developer, I expected Windows Presentation Foundation to somehow solve this problem for MS, but it is a big fail as WPF seems only to have opened more space for each MS devision to do something different. I would expect a basic set of UX including VS-docking and Ribbon being available through WPF, with WPF exposing itself to the underlying windows renderer. But then MS choose to have a Windows Ribbon, I can only guess why (must have something to do with other divisions despise of .NET) , while WP7 has a very simple and fluid interface using a subset of Silverlight, itself a subset of WPF. And now you are introducing just another UI technique using HTML5 and JavaScript, in itself nothing bad and maybe the most customizable way forward. If I count correctly the sixth UI technique available on you platform (WinForms, WPF, Windows specifics as Windows Ribbon, Silverlight, WP7-Silverlight-subset, HTML5), not counting the above mentioned program-specifics, not splitting WinForms into GDI and GDI+ and even completely forgetting about DirectX.
If I only think the multitude of design, research and coding done twice or triple, I have grave doubts about MS as a technology company. This is something that has to be sorted out. We need a clear and basic foundation or guidance how to write Windows apps in the future, more precisely: which technology leads. And – honestly – YOU SHOULD HAVE TO USE IT TOO. With using Windows Ribbon on Explorer you basically send the message: HTML5 or WPF will never get the default UI-language on the Windows platform, so better stick with the old GDI+ crap.
Back to topic, alien look. You basically have two possible options to remedy this:
– The easy one: as Ribbons are composed in a declarative manner, it should be no problem to have a Metro UI display engine.
– Better and more complicated: offer a HTML5 + JavaScript Ribbon engine, which btw adds features as easy customization, based on dark Metro background and white icons, and convert all Windows-internal programs to this UI.
M$ isn't even trying to be creative anymore. This is why Apple is King.
M$ isn't even trying to be creative anymore. This is why Apple is King.
M$ isn't even trying to be creative anymore. This is why Apple is King.
@DanglingPointer, I guess u r referring to Mac (colored) Labeling for files and folder and then group them with this label. Not necessarily should we have exactly that kind of feature in window but something similar would be great to have grouping with custom criteria. Nice suggestion though!
@Steven Sinofsky
I think it’s wholly wrong to say that no one has answered your questions; I’ve tried my best to as have a lot of the other commenters. The fact that there’s emotion is only a good thing, sure not every comment is 100% constructive but they all do tell you what people think of the change, whether they love it or hate it they are telling you which is only a good thing.
I guess my criticism was that you skipped a whole heap of commenters addressing the change as best as they could muster and went to a softball by Mary, it just looked… wrong. After all there were at least a couple hundred comments you jumped over to get to hers, no offence to Mary, or you for that matter.
I’ve made a couple of what I feel to be constructive comments as have a truck load of other commenters, some of which I’ve linked to below.
blogs.msdn.com/…/improvements-in-windows-explorer.aspx
blogs.msdn.com/…/improvements-in-windows-explorer.aspx
blogs.msdn.com/…/improvements-in-windows-explorer.aspx
blogs.msdn.com/…/improvements-in-windows-explorer.aspx
blogs.msdn.com/…/improvements-in-windows-explorer.aspx
blogs.msdn.com/…/improvements-in-windows-explorer.aspx
blogs.msdn.com/…/improvements-in-windows-explorer.aspx
blogs.msdn.com/…/improvements-in-windows-explorer.aspx – Great comment imo
blogs.msdn.com/…/improvements-in-windows-explorer.aspx
There are many more…
Will we be able to turn off all this ribbon bar stuff and use the old interface?
I'm thinking if the Ribbon UI will be autohide by default, maybe this will help people thinking about Ribbon in Explorer is just a clutter.
There is an option that if user wants to show it always and have the full Riboon UI or choose autohide function, also on autohide mode the Ribbon will not occupy the whole horizontal space when the commands aren't that many to fill the whole space, this will make Ribbon in autohide more clean(When the Metro is implemented already) and more look like a floating Commands, hoping also to see some eye-candy animation just for the sake of modern look.
I also hope that the AERO (well its going to be Metro I think) will extend up to the tabs, just like we see on 2010 but sure more Metro and suppose to be more clean. I'm also thinking what if the background color of the Navigation bar is same as the Window (Usually white), so it may look cleaner and more like part of the Window inside or maybe extend the AERO to it.
I'm wondering the sync feature in Explorer, will it tightly integrated to cloud such as SkyDrive, but hope it will and maybe has its own RIbbon tab or inside the Share.
About the Ribbon that the commands is wider than the current size, I know that there will be and arrow button next it to click and see more commands, what about having swipe gesture to it, it would be nice with touch and support for touchpads too (hoping on Touch Mouse also).
Preview tooltip for the files when hover, just like Windows Photo Gallery but also work with compatible video format that will preview for a few second, with play button and button for opening Details pane.
Personally it makes redundant for having Up button, but others might still need it so I hope there will be option for hiding that.
Just continue the progress Windows Team! We will stay tuned for next post.
Nice work guys. Please provide file duplicate, multiple instances of clipboard (insert/copy) and batch file rename.
P.S. I love the metro-UX from day 1.
Hideous. Awful. Horrible. Unusable.
A big boo to the ribbon bar. But QAT mitigates some issues with ribbon bars!
A HUGE yay to the status bar which (finally) shows the size of selected files!
The ribbon may be forgiven if the user has been given the ability to move commands around the buttons in that ribbon panel (within same tab and if possible juggling commands across tabs)!
The concept of QAT is nice. But the most important part of this customization option is to have the ability to save the changes to a file and then import to other systems when needed.
Also in a general note, it would be great if customizations related to visual things are seperated from customizations related to performance. It would help to quickly customize the windows UI (every customization: from taskbar details to explorer view settings) according to user's preference. Once done, reverting back to other's UI preferences should be easy too (as the other user would have already saved his settings to a file)
Oops! Posted the comment twice by mistake. I think it will be a real pain for you guys to separate trash comments from the related comments! I really pity you guys!
Win8 team FTW! Awesome job already and it seems Win8 might be the OS which is going to nudge me from my beloved WinXP! Also it's a great idea to interact via blogs. Keep up the great work! Also make sure not to take trash comments, personally, from Apple fan boys!
Best regards
— Shri Ganesh
In the next Explorer I would like to see one Windows 7 "feature" changed: While navigating to sub directories in the navigation pane, leave the opened directory where it is and don't move it to the bottom of the pane.
It seems to me that navigating is the most important thing to do in file managers and I find myself constantly scrolling the navigation pane while navigating to subfolders.
Regarding the Ribbon: I would turn it off if I could, hopefully leaving me with a menu where options like Map Network Drive still reside. The reason is that a file manager should show as much as possible in the given window of the information where it is all about: folders and files. The surroundings taking a lot of space, like ribbons, is a waste of space. For non-power users it might come in handy. I only wonder what is more important. Most users I know never use the Explorer.
Good luck evaluating the responses!
I think that will not be win !
I use Windows but Mac OS is better than Microsoft productions . It is easy to know .
Microsoft just has changed themes of windows . No other thing
Hi there, can you guys redesign the SCROLLBAR ? Butter-like-smooth ScrollBar! The one you guys have recently introduced for Silverlight4 for WP7…Please bring it in Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer: connect.microsoft.com/…/ie-10-ui-smooth-scrolling-and-better-tab-management
Hi there, can you guys redesign the SCROLLBAR ? Butter-like-smooth ScrollBar! The one you guys have recently introduced for Silverlight4 for WP7…Please bring it in Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer: connect.microsoft.com/…/ie-10-ui-smooth-scrolling-and-better-tab-management!
+1 for Ribbon UX !
P.S. I love all; MSFT, AAPL and Linux. I enjoy competition and the constructive ideas and how the development of these ideas is carried out. For those who are here to oppose the idea of having Ribbon always have option to minimize it. May be that’s not enough, but I would suggest; try thinking differently guys! Legacy UXs should be rehashed and we need new-looks/paradigm-shift for traditional Desktop environment! IE9 UX was supposed to have more space to accommodate Your Web Application the maximum room on screen. But Windows Explorer is a different story. We need to have file and folder management with limited set of operations. IMHO, there is no harm in occupying space by controls. I believe, the real thing to worry about is the traditional scrolling and the file/folder listing area (the stage) and its scrolling. If these are revolutionized somehow, I guess people won’t have problem with a little space consumed by the ribbon that originally belong to the stage.
Thank you for sharing the insights of development process with us.
In XP and now W7 I gave up Explorer for Xplorer2 lite (free) years ago – you seem to have missed it: dual pane. Seeing, moving and cross checking before deleting from one pane to another is the most intuitive single thing missed in Explorer. A batch file renamer should also be included. Otherwise, simply agree with others that the interface is too cluttered and takes up too much room, where Exporer should be a small part screen window and not a full screen monster.
There is no way to change that ugly UI at the moment. Microsoft lives in a bubble, and I think that is pretty bureaucratic too. There is no "reimagining Windows". All that you got is marketing bluff. Maybe BUILD proves me wrong.
4. Shift-clicking on the arrows in a scrollbar should scroll the opposite direction. RISCOS had this feature, it's amazingly good.
(looks like I got spam-filtered or moderated f?)
1. The Address Bar interface becomes a user-interface horror as the screen gets wide:
Back Forward |address bar x-blank pixels| Refresh
When x=768 it's kinda okay. When x=2000 it's dreadful. The non-constant position of RHS buttons is very annoying. "Refresh" is about 2000px out-of-context/sight on wide screens. It should be this:
Back Forward Refresh | address bar x- blank pixels |
2. File extensions on please (I note all images in this post have them visible)
3. Multiple file rename please.
5. Yay for the ribbon.
Just another reason why Windows users are leaving for the Mac. You guys at MS need to get your act together. No one wants an overly complicated GUI. They want simplicity, elegance. Keep this up and Apple will rule the world…
Please DON'T use the ribbon to Windows Live and Paint, they look awful, please use the ribbon in Word 2010, it looks great and make the program itself and the window blend together instead of the other one where they just crash.
Also, can't you get some icon that that does not look like a cartoon, but something that justifies Windows?
I don't think I want MORE buttons on my explorer. MSFT conditioned me to use menus and right-clicks to get stuff done and now they want me to forget all that?
Was was wrong with the clean, simple Explorer? nothing, as far as I know. It looks too much like Apple's?
Duh!
Great put in a spell checker, ftp up and download, a paint program and a lot of kernel functions …
1 request though… make them configurable … i would love to see a simple explorer , it would be nice if in the registry was the possibility to put in 'hide explorercrap=true'
So you can use a windows 2000 alike explorer version .. without all the crap that is unnecesary (imho)
One of these days the kernel will be included in explorer so that you don't need windows anymore …
Plz release a explorer pro for those who want all windows functionality from within a single program
@ Steven
pls listen to people…RIBBONS doesn't seem a great idea
the idea is not to have less commands – the idea is to have a quicker UI !
while thinking again at explore pls also include my 2 cents below in the requests list (some come from other comments)
– LudoMatico aka, David Bianco made a good proposal – work on that !!
– Full feature renamer in a different windows
– Colors customization for EVERYTHING – I mean EVERYTHING (bars, folder background…everything )!!
– Widescreen use : tabs, ribbons, commands all on the side not on top !
– Power shell +1
– must have 2 Panes as per Total commander (been using that for 12 years now)
– tabs for folders with possibility to PIN the most used (see firefox pinned tabs)
– use the real estate on title bar for info like status bar: starting from right just after the standard 3 buttons
– UP button and backspace key moving up 1 level – we need that !!! (Backspace = Up folder)
– Preview pane must be a floating windows
– Folder SIZE !!
– Extension sorting !!
– show free disk space at all times. You should not have to go to My Computer to view free disk space
– free space to "right click"
– historical key shortcut must remains – new key shortcuts are welcome
– QAT is good, try to further improve on that concept- but needs to have large icons (24 x 24)
– 3rd party ribbons should be included in customization (all in a single ribbon until is filled up)
– search method is an improvement but its slow compared to total commander
– "search for a command" you type in a box and the possible commands are selected while typing
– right click on back arrow to have a list of last visited folders
– auto select the ZIP file once you create it – NATIVE RAR SUPPORT !!!
– auto select first file/ folder while you enter a folder
– Rich built in codec with more formats for thumbnail like PDF, PSD, AI, RAW
– lower right corner resize area is better than clicking on the border
– resizable UI (including fonts and icons) – as you can do on desktop with CTRl+mouse wheel
– AIM for 34 files viewable at the standard resolition
– browse deviant art for insperation on what people like
– simplify ! simplify ! simplify !
p.s.
automatic sequential copy to a device (either usb key or hdd partition etc) would be a great improvement
thanks for reading
I didn't have time to read everyones comments to see if my suggestions are dupplicated, so I apologize in advance.
1. In the Share tab it would be nice if it had a plugin to Windows Live so that I could "Send To:" my skydrive.
2. One of the frequent actions I do in explorer is after I've downloaded a file into "My Downloads" folder I end up sorting on date to find the most recent items I've downloaded. It would be nice if the My Downloads came with a section title Recent 5 downloads. Overall finding files I downloaded a day ago gets obnoxious, especially if I use different browsers and they download to different paths. Perhaps adding a Recently Downloaded in the Start menu after Recent Documents. There is room for improvement here.
3. I wish setting properties on files was easier. Possibly adding an information column that when you hover over it you can set the files rating, set tags, see/change description, and more. A lot of people don't know and don't utilize these columns because by default they are not shown. If there could be a quicker way to access the metadata then no one could complain of organization issues with files. With this I'd also like to be able to set Ratings, tags, categories, and such on a files/folders, not just pictures. This will help at work so I have another way to group my documents. I know you can easily group them into a sub folder, however I'd rather see all files at a higher level. The drilling in gets me lost in the folders.
Thank you. I'm also posting this to microsoftwindows.suggestionbox.com
Which OS is this? It looks like someone puked tequilla in the bar
This is not good. I hope you guys have some sort of Aero replacement up your sleeve to unify this with the touch interface, or there are going to be a lot of unhappy Windows users.
@Steven Sinofsky and Windows Team
Ribbon+QAT has so many advantages. Just for the record:
Power user get more customizability and more functions, like search buttons/advanced search. (finally it's back!)
Newbies get an easier access to functions.
So you make live easier for most of the users, except for some naggers.
PS:
Thanks for bringing the up button back! As I said before, this seems to become the best Windows Explorer ever!
@Naggers:
You have context menus, keyboard shortcuts and the customizable QAT. And you can minimize the Ribbon. So nobody is forced to use the Ribbon.
I want the Ribbon UI.
You don't? That's okay, just don't use it. And don't tell other users how they should use the Explorer.
Kill the ribbon, give us back our menus. Thank you.
@Steven Sinofsky
Im not against Ribbon feature ofcourse i like it in Office 2010.. BUT, What you presented in Windows 8 explorer is not looking or not more functional like ribbon in Office 2010.
Its true ribbon is hated by many its becuase u guys not improving it.. its big, takes huge space.. psychologically it looks clutter to work.. everyone need simple,shiny and more thin menus.
Please, Please improve ribbon in Windows 8.. give a classy look, remove extra spaces.. Especially change colour of ribbon (really it not looks good). From the old age, windows explorer is remains same or looking more messy.. innovate something!!
Somone posted this explorer concept..
img192.imageshack.us/…/ribboncompare.jpg
there the worker done nothing but some simple adjustments in space but it looks good and decent.. please do something to compromise ribbon haters otherwise.. it will be a big blow!
i would like to see some more android-like build-in widgets! – its about time i think, enough of that Rainmeters and other fail programs.
i feel this would just clutter the space … best way to is keep it simple neat and usable … Windows 8 .. i suppose would end up quite heavy
Could someone point out the improvements for me? I can't see any.
First, a quote from something I found on 9to5mac.com, then my comments:
"Techcrunch points us to this amusing Microsoft blog post [linking here] articulating the decision to put just about every possible item in the future Windows Explorer 8 bar. This is clearly an example of trying to put everything somewhere with no regard for clutter or usability or design. It is hard to imagine a better example of why Apple’s ability to say no to extraneous features is better for usage."
I have to agree with this statement. I am a lifelong Windows user and have started using apple products over the past couple of years, culminating with a Mac purchase earlier this year. I've noticed many things about the Mac that I absolutely love, but the one that stands out the most is it's mixture of form with function. The UI is simple, easy to use, but still very powerful. I was sincerely hoping that Windows would be going down this path, but alas this blog post seems to have put a few ruts in the trail.
My thought on the Ribbon is that it works very well for Office products. Why? Because there are so many features of Office that are used frequently. It is critical to have a GUI (no matter how cluttered) to access these features, because contextual menus would be lengthy. However, adding every function to a GUI (hundreds, you say) when only a small percentage of them are used, is a monumental error. Prominence given to "Command Prompt?" Seriously? What percentage of users need that? I consider myself a "Power User" and rarely, if ever, would need to click that button.
Take a look at your table labeled "Command usage in Windows Explorer." There's a reason why it doesn't list 200 functions, because it would be cluttered. Same goes for the Ribbon.
I have high hopes for Windows 8 and seriously wish that it isn't too late in the game to make some tough decisions, and serious changes, to the philosophy of Windows Explorer.
@Sugadevan
I don't get the thing with the lighter icon, lighter text and lighter scrollbar. Why should less readable icons and labels be better?!
I think you are not going completely wrong way as many here suggests. It just needs incredible amount of work. I see that as an early prototype. Your idea with ribbon is in general really good – lots of controls, that could be shown or hidden, divided in clear categories (i mean the ones like"home" or "share". But the current state is just not good enough. And it's ugly.Not even using Office 2010 style is not good enough.
Think at least little out of the box, use the idea, you don't have to use the ribbon as it is. Make the UI "ribbonish", but not like that. I have to praise David Bianco, as many before me. His design is kinda what i expected (though it needs polish too of course). It's beautiful, metro, consistent, lots of controls and options, touch friendly and still easy to use with mouse (or at least friendlier than yours – you have big buttons, but also untouchable little ones – ask former windows mobile team how that works). You have a chance to release the most awesome OS ever, that can make look OS X (not to mention linux…) stupid and outdated. And the possibility to have windows 8 on tablet is so awesome! Or it could be, if you do something with this.
Please do NOT WASTE that opportunity. For once, work as one company. When i see the current state of explorer, an image popped in my mind: Alex Simons screaming like Gandalf "This shall not pass!" on proposal to use metro.
Hope to see big improvements and redesing of the whole UX. Reimagine it for real.
PS: as someone mentioned above, you have to change it, otherwise face the "Vista 2" because the media tore this apart. And like it or not, the media is what made Vista fail and 7 success.
Pretty Please!
Make an option to use Windows Explorer "total commander like" with two tabs and i swear i won't use total commander anymore at all. New explorer is amazing, looks very nice, informative and handy, but still, the 2 tabbed file managing with hotkeys is much more quick and i don't think it's hard to accomplish.
Please Windows 8 Team, add Ribbon Office Style to Windows Explorer it's so beautiful and elegant, Windows Live Ribbon it's a little ugly, please, consider it.
Thanks in advace.
Example
oi54.tinypic.com/6ymsrk.jpg
Thanks to dovella member for the pic.
@Kal Sostarecz
It seems you don't need much buttons.
So why wouldn't you just minimize the Ribbon, put your 10 favourite buttons into the QTA and be happy?
No wasted space, slim design, nothing is cluttered.
Is it just me and my default installations of W7 at home and at work, or have you manipulated the amount of files visible in W7 by setting the Status bar size to large instead of the default small?
How about allowing the ribbon to be moved to the side of the screen as people have been asking for since Office 2007? I don't use the full width of my screen so would far prefer to be able to stick the ribbon over to the side somwhere.
How about allowing the ribbon to be moved to the side of the screen as people have been asking for since Office 2007? I don't use the full width of my screen so would far prefer to be able to stick the ribbon over to the side somwhere.
Total Commander has a big, cult-like following. It's so old, however, it does the job. That's why people that know about it, use it. Total Commander (formerly Windows Commander), something that's been around since 1993. That's a long history. I know you've always had a tenuous relationship with Total Commander's people using Windows in their name. But you can learn a lot of lessons from Total Commander. We have many many people using old versions of Total Commander on their machines. They simply can't work without it. And I noticed you didn't even mention it. What are your statistics telling you about usage for Total Commander? Is it less than the others you mention? There's a reason why Total Commander works and works well. You need to set up labs and watch people using Total Commander. A lot of lessons can be learned.
The thing I can't help but wonder is – while you can tell which commands are used most often, and you can tell where those commands are initiated, it still does not address the method users use to get to those commands.
This is the problem I see:
UI design went from big buttons so anyone could figure out how to use a program;
migrated into smaller toolbars and fewer commands being directly accessible;
to this ribbon thing where I have to adjust the ribbon to suit my (and my clients) needs;
And the other thing I can't help but ask is, will this be reset back to the defaults after a service pack, or can I keep my custom settings?
Thank you.
@John D'oh
If you put two images and overlap each other you will see what lighter icon, and lighter scrollbar mean.
For example: I did a little tweak on folder icon on the ribbon. The fact that the original one from Microsoft look a bit darker that promote the shadow of it and at the same time create pretty heavy 3D look on folder icons which totally conflict with the lightweight 2D flat icons among it. Since Microsoft most likely doesn't want to get it brand new look but still want it better That's solution
I will try to make the tweak more obvious soon!
@DanielM2 – I am sorry I set the expectation I would answer every comment or comment on every proposed graphical treatment. There are a large set of comments that are positive. There are a large set of comments that are negative. There are a large set of comments telling us to ignore the people on one side or another. There's a lot of emotion and passion. All of that is good. The dialog can also be within the comments not just between Microsoft and everyone else. There's plenty of insight and opinion to go around.
I do think in the alternate treatments proposed there is a challenge in that they focus on graphical elements. We were talking last night about the feedback we had on Windows 7. Almost uniformly we received feedback that our treatment was too light and washed out and the text was too thin. We actually changed the palette after the Windows 7 preview releases in response to that feedback. We're going to keep thinking about the graphical treatment but recognize that it is not somehting you can really have a dialog about since it appears to be a debate about preference or taste, all of which are valid.
For me, the graphical treatment is a very small element of what is "metro" to many of the comments. There's lots to talk about here.
One thing I did was just post a bit more on the context of Windows 8 design. A lot of comments focused on trying to apply "metro" to the Desktop. That's not a goal we had as we wanted to improive the desktop in the trajectory it was going for the hundreds of millions of folks in the desktop. Clearly we can have a discussion over the choices we're making here and that's what we're doing. But we did not set out to do a radical overhaul of the desktop, but a substantial set of improvements. See http://win8.ms/metro-aero.
–Steven
Wow… Ugly..and..busy. Time to buy more shares in Apple.
What I really want to hear more about is how to create explorer extensions. In previous versions of windows this has proved extremely difficult (and until recently, impossible with .net) Will we see a more sensible easy to use API for writing Namespace Extensions in particular, preferably without having to register for COM, deal with the registry etc. Whilst I'm sure some people would instantly start writing explorer namespace applications which really weren't suited, some people could create some fantastic applications that take advantage of explorer's built in functionality for managing lists and highrachies. I do also think we need an extensibility point to allow applications to add icons/tabs to the ribbon (maybe only in specific contexts). As another thought, this could probably do with a better system for applications having to ask for permission from the user, instead of the generic UAC prompt, how about something more like the smart phones do (e.g. "[Program Name] would like to add a custom tab to explorer, do you wish to allow this?")
i am shocked. Badly shocked. Just wanted to trade my old office iMac 24" to a Sony Vaio 24" with Win7 (i move from XP to Mac before), even bought the machine already, but now i am puzzled. I mean are you serious? I immediatelly took the Vaio back at home where i might play games – one day. But working with Win8 seems to be impossible, no way that i will accept this interface. Sorry guys.
I thought and hoped you might go in direction Windows Mobile 7/7.5, but that Explorer screen is the worst joke i have see for a very long time. I will rather spent 40% more money on my next 27" Mac, but i will not accept this Win8 interface – never. Looks like Apple has me now back – as a loyal customer. Sorry guys.
Why don't you move the ribbon to either left or right side of the window, effectively making it one of the navigation panes?
This will ease the current design's ugliness/clutter problem, of which many (I repeat: many) people have issue with.
This is the stupidest thing I've seen in a while. An OS is supposed to get out of the way, there are many features that users never access, or surely don't need to see displayed on a menu. Windows 7 finally beat OSX for simplicity and elegance of use.
Windows 8 reintroduces the horror that is known as Office. What a miserable suite of programs.
Even some of your arguments are a bit intellectually dishonest – take for instance your example of vertical space. That bottom panel on Windows 7 can be made much smaller. There's my extra lines of items right there.
I need a menu to rename a file? To move a folder? To delete? Who knew? Why do I want to manipulate pictures in a folder? Why can't I open them in a program when needed and save the space? I've been using PC's, macs and workstations since 1983, and seen it all.
Ugly, cluttered, cumbersome and redundant, you guys should work for the feds.
This could be what drives me and my office back to OSX.
PS: i have concrete suggestions:
1.) Fire the Office UID guys. Do it now. (sorry guys)
2.) Don't use this "improvement", just put it in the trash (maybe nobody finds it out;)
3.) Let the Windows Mobile design guys design the explorer (and cleanup the mess)
There are no other options or your will kill the business. I am sure you will. Not in two years from now, but in 5-10y you might play games like HP with WebOS and screw it completely.
I feel very sorry for it, this "design decission" and for my post also a little, but rather clear words now then never. (Beside that i have still been pretty polite, didn't i?)
Cheers,
gbennyb
@Steven Sinofsky
Don’t get me wrong I certainly didn’t expect you to address all of the comments on the blog, hell I didn’t even expect you to address half but I did sort of think that you, or members on the team would at the very least address the bulk of the argument, as you said it’s either negative or positive comments, each group is in effect saying the same thing but worded differently so addressing a group as a whole was something I thought was part of the plan. I mean you did say earlier “Of course, the primary goal of this blog is to have a two-way dialog”.
“Graphical elements”, I’m assuming you mean colour and size as opposed to… the actual control? If that’s what you mean (again I’m merely assuming so considering your later reference to the colour palette in 7) then are you sure you’re not missing the actual debate, around the use of the ribbon in explorer, few are talking about the actual colour of the thing.
Thank you for at the very least addressing my comments, it’s appreciated.
@Steven Sinofsky
Don’t get me wrong I certainly didn’t expect you to address all of the comments on the blog, hell I didn’t even expect you to address half but I did sort of think that you, or members on the team would at the very least address the bulk of the argument, as you said it’s either negative or positive comments, each group is in effect saying the same thing but worded differently so addressing a group as a whole was something I thought was part of the plan. I mean you did say earlier “Of course, the primary goal of this blog is to have a two-way dialog”.
“Graphical elements”, I’m assuming you mean colour and size as opposed to… the actual control? If that’s what you mean (again I’m merely assuming so considering your later reference to the colour palette in 7) then are you sure you’re not missing the actual debate, around the use of the ribbon in explorer, few are talking about the actual colour of the thing.
Thank you for at the very least addressing my comments, it’s appreciated.
+1 @GRiNSER for spacebar-to-preview common file types.
Microsoft, for power users, please improve the flow of the "Open with…" option. It is cumbersome.
Also, for power users, please throw in a decent hex editor.
Another unaddressed problem is the mess that the ListView has become. If you have a directory with MP3's and movies and regular files, there's very little they have in common and unless they're the same filetype, you can hardly get a meaningful display of the properties in the Details view.
Setting the columns and properties for each folder and having it stick–still not solved in Windows 7. Some fundamental problems without solutions.
Also, one other fundamental thing, and it affects the ribbon too. Some actions and concepts just don't translate into meaningful pictures. Don't use an icon just for the sake of using an icon. Use it where it makes sense.
There's still so much room for innovation and improvement, I really hate to see them wander so far off the path that the ribbon makes sense.
This would have been great…3 years ago. Now, it just looks outdated.
Microsoft, do better.
@ John D'oh, Sugadevan
OK: here is the updated version of my concept. Lighter icons mean more fresh feel on it by the way clean the whole experience that users may have with ribbon UI since you're still able to see the icons there're no reason to say unreadable. About the scrollbar- as I suggested long ago along with the other element like button should be refined as well-it's not a huge makeover just little tweak so user still can feel familiar while newer at the same time. It just make windows better!!!
Here is the links:
Comparison of two windows: img23.imageshack.us/…/ribboncompareplus.jpg
Concept alone: img88.imageshack.us/…/ribbon003extendedalone.jpg
<sarcasm>
Wow amazing. Now i can copy and paste my files.
</sarcasm>
+1 for what Jarald said
Also make folder size available for powerusers -> foldersize.sourceforge.net
Hey Steven, you know there's room for improvement, right:
1. make ribbon dramatically vertically smaller (smaller icons, url bar integrated 'ie9-like', less vertical clutter);
2. make the bg of the window adapt to theme color (this blue you use in all MS apps isn't the best, right?);
3. make it more metro and less aero;
Btw, have yr team brainstormed about how the new Windows Explorer would adapt on a 11' laptop or non-maximized?
Thanks.
I'm not usually a ribbon fan, but this looks pretty good. This got me thinking about another improvement around managing Explorer windows – what if Windows Explorer had tab handling like IE9? I'm sure I'm not the only one who ends up with 10+ Explorer windows open when I'm working on various tasks. What if those could be tabs in a single Explorer window? As with IE, you could drag a tab out of the tab bar to create a new window on the fly and drag tabs from one window to another. Dragging a folder to an existing tab or the new tab square would open that folder in that tab. Hovering over a tab would show the full path. Options could exist for opening a folder in a new tab or window. Dragging files to a tab could work for copying (along with right-click dragging for copy/move/shortcut). In the Windows task bar preview, each Explorer tab would be shown as they are with IE. The ability to save a tab group as a favorite would also be great for those of us who frequently open a set of folders.
Keep up the great work, guys!
"The file menu lets you quickly open new Explorer windows, access your shortcuts, and change folder and search options. It also includes a hidden feature that we love, Open command prompt"
First of all that command prompt feature is not hidden in the slightest, it's right there in the menu!
Secondly I think this proves you guys are designing for yourself, the ribbon is supposedly there to aid new users in the simple file management tasks that exist today, YET you feel it necessary to put on the SAME UI a button to open command prompt, something a normal user should NEVER EVER have to do. I mean Alex Simons in the video talks about how it's something the TEAM loves, not what the users from the focus group asked for, not what your telemetry showed you was required, something you engineers thought would be neat to have on the main UI because it's something YOU open daily to execute "batch files". In a word? Ridiculous.
"Finally, as you may have noticed in several of the screen shots, we just had to bring back the “Up" button."
Why? Justify that decision, the breadcrumb bar works fine for that yet you bring back the Up button. Did your focus group users ask for that? No of course they didn't one of YOU wanted it back. Despite the fact that it duplicates functionality and despite the fact that you were the ones that originally removed it.
Oh wait never mind, you guys explained it yourself:
"This is far and away the most requested improvement to Explorer, and a great opportunity to bring back some of Windows Explorer’s heritage features."
The word that sticks out the most there is "heritage", you want to look back, not forward, backwards.
I'm 100% certain that this feature was brought back by a legacy Microsoft folk, someone who has been at the company for say, around 19 years. You know who you are I'm sure.
Seriously… does anyone even use the bar to copy-paste, rename and move files around? Everything should be done with the right mouse button and contextual menus. The color scheme is childish and clumsy looking and should be much more streamlined. Overall I think this is a change for the worst.
what.are.you.guys.doing?! you don't clutter things up, you simplify them down!
Give me an option to color mark files and folders like there is on Mac OS. Sometimes I need to link files in design software like InDesign or Illustrator and I need to keep track of the files I'm using but I can't rename them so marking with colors would keep file associations intact and would give me a way to easily see which of the files are in use. Also helpful when I create several versions of a project and I want to mark the last version so I can find it easily among all the clutter. Thanks!
First, I'd like to say that I love the Ribbon UI and I'm very much looking forward to using it in Explorer.
Second, I'm hoping to see in a future post that you guys have worked on the command console and at least gave it the ability to drag resize horizontally. The fixed width drives me crazy.
Third, since the post is right above where I'm typing this, I feel compelled to respond to DanielM2.
The "hidden" part of Open command prompt is that you have to hold Shift + right click to see the option in Explorer, so bringing it to a menu (as well as with Admin privs!) is a blessing to those of us who use it. They aren't designing exclusively for themselves, but they are power users just like many of us who use and like Windows. Designing for novices is great and important; but so are long-time users such as me who depend on helping us do our work quickly and effectively. And believe it or not, lots of folks demand access to command consoles. Sometimes it's just a lot quicker to get things done than a mouse is.
Regarding the "up" button, perhaps you missed the paragraph above the section on goals where he specifically says that the biggest category of feedback was bringing back features of the XP UI, especially that button. I suggest that if you're listening to your customers, you'd pick the most requested features as the ones you'd implement. Seems like solid justification to me.
Regarding heritage and legacy, it's a tough pill to swallow sometimes. When your OS runs on a few million PCs like Linux or Mac OS, perhaps you can get away with cutting off old features more rapidly. When your OS runs on a billion PCs, you probably have to carefully weigh who you're alienating when you kill off a feature. I don't think it's about looking backwards; I think it's about pleasing your customers. Obviously, you can't please everyone, as your post demonstrates.
On the other hand, I hardly think such a blanket statement is fair or helpful. The Ribbon was a push forward, as is their Metro UI. Personally, I'm really excited about Windows 8!
So, after 1000 posts (mostly passionately negative) Mr. Sinofsky is still questioning why this Explorer-abomination is a failure of gigantic proportions?
Apparently he did not get his 'questions answered’???
OK
Well, with all due respect to work you did with Win7 and salvaging Vista-disaster, quite simply Mr. Sinofsky, this is a failure because, there is nothing, I repeat, NOTHING new in terms of functionality this Explorer-abomination brings and it is a failure because you consciously chose to ignore customer feedback you collected yourself!
Quote: 'Next, we turned to customers and community feedback. Customers have a lot of suggestions for how they’d like to see Explorer evolve. Many of these suggestions are for things that after-market add-ons like TeraCopy, QTTabBar, DMEXBar, & StExBar, or Explorer replacements like xplorer2, XYplorer or FreeCommander already offer.'
So, because there is 'already' software out there better than Explorer you conclude it is best NOT to innovate/improve or add ANY features (that those products have)?
Instead, do you and your team really, really believe that you are making our life easier by not adding/improving ANY functionality at all but instead taking OLD features (by your own admission) added in XP days (and proven to be useless by your own telemetry!) and stuffing them down our throats via this monster 'John Carpenter's RIBBON THING’????
Look, I’m trying hard NOT to be negative (yeah, really!): your work on resolving file name conflicts looks good!
THAT is what we need more of!!!
For example:
Many people here pointed out they are forced to open endless number of Explorer windows because you _consciously decided_ NOT to implement ultra-productive features like a) tabbed windows and/or b) splitter window that shows _both_ source & destination folders!
For crying out LOUD: your own telemetry data shows Copy/Paste to be most used commands!
Please, please, make them easier!!!
You are NOT making them easier by making an ugly ribbon ‘thing’ with big ‘Copy’ & ‘Paste’ buttons!
Instead, please, DO NOT FORCE US to open gazillion god-damn Explorer windows!
We’ll be grateful!
Is this still not a clear answer to your ‘open questions’ Mr. Sinofsky?
Hi!
Thanks for all your positive thoughts and comments about the Concept that I made yesterday.
I'm glad that you like the design.
Today I've been working in a new polished version of the past concept.
Take a look here:
http://www.moquo.com.ar/…/Windows8ExplorerConcept1.1.jpg
Is a refined design, this time I take care about icons (metro style).
My intention is to show that Windows Explorer can sport a Ribbon, without compromising the design.
I made the design inspired by a mix between Metro and Aero Glass together, because I understand what Steve wrote in
this post: blogs.msdn.com/…/designing-for-metro-style-and-the-desktop.aspx
wa=wsignin1.0
In the concept, you can see a "personalize" tab, and the explanation of what it means it's below.
As many of you, I hope that the design team can see my concept an get inspiration from it.
Thanks again.
You can see the DeviantArt post here: ludomatico.deviantart.com/…/Windows-8-Explorer-Ribbon-1-1-256053851
DB
Way too many buttons. Has anyone in the Microsoft organization read Jakob Nielsen's "Don't Make Me Think"?
"Let me get this straight, everyone knows and loves the menu bars and 55% of all commands come from context menus so you eliminate the portion that's used most frequently?"
Its obviously a hostile takeover by Apple. The new board or management or whatever at Microsoft wants to run the company into the ground. And they will undoubtedly succeed at some point in the next 10 years as this ribbon crap causes users to flee from Windows like a sinking ship. Windows' strength has always been that it is meant for power users, not kindergarteners. Replace real menus with big picture buttons, and maybe you will pull in 2% of Apple's marketshare….but at the same time, you will lose 15% of your own to Apple per year. Idiots.
Unfortunately, this is what you get when you pay attention to what your customers *were* doing, rather than what they *could be* doing if you – to use an abused term – innovate.
And on netbooks, ribbons take up the whole screen, whereas a real top bar menu works perfectly. The current generation of noobs at Microsoft must not have any sense at all.
Your data shows that half of all Explorer commands are issued through the context menu so you don't touch on improvements to that at all ? Nobody (10%) uses the toolbar, and the RIbbon is notoriously hated by users. Let's make that the focus of the new UI !
Way to not look at your own numbers.
I enjoyed this article. I was a power-user of shells in the DOS days, and I'm still not convinced anyone has ever improved upon "Shez". 🙂 The colour schemes were garish but it made file browsing and compression a breeze. Mainly I used the PCMag tools, DD.com (DDIR) and DR.exe, so my DOS experience was always a pleasant white on blue ala WordPerfect.
I recently discovered my father (who programs in about 10 languages and has MCSE certs under his belt) was not aware Windows 7 had a ZIP compressor. So that is precisely how poorly the Vista/7 team revamped Explorer and buried every useful command behind a collapsing pane or a fold out context menu. Count me in the "given up" pool, the lack of customization means that I totally forsook all file management tasks after switching to Windows 7. XP was the pinnacle.
Personally I like the ribbon just fine, but I've convinced myself not to call it The Ribbon. It's a two-dimensional toolbar, instead of the one-dimensional toolbar we're all used to. Think about that. That's pretty dang useful when you have control over arrangement and hitbox size. I'm sure tools like that existed before the Ribbon, it just irked people that they didn't have as much control over layout and white space. Oh, and also that it was forced upon them. Hmm…
Looks like the Win8 team has the right ideas in mind to bring back utility and user control. Good luck with it.
While reading the first parts of the post, I thought they were going to use the quick access button panel above the context menu when you right click like in office… I reckon that'd be helpful to some extent
@Steven Sinofsky,
How about tabbed interface like in web browser? Built in clients for FTP, SFTP, SSH would be very nice improvement too.
I often hide the menu bar and just use the quick access toolbar. With a touch interface, it would be nice to have an option to change the icon size to 'large' so that the icons are more touch friendly. It would also make the icons more visible.
I often hide the menu bar and just use the quick access toolbar. With a touch interface, it would be nice to have an option to change the icon size to 'large' so that the icons are more touch friendly. It would also make the icons more visible.
Please make a tabbed Command Prompt!
This is surely a joke. It is the ugliest, least-usable thing ever… and not just in User Interfaces. Truly horrible from top to bottom. Some people may like it, and Microsoft may ship it, and people may buy it, but there is nothing better (or even good) about it.
Love the minimized Ribbon!
Wow, what a regression. That's like a parody of everything Microsoft doesn't understand about design. Unspeakably ugly.
I like the ribbon and the extra functionality that it has added here. However, the comparison above is dishonest in saying it allows more files to be shown when it patently does not; the ribbon is very large and can also be rather overwhelming and distracting.
I also don't like the fact that you have a "File" menu that has nothing under it relating to files or file operations (as bad as the "File" menu in IE9). Also have never been sure that a tab called "home" ever made sense – the "home" tab contents would be more accurately named "file" in this case!!! I wish too that Windows Explorer would again say "Windows Explorer" in its window title (easier to explain to novices) or even more logically rename it back to its more logical Win 3.1 name of "File Manager" – the two "explorers" are just confusing to novice users.
I think that the ribbon interface in general needs a massive overhaul – it's better than everything else out there at the moment, but is in need of drastic further innovation as is clunky and cluttered. Large buttons with COPY and PASTE are not a good UI IMO and I think that one solution may lie in advancing the functionality of contextual right-click menus. Another may be to combine a traditional menu better with the ribbon into a new hybrid design – e.g. ribbon tabs at the top screen edge of a maximised window like Firefox/Chrome (Fitt's Law) which have their contents only shown when the mouse is clicked; a mouse held down can also glide between "tabs".
I would like you to keep both, the ribbon and the traditional toolbars (as a secondary option) in the explorer.
I would like you to keep both, the ribbon and the traditional toolbars (as a secondary option) in the explorer.
MS *really* doesn't understand the idea of keeping things simple. We're entering a new paradigm for computing and people using computers and MS is still stuck in overdesigning things like an old dinosaur that just doesn't "get it" when it comes to intuitive UI's. Keep on being MS, MS.
I LOVE the little scissors for cutting – that makes perfect sense and I'll really love using those scissors. But the paste icon just boggles my brain – a clipboard? I doubt I'll EVER use the clipboard icon. I jar of paste would make so much more sense. How am I expected to think paste when I see a clipboard?
For love of Pete. How come Microsoft always ends up making their core apps look like the cockpit of an airplane? You guys need to take a few clues from Apple. Techies like me love all of this flash, but 95% of your users are moms, grunts and casual users. Think before you create guys.
Looks horrible. I wish they could do something original instead of scrapping off their old designs. Is it truly that difficult to cut the clutter, keep the colours simple (with option to customise), leave the aero, and use the side details that they did for 8. Like really, it's like they designed it for a 4 year old (or an 80 year old).
Finally, copy as path gets the first class citizenship it deserves. I use it way more than anyother command and it's unduly buried.
What a disaster. It's hideous. Can you possibly squeeze anymore in there?
What a disaster. It's hideous. Can you possibly squeeze anymore in there?
It looks awful!!!
Thank god we can hide the ribbon.
Love the "Up" button!
After working with Office for several years now I am still not used to the ribbon UI. For often used commands I don't need it, short cut keys are a lot faster to use. But I do need to use it when I need some lesser used command. The ribbon UI slows me down and makes those less used commands very hard to find: my way of (mentally) organizing commands is apparently completely different than that of the MS UI designers. For me the grouping and ordering of the commands on the ribbon after multiple years of usage still makes no sense. Since there is no single path my eye can follow to go through all icons in the ribbon I can often only find those lesser used commands after a long search.
Furthermore it takes up far to much screen space and it looks clumsy, disorganised and plain ugly.
In short, I HATE the ribbon in Office, there is NO chance I will ever like it in Explorer. I sure hope we will have an alternative UI choice in 8.
Typical Microsoft… Their data shows that Users dont like/use the ribbon. So what do they do…? Jam more junk into it to do what? Try and force the user to use a mouse, waist valuable screen/window real estate, and it just looks silly.
That is the trick here – Microsoft didnt make any real changes, they just made the Explorer interface look more like the ribbons on the Office products, thus inducing the consumer into a feeling of commonality in their workspace without much improvement on performance, reliability, usefulness, or security.
Get a clue!
I've used Windows 7 with a touch screen since it came out.
I am disappointed that Microsoft have failed to address one of the main problems with using Explorer with a touch interface – selecting files.
The new ribbon has a select area which has "Select all" and "Select None" and "Invert Secection".
These are extreme cases of the commands I want, but don't give me granularity in selecting files. What I really want are two more buttons: "Select Range" and "Toggle Selection" which correspond to Shift-Click and Ctrl-Click.
At the monent I can't do this without a keyboard (on or off-screen) and the new ribbon doesn't help.
What a missed opportunity to make Explorer truly touch friendly.
Please fix the indexing so it does not constantly thrash the drives. Also please fix the search feature to work if indexing is disabled.
Looking very nice, Steven.
One suggestion: I would like to see a "Copy as" function, which combines a copy and rename. On a simple level this would provide a dialog with the current filename to be edited before clicking OK.
Fancier options could include prefixing and postfixing strings or formatted dates/times for multiple file copies.
Oh, and make "Automatically expand to current folder" the default 🙂
If you are really "reimagining" Windows, please get rid of drive letters!
Please, remove that old-style device management!
@nowuniverse
I acknowledge that more space is generally good (although I don't know if it's good to remove the group names) and a more shiny button looks good. And I think your gradiation between Ribbon bar and title bar looks very nice. But I still don't think that lighter icons are a good thing. Lighter = less colorful = less readable = less usable. Colorful icons are existing for a good reason. I can recognize more colorful icons faster/easier/better than less colorful icons. So there is a conflict between usability and your design change. I don't think it looks better. Even if it would look better to me, I wouldn't consider this change as a good thing, because usability is more important than design. The same is true for the labels. The help symbol (question mark) doesn't bother me, because there is enough space and it's not annoying for me. I'm indifferent to the lighter scrollbar, because you still cannot miss it and it's looks not bad. At the end, I consider some of your suggestions as good, but I really don't agree on the lighter icons and labels.
@good_doctor
You are not forced to use the Ribbon. Use context menus, keyboard shortcuts and the new fully customizable QAT. Click "Minimize the Ribbon" and be happy.
"For crying out LOUD: your own telemetry data shows Copy/Paste to be most used commands!
Please, please, make them easier!!!
You are NOT making them easier by making an ugly ribbon ‘thing’ with big ‘Copy’ & ‘Paste’ buttons!"
Use the new fully customizable QAT. Add your favourite buttons (copy & paste) to the QAT, so access is as easy as possible. The new fully customizable QAT comes with the new Ribbon UI.
@Sharp_Knurling
"Try and force the user to use a mouse, waist valuable screen/window real estate, and it just looks silly."
That's just your opinion. You are not forced to use the Ribbon. Use context menus, keyboard shortcuts and the new fully customizable QAT. Click "Minimize the Ribbon" and be happy. You have a slim design and there is no wasted space.
@Wow..
"MS *really* doesn't understand the idea of keeping things simple."
Use context menus, keyboard shortcuts and the new fully customizable QAT if you don't want to use the Ribbon. Click "Minimize the Ribbon" and be happy. There is nothing simpler than minimized Ribbon and QAT.
I hope Microsoft doesn't listen to trolls. "Minimize the Ribbon" and the new fully customziable QAT solves all possibles problems. The often demanded radical design change and the touch friendliness will come with the new Metro UI.
If research shows that most people are using contextual menus over toolbars now, why not focus on them instead. All I ask is that you make it easy to disable.
@k
Isn't the option "Minimize the Ribbon" easy enough? Use context menus and be happy.
wheres the up button for Windows 7!?
since there were 999 comments, I thought i should add some another to even it out 😀
@Steven Sinofsky and Windows Team
This article is "Rated Good [4.17 out of 5]"
Please put this into perspective. This relativizes these hundreds of "I hate Ribbon" statements.
I'm sure most people will love the Ribbon, newbies, mainstream users and power users. The Ribbon sceptics can use "Minimize the Ribbon" and the new QAT (and shortcuts and context menus). Trolls will troll forever, haters will hate forever.
my first comment never seems to have made it – and now you've switched this page so it has 67 pages of comments it's impossible to follow threads.
fundamentally, my basic reaction to seeing a ribbon here is "OH NO!". MS is clearly not learning from the negative reactions to the ribbon in Office. I DETEST the ribbon, both visually and functionally. Please give us back logical, heirarchical menus!
I've been more aware since my initial reading of the post of how I use Explorer. I would say it's 80% keyboard shortcuts (copy/paste/delete/enter), 15% drag-and-drop, and 5% or less for other operations. For those few non-standard operations, most are right-clicks for the context menu. Any less common actions I want to be able to find in a logical menu system, not to have to hunt around ribbons where most of the space ios filled up by pictures of things I don't use it for. Just look at the stats from your own analysis, and think about it.
I already have one major issue with explorer in Win7 – that it can't remember layouts – both column widths and layout type – on a per-folder basis. It looks like the ribbon will drive me to get a more functional third-party alternative – which is pretty ridiculous, considering that this is one of the primary system tools. I'm already using a freeware replacement for another MS tool which was well-designed, customisable, functional, and now removed – the Office Shortcut Bar. So here's yet another way for MS to exclude and insult their long-standing customers. Please please just realise when you have a good thing going, and stick to it.
@GRB
So you use keyboard shortcuts and your mouse (context menu, drag&drop) most of the time.
You would use menus and the Ribbon very very rarely. So why wouldn't you just minimize the Ribbons?
I bet you're never forced to use the Ribbon, because there are so many alternatives: Keyboard shortcuts, context menus and the new QAT.
Just give me the option to hide the stupid ribbon so it never comes back and I'm happy
People, read the article. The option to minimise the ribbon exists.
With minimise and the Quick Access Toolbar, you never need to see the ribbon.
my opinion:
1. currently ribbon looks just ugly
2. functionality – controls are with different height/length – all looks very chaotic and some controls are not usable for touch screens (too small):
a) Share tab – print/fax/burn are small but there are plenty of unused place at the right… People to share should be under Share button which can be expanded to list…
b) View tab – how frequently people switch preview/details? Usually it's set and never touch any more – so move it to the right, refresh is already in address bar – what is the second button for? What is "hide selected items" usefull for? I cannot imagine… Checkboxes "Image file names" etc shou.ld be under single button (like Sort by). View should be single button (slider like now – it works great). Group by should be size of Sort by. Add columns also.
c) Manage tab – again small controls and plenty of place…
And get rid of grayed captions…
Those who complain are often the loudest of the group, but they might not be largest portion…
As we see here.
WIndows 7 explorer was much prietier. It was clean, simple, nice. You could add option to modify blue command bar to add/remove commands and it would be enough. This mess is terrible. From clean, simple and polished UI you are going back to overcomplicated mess…
I love this! I also love the ribbon in Microsoft office 2007 and 2010. Back when office used a menu bar I found that I would have to cycle through everything until I found the thing I was looking for. I also wasted a lot of time reading everything. I have a photographic memory so I can instantly remember where everything is in office 2007/2010 and associate the icons with a task. I also like the look of it and think the whole minimalist thing is too boring. When I use a computer I use the mouse in my left hand (left-handed) and lean my face on my right hand (sloucher) and I try to avoid the keyboard for anything but typing. This will make it easier to do everything (such as select all) with my mouse. Great work!
@6205
Why don't you just minimize the Ribbon and use the new QAT (+ context menus + keyboard shortcuts)? There is no mess and it's as clean, simple, polished, nice and slim as Windows 7.
PS: Windows 7 Explorer was not customizable. Windows 8 Explorer is customizable, thanks to the new Ribbon UI.
Needs more buttons… and cowbell.
"I would like you to keep both, the ribbon and the traditional toolbars (as a secondary option) in the explorer."
Only an idiot would want to get rid of the traditional menus. If you want to give kindergarteners and grown up village idiots an option to have giant picture buttons because they are too stupid to read, fine. But quit pandering to them by making everyone who has a reasonable intelligence come down to their level.
Make it Metro!!
please be joking about ribbon, it's no good
(NOTA BENE: I have attempted to post this twice already but both times it seems to have disappeared, so I am going to try again to post it. If my originals turn up , then please delete them. Thank you!)
**************************************************
I would like to thank Microsoft and especially Steve Sinofsky for making it possible to communicate with him and the Windows team directly! As you will see, I am so pleased that I am going to take full advantage of the opportunity!
01) I need a Status Bar with sensible grouping of information. In XP – which I am still using because file management in Vista and 7 is so bad – in XP, on the left side of the Status Bar we see "3 Objects (Disk Free Space: 10.3 GB)" and towards the right side of the screen we see "327 MB". Notice that although they are grouped together, the number of objects in the folder has *nothing* to do with the free space on the disk, and the figure that shows the size of those 3 objects in the folder is off on the other side of the screen!
Here is what I would like to see: a Status Bar items reading "3 Objects (1 subfolder and 326 MB in 2 files) (726 MB in 46 subfolders and 1136 files)."
Let's look at this a bit more carefully:
"(3 Objects (1 subfolder and 326 MB in 2 files)": This shows me how many objects are in the folder, and how big the files in the folder are, in total.
"(726 MB in 1136 files and 46 subfolders)": This shows me the total number of subfolders, and the total number of all the files in the folder and all its subfolders, and the total size of everything in the folder and its subfolder.
Now, I have to use the Properties function to get this information, and Property pages are not
terribly easy to work with.
This would make it much easier to assemble a dvdr or cdr of data to burn!
(Move "Disk Free Space" to the other side of the screen where, in XP, it now shows us the size of the objects in the folder. )
02) When I copy several files into a new folder, please stop immediately re-sorting all the objects in that folder! Even if there was some benefit to this new behaviour – and there isn't – it would not outweigh the fact that I have close to 20 years of experience with the old "copy but don't re-sort" behaviour and you know, I do not want to have to learn a new way of doing things that offers no benefits to me at all.
Incidentally, this brings me to another reason why I am not using Win 7: I could *not* figure out the new single-click/double-click behaviour of the desktop icons. I noticed that there was something new, different, and wrong about it, but I never figured out what it was. Well it is not as though I put a lot of effort into it, frankly. Again, I resent having to relearn things that were perfectly acceptable the old way, when the new way offers no benefits that could possibly outweigh the inconvenience of having to relearn patterns that have been efficient for nearly 20 years! (If this was done to make Windows easier to learn for millions of new users, you risked alienating many more hundreds of millions of veteran users. Personally I do not think that this was a smart trade-off.)
03) The folder tree in the left pane in Win 7 looks like the Dolphin File Manager from FreeBSD for heavens' sake! WHERE did the vertical lines leading from a folder to its subfolders go? For someone who needs to use fairly elaborate directory structures, getting rid of these vertical lines makes it more difficult to understand the file structure. Another instance where a change was made for the sake of looks at the expense of functionality.
04) I need the "Invert Selection" command. Is that still there? I use it infrequently but when I need it, I need it.
05) Now this is bit difficult to explain succinctly, and I do not recall if this is still the case in Win 7, but let me attempt it.
In Windows 98, if you click on the folder name in Explorer's left pane, the right pane would show you the contents. But! If the mouse focus was in the right pane, and you clicked in the left pane but *not* on a file name (in empty space in the left pane, that is to say), you would simply change the mouse focus, and you could use your scroll wheel to navigate the left pane. The contents of the right pane would not change.
In XP and probably in Vista and Win 7, there is no place to click in the left pane in order to simply change the mouse focus without changing the folder you have open in the right pane. Every pixel in the left pane is live. If you click anywhere in the left pane, you will change the right pane view to show the contents of whatever folder name is on the same horizontal level as where you clicked. When the focus is in the right pane, you must click in the left pane to enable scroll wheel navigation, but if you click anywhere except on the name of folder already open in the right pane, you *change* the contents of the right pane to show another folder's contents! Ugh.
(There was once – and possibly still – is an option for "X-mouse behaviour". That is also "ugh".)
Please make *only* the folder names "live" in Win 8 Explorer, like in Win 98 SE Explorer.
06) I absolutely do not want to see "symbolic" folders! It only took a few minutes for me to get thoroughly fed up with messages in Windows Explorer telling me "Access Denied" or whatever that message was, and which helped me decide to stick with XP. Oddly, I seem to recall getting a real picture of the actual structure of my file system using a demo of a 3rd party file manager, but I do not remember Microsoft offering me a rebate on whatever tools I would need to make Win 7 usable on a day-to-day basis.
07) Here is a very important point! Right now, in XP, I have Windows Explorer configured a certain way for file management purposes. I also have a shortcut on my desktop to a second computer. That shortcut opens up another instance of Windows Explorer, but an instance that is configured differently from the instance I use to manage files.
This situation seems to be impossible to duplicate in Win 7.
If, in Win 7, I have my "file manager" instance of Windows Explorer configured to show the folder tree in the left pane, then that shortcut on my desktop to my second computer is going to open with the exact same view! But instead of showing folders with my files in it, it is going to show a small number of "folders" that might represent the way Windows is structured on some technical level, but has nothing to do with anything I need when I am browsing that other computer. If I reconfigure that computer-browser Explorer to not show the left pane with the folder tree (and that is how I want it when browsing the other computer), then the next time I open my "file manager" instance of Windows Explorer, the folder tree will not be there, and I will have to open it. Quite a nuisance!
My file-management instance of WinExplorer always opens with the tree view. The remote-computer-browser instance of WinExplorer always opens without it. I need Win 8 to be able to do this – just like Windows XP!
(Here follow several things not strictly about Windows Explorer.)
08) New Start Menu! Well, the new Start Menu in Win 7 lets you navigate a hierarchy but refuses to let you see where you are in that hierarchy! Because… screen real estate is precious, and someone wants Start Menu to use as little of it as possible – even if it means that it is easy to get lost in the hierarchy of a complicated folder structure. Oh, and before someone brings it up, please don't tell me about using Search to start apps! How complicated must a simple process be made? Besides which, if I am recording music and have a guitar in hand, I can navigate with the mouse easily, but if navigating the Start Menu now requires both hands and/or the keyboard, then I am sticking with XP. Of course, if someone thinks up something that actually improves on the classic Start Menu, and that is "better" and "easier" and not merely "new" and "clever", then I am all in
favour. (Half-baked workarounds, of which I tried a few, count for nothing.)
09) Search: Open up a Search dialogue and certain UI elements bounce around, to make room for the "built-in" search box. I do not like having my view changed or UI elements moved. It confuses me and makes me have to find things which, just a moment ago, were right there! Please give me a pop-up window of some kind, such as the XP search dialogue had.
(In XP I could have multiple Search windows open. Very handy. I don't recall if this was possible in Win 7, but it would be handy in Win 8.)
Win 7 Search function is a mess, really. What I recall is, that if I search for a string, Search will first look through most – but not all! – of my files looking for a file name with that string, then it will look through the contents of the files in those folders looking for that string, and then it will resume looking that the rest of the file names! And you can't change this bizarre behaviour! It is hardly possible to waste more time than this! (Pro Tip: Sometimes I know if I am looking for a file name, or a string inside a file.)
*******************************************************************
Thanks for listening! I truly hope that Win 8 is the success that *I* want it to be!
: )
No matter what you do, just make absolutely sure that the ribbon will always have that lovely shade of blue and Segoe UI font. Because we all know that it's exactly this magic combination that makes it so cool and powerful. Don't confuse the users as Office does. Three color schemes, such a nonsense! No one needs that many color schemes. Don't be affraid to say it loud, who doesn't like blue ain't our friend! And I even heard legends about old times when users were free to choose any color out of 16 millions and custom font for their user interface. The horror! Don't ever allow that to happen again!
As a developer, you can't even imagine how happy you make me with theses improvements. I have to use Q-Dir for my file management, and it is kind of an amateurish program (much better than windows 7 explorer, though).
For reference, I have to tell you, you should have a deep look to Pathfinder from Cocoatech for OSX, it is the best file manager ever.
Multi-tab, multi-panel would be a killer feature, by the way.
Please add to Windows 8 support for view/print MS Office document formats. Maybe that Modern Reader reviewed somewhere on the web could do the job and beside PDF/XFS could display also Word/Excel/PowerPoint files…
How can anyone using a ribbon and mouse for file management be considered a "power user"?
Is there a setting to automatically size the column display for the titles without having to right-click and 'size all columns to fit'? That's only been needed since 2000 or so…
I like the comparison screenshot of explorers. 22 files in Win7, 24 in Win8. Whaouu, my XP gets 56 files…
I personally don't like the Ribbon. As long as everything is accessible from a context menu, I'll be hiding it, as it is the most confusing menu system I've ever used.
That looks stupid.
Just another attempt of MS to make its users
look like children.
I will bloat its already overloaded operating
system even more.
If you want to play with the big dogs (Apple),
how about giving your clients what you promised
them 2 operating systems ago –
A NEW FILE SYSTEM (EFI perhaps???).
I noticed the question has been asked numerous
times in other comments and was evaded like
the plague.
Step up Microsoft and please STOP, for heavens sake,
to give us more Kindergarden pictures to play with and
click on in your outdated windows systems.
Professionalistic approaches and Security should
have priority over looks. JMHO.
I do love the Ribbon. I'm glad they're ribbonifying everything in Windows. I just hope that one day it will reach Visual Studio.
"people overwhelmingly use Explorer for core file management tasks"
Well, duh!
Guess its time to switch to mac. Thanks for ruining the computer experience.
I ask you again to publish a screenshot of Windows Explorer with hidden ribbon to make it clear to readers that there is no real problem of space.
I hope with all my heart that remains and ribbon can be reduced and the new option you QAT so save a line.
Only one question a screenshot with ribbon hidden.
Kisses.
Why is it even possible to make comments without prior registration? Obviously most of the naggers are trolls without registration. Most of these "I hate it, it's ugly and crap" guys are not willing to read the whole article and just hate for hate's sake.
The Ribbon UI is a huge help for newbies (obviously) and also a great improvement for power users, because there is now plenty of room for more functionality.
If somebody doesn't want to use the Ribbon, that's okay. Minimize the Ribbon and don't use it. Use keyboard shortcuts, context menus and the new QAT. Nobody is forced to use it, but I want to use the Ribbon.
While I like the Ribbon to expose the most commonly used commands, I'm finding the circa Office 2007 ribbon icons looking dated. You've got a fair number of diferent colors in those icons that combine to present a kind of "garish" appearance. And unfortunately that aspect of the new Windows Explorer feels like a step backwards from the cleaner version in Windows 7. Why not tone the icon colors *way* down? Heck I'd even consider monochrome icons like these Metro style icons – http://www.smartypantscoding.com/…/metro-icons-windows-phone-7
there is some heavy duty filtering of comments going on, at whatever level. this is my third time trying to post.
alas, the infamous office ribbon creeps its way into other interfaces. more buttons != better, and the first thing i do when setting up a windows machine for someone is simplify the ui as much as possible. people want to see their files and understand where and what they are, not be faced with a menu-high spread of all they can do with them, 90% of which they're not going to need at a given time. nearly everything relevant can be presented contextually, and from there key combos can be learned by association in the context menu (provided the developers show them).
also irking is the trend toward grouping tasks how engineers think users think of them. for instance ACL control is an important, you might say fundamental functionality for me, so i can see it under "home" or better yet "manage" as easily as "share". perhaps i'm not burning things to optical disc because i want to share, maybe i want to archive and hoard. and slideshow, shouldn't that be under "view"? there's a bit of overlap between activities, and to me it seems easier to just lay them out nicely, perhaps arranged by create/modify/destroy natures, than to force people's workflows into round holes. you had me at vista, at least xp one can make recognizable again.
the double stacked tabs took a sec to figure out too, the "library tools > manage" vs "picture tools > manage" thing. adding clarifying tabs to multiple tabs of the same name doesn't make them ok. more is definitely more confusing, and duplicates are for no.
compound widgets (scrolling mini file listings reminiscent of multiple select inputs, buttons that are also menus) within compound widgets (tabbed ribbon bar thingy whose first tab is actually a menu) is also definitely more confusing.
Nice post. I learn something more challenging on different blogs everyday. It will always be stimulating to read content from other writers and practice a little something from their store. I’d prefer to use some with the content on my blog whether you don’t mind. Natually I’ll give you a link on your web blog. Thanks for sharing.
http://www.printingray.com/sticker-printing.html
The ribbons are a great idea, keep making people learn the same thing over and over with every new version. With win 7 I started using a third party search tool since it's search is severally handicapped.
I can see the facts that support the using of this ribbon in specific apps, but I suddenly can't stand it to be in each every window I open.
This deisgn scheme works quite beautifully in single window operations, but the clutter generated when two or more windows are open can be said to at least be uncomfortable to the eyes.
Should these ribbons appear ONLY in the current active window, that could be another story completely.
I don't see with much love the use of different sizes of icons, since the type-to-icon size ratio gets messy and further increase this clutter sensation.
Also, the implementation of such amount of different colors and 'scale' in iconical representation is a step backwards. If we take everything Metro UI has brought to the icon matter, simple, modern and easy to understand abstractions, then this is quite the opposite.
Also, I just can't see this approach inhabitating the same universe with the Start Screen.
Although these are different user paradygms I would rather require the use of a more unified look (not skin-wise, but detail wise) across the whole experience.
This jumping experience can be hurting for the overall UX.
Sorry for my horrible english.
I never understood the column of TYPE, I mean seriously if you have no idea what you are looking at how sad.
Please fix these bugs introduced in Windows 7 Explorer which were not present in Vista: social.technet.microsoft.com/…/e99833fd-9410-4fde-b275-6ce7c76d3397
Explorer team, the number of comments on his blog post easily demonstrate that the Explorer shell is the most important component of Windows and if the team fixes all of the bugs and addresses the features missed or removed, Windows 8 will be a very successful release. Please restore Explorer to its former Windows 2000-XP glory.
@Matt re. TYPE
the type column is not new, and is quite useful. sorting by type and selecting a range is usually faster than operating a search interface when you're looking for a particular extension, plus you don't abstract your location. sorry, but "if you have no idea what you are [criticizing] how sad".
@ "hater" callers
there are many valid points opposing this ui change. in short it's more cluttery, fisher-pricey, and babysittery. there's lots of "if it ain't broke" sentiment. this is important feedback for the developers, i hope they're listening and not just deleting comments.
Nice idea but the ribbon takes up so much screen real-estate. Why not just give people a minimal menu with say a gear icon like Apple does with a drop down menu with all the commands they need? It's simple, unobtrusive and doesn't gobble up pixels
Why can people not read what they are commenting on?
You can minimise the Ribbon if you do not like, or if you primarily use keyboard shortcuts.
The data backs them up and the ribbon works well in other components. I hope it goes ahead, and I am glad that they are trying something new. MS are often criticised for being too static… damned if they do and damned if they don't it seems!
I think that it is about time to introduce TABBED browsing for the Windows Explore. It is just SO much more convenient to have a SINGLE window with MANY opened folder/locations.
About the ribbon interface – I'm a heavy Excel user and I use the ribbon shortcuts A LOT, so this is a welcomed feature. But I KNOW that many people do NOT use the ribbon nor the keyboard shortcuts, so I think that it will be a good idea to have something like a "classical view" of the explore, just to keep things simple.
@Trev, duq
Are you trolling or didn't you read the article? Please read the parts about "Minimizing the Ribbon" and the new fully customizable Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).
Just minimize the Ribbon and you have a minimal slim design, no cluttery UI, no wasted space.
With QAT you can build your own slimline toolbar, which uses free space. This is the opposite of wasted space.
Win8 Explorer can be as slim as Win7 Explorer, but with more used space.
I just updated my mockup for a suggested feature of Explorer, I just wanted to reshare (I posted already here).
skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx
As I said before, I think the Ribbon will be autohide by default and show only on hover. Extend glass (AERO+Metro) to the tabs like in Office 2010. Make the Ribbon even more dynamic and shows the most common and important actions in autohide mode, also in this mode of Ribbon I think that it will not take all the space horizontally, a bit slimmer vertically.
Hoping for consideration.
Best Regards to Windows Team!
@ John D'oh
of course i read the article. i still think the ribbon is cluttered and largely unnecessary, and i supported my view (context menus). did you read my comments? to all of you pointing out that it can be minimized, the other half of us heard you.
windows explorer has had a customizable ui to some degree for a while, but the article's statement "… UI customization with the quick access toolbar, taking us back to a customization level that is basically equivalent to Windows XP" admits a regression in configurability seen in vista and 7 (though "slim", somehow clunky still) that is being overcorrected in 8 imo. i don't think we need a QAT, or more acronyms, or time spent on ui that many are going to hide straight away. we just want what we had before. in vista and 7 suddenly i couldn't find elements, and with this design i'll have a different but equal difficulty.
respectfully.
@duq
Okay, you personally don't wanna use Ribbon. And you don't wanna use QAT for some reason. You like to use context menus.
So why don't you just minimize Ribbon, use context menus and be happy?
I want Ribbon and I want QAT. I see, that the Ribbon is a huge help for newbies and also very nice for power users, because there is now plenty of room for more functionality.
I will be happy with Ribbon UI, you will be happy with context menus. There is no problem. I don't say "You shouldn't be able you to use context menus", so don't tell me "You shouldn't be able to use the Ribbon".
Why should it even bother you, if you don't want to use it and you're not forced to use it? It doesn't make sense.
Hideous. Absolutely hideous.
Yikes. This is one of worst interface design changes I've seen in years. Microsoft is regressing. I mean this with sincerity: After seeing this, I thank Steve Jobs for giving us the option of using Apple's Mac OS X.
Wow.. What a joke this is. Or has to be. Windows has always been ugly and cluttered, but this takes the price.
Come on, this is 2011. It's not even funny, guys.
Hahah on second thought, this is actually pretty funny. Good humor, guys.
Two words: Tabbed Browsing
I personally love the Ribbon, but not implementing tabbed browsing would be a serious oversight. Please, do this!!
@good_doctor- we share your passion for using data people trade to improve our products. In the case of file name collision, we learned that in Windows 7, 45% of the cases people encounter this dialog, they choose either "Don't copy" or "Copy, but Keep both files". While there are legitimate reasons for choosing each, it still indicated an opportunity to do more with this dialog. As you point out, there are many more places we can improve the interface in Windows8; please keep the comments (and telemetry) coming, we'll do our best to drive both towards product improvement.
@Dennis
Again, stating that you always have the option to remove a UI does not support that it is a good UI. In fact suggesting that turning off a UI is could be an improvement supports that there is, in fact, something that needs to be improved in that UI.
Furthermore their data does not back them up that the ribbon works well in 'this' situation. Any data for the ribbon increasing customer satisfaction in Office comes from improving on the previous Office UI of an ever increasing menu system of more and more action bars full of icons for often concurrently used tasks. In that very specialized case the Ribbon UI is effective for allowing several concurrent actions of a varying nature to happen repeatedly when a task is a focused one, e.g., formatting a document, where you often don't just format one single element but rather a series of related ones, such as text size, font, margins, line spacing, heading style, etc.
To consider that data as proof that the same model should be applied to another system due solely to the correlation that there also exists many possible user actions and thus should be presented in just the same way is a logical fallacy. Whereas with Office many concurrent actions tasks take place repeatedly, in the explorer window the actions are far more singular. Only in the rarest of occasions, where several concurrent and related actions would take place in the explorer, would the ribbon UI be eligible for consideration as an effective means of improving the UX (user experience) over the current UI, and in the vast majority of user experiences it would be an unnecessary waste.
Also, to consider the data from “command entrypoint usage” – that 9 out of every 10 user actions are preferred to NOT be from the ‘command bar’ – as proof that the Ribbon UI would be effective for that role in the Windows explorer is a logical fallacy (several?) as well. The only thing the data from that that telemetry shows is that it is 9 times more likely that an action command will not be given through the ‘command bar’. The reason why it is 9 time less likely to come from the command bar is not a part of any of that data and to suggest it is part of that data is again… yep you guessed it… a logical fallacy.
@ John D'oh
– ok, you personally like the ribbon. that's fine. i do grok its function.
– i never said you shouldn't be able to.
– there was plenty of room for functionality before, via menus and configurable toolbars.
– it bothers me enough to voice because it seems an interface designed by engineers, and there are Better Ways, such as the "gear" menu in apple's finder pointed out by Trev, or even what existed already in xp (i could get that sucker down to one bar plus tree view and file list). why does my opinion bother you enough to shoot it down?
– if anyone's trolling, it might be you with 12 posts sounding like a broken record.
I agree With Dennis and John D'oh, Ribbon it's powerfull, i personally love the Office 2010 Ribbon, Windows Live Ribbon style it's little ugly, just refine the Ribbon UI to extend glass (AERO+Metro) to the tabs like in Office 2010 as ArchTech01 said.
Can we developers create add-ons or plug-ins to integrate powerfull tab in Windows Explorer?, that's would be amazing.
Thanks for everything W8 Team.
I have another request for the Explorer team: If addons and third parties cannot plug into the ribbon or the Quick Access Toolbar, can you make it possible to use verbs and actions from the Ribbon re-usable in custom addins. For example, if we could use the ability to toggle the Explorer panes in addins.
I mean just a programmatic way to use all the Ribbon actions.
Hi team, Great job taking a hard look at improving the interface in Explorer. Much appreciated work.
When thinking about the Ribbon, one has to think about the type of application you are working with. I think that anyone sane would have to agree that this UI is a slam-dunk for Office, while everyone should agree that it would be terrible for IE. For everything in between, one has to think about how the application is used. The answer to the question of which UI approach should be used would seem to be highly correlated with the metric of creation / management of content vs. consumption of content. How much am I constantly moving back and forth to the command bar to do something? There is also the issue of how many commands there are and how many one would like to expose.
My opinion is that Explorer is a middle ground. People do a lot of file management in Explorer that could benefit from a better UI for the controls, but it is also the kind of program that you want to look simple. Things like file visualization and good preview functionality are at least equally important and for that you want to get out of the way. As far as the Explorer in Windows 8, I think that I would make very good use of what was presented in the post. However, I also think that it looks very bulky and complicated. I would be surprised to hear anyone argue that this is not a step backward visually compared to Windows 7. My opinion is that Explorer warrants a compromise and needs a “lite” version of the Ribbon. Not all Ribbons need to be created equal, and the Ribbon that does so well in Office is too heavy for Explorer. What would this entail?
1. The Ribbon should be minimized by default!! This is the simplest thing that would address the complaints about the Ribbon. Even I as a power user feel like I would probably want to minimize it due to appearance. It is going to work great being able to choose whether you want to have the Ribbon expanded or minimized, as long as out of the box, it is minimized. I have to think this has already been decided upon.
2. Height. The Ribbon is used across many applications, but there is no reason why it needs to be the same height in every one. The numerous advantages listed for the Ribbon all carry forward if you made it shorter, and this is more appropriate for a simpler application like Explorer. Making the Ribbon shorter would make it look much lighter, would address concerns about screen real estate (the comparison of which above has been noted as being misleading), and would still allow room for a great UI. Note that, as much detail as you went into about widescreen displays, most of the tabs do not make use of the width on a normal sized Explorer window! There is all kinds of wasted space along the width, all while taking up precious real estate along the height. Just rearrange the controls to squish them into a shorter space. If the Home tab could not accommodate quite as many controls, that it probably a good thing anyway.
3. Visual styling. Changing the visual styling alone could go a long way to making the UI look lighter. Many have noted that the Ribbon in Office 2010 looks better. I think this would be a good starting point, but could be further optimized for a simpler type of application like Explorer. I would recommend doing some extensive experimentation on visual styles to come up with something that would be there when you need it, but would really fade into the background when you didn’t. Something that you could almost forget is there when you are doing something else. As others have noted, the large amount of transparency in Windows 7 Explorer, even extending to surround the address bar, makes it look elegant and simple.
In all, I think the work so far is good, but needs a good bit of refinement to be successful.
PS. +1 for Powershell
Also disappointed about lack of extensibility in the Ribbon as that would be such a killer feature for so many add-ons.
Well my first, long comment doesn't seem to have made it through here, so I'll start again.
The first thing I do when downloading the beta will be to switch off the ribbon and never use it again, so that's not going to affect me. In all my years of windows use, I have never, ever, used a menu bar/ribbon to do a copy or paste, and I never will, nor will I understand why anyone would.
However, a lot of potential discussion has been missed out on this post, probably because so much of the post is devoted to the Ribbon. Here goes:
1) >50% of people use context menus to work with files. Have any improvements been made to the context menus? Are we going to be given control over what's in the right click menu, or will applications still be able to spam their links in there, with no easy way to get them out again? Can I add my own commands to the right click menu? Why isn't the right click menu consistently picking up that if I right click on a file, I want to focus on that file's menu, not the generic folder menu?
2) Auto Re-sort. Very snazzy for some users, utterly hideous for other users. Are we going to be able to switch this off?
3) Full Row Select. Another behaviour that needs to be exposed so that users have control over it.
4) Multi-Pane view/Tabbed view. Other than an "other utilities do that" comment, there's no discussion about this. Has it been dismissed out of hand? Tested in focus groups? Like many people, I'd like to be able to reduce the number of explorer windows I've got open at any given time.
I'm very disappointed in the amount of buttons on screen. Microsoft must feel like "simplification of functionality" means "complication of UI", because windows explorer is starting to look like a tornado of buttons hit it. Note to MS: Having every possible action represented a button does NOT cater to the power user. It's the extreme linear opposite. And I won't speak for a windows "new user", because I'm not one, but "streamlined experience" is the last word I would use to describe this interface.
@duq
– there was plenty of room for functionality before, via menus and configurable toolbars.
Sadly not in Vista and not in Seven. They removed customizable toolbars and functionality in Explorer. Microsoft is willing to bring back customizability and functionaliy with Ribbon UI. That's good for me. And Ribbon helps newbies.
– if anyone's trolling, it might be you with 12 posts sounding like a broken record.
Well, there are hundreds of comments like "I don't want Ribbon, there is wasted space, I want a slim design, I want to disable it, I want to use shortcuts/context menus" and I explain a few times "You're not forced to use Ribbon, there isn't wasted space, it is a slim design, you can minimize and you still can use shortcuts/context menus". That's not a bad thing.
@Andy Nick
Why don't you just minimize the Ribbon and use context menus, shortcuts and maybe new QAT instead? It's simple and not complicated. It's as slim as Vista/Seven Explorer. And you don't have to see these amount of buttons on screen.
@John D'oh
John, with all due respect, we ARE aware that we can minimize the ribbon 'thing'…
No need to repeat it all the time, we ain't as stupid as you take as for – thank you….
And, John, this is NOT about being able to minimize ribbon 'thing' at all!
What this IS about is in the title of this blog post… Hint: note the word 'Improvements'…
Plain & short: there are NO improvements here – there is only a 'disputed UI element' stuffed on top of _existing_ functionality available for years while many possible real improvements were consciously ignored!
And, judging by user reaction, it seems that this 'improvement' will be switched off as quickly as possible by a large number of people…
So, if so many people hate this thing (for _whatever_ reason!) that they feel utterly compelled to switch it off ASAP how can MS sell us that as an 'improvement'?
THAT is the the point!
BTW Since you seem to like 'disputed UI element' so much could you please be so kind to share with us 2-3 common scenarios you do today that would be 'improved' by using said 'disputed UI element'?
No, i'm not being sarcastic – many people explained in great detail why they hate it but those few who said they liked it never explained why?
honestly, I really want to hear it as personally I have trouble imagining any real productivity gain and article didn't really give any examples either but hopefully you can convince everyone of error of our ways…
@good_doctor
FAR more people love The Ribbon UI of Office 2007/2010 than who hate it. It's without doubt the most productive UI design of the last 20 years. VERY small vocal miinority who don't like change oppose to it. For the millions of others, it has increased productivity by an incredible amount.
You should see Luke Jensen's presentation "The Story of the Ribbon": blogs.msdn.com/…/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx
Also if you want to know the details about why the Ribbon was invented in the first place, and how it improves the usability, read these blog posts by Jensen Harris: blogs.msdn.com/…/jensenh
Simply put, the Ribbon UI is infinitely more productive and time-saving than the old menus/toolbars. That's why the vast majority of the users prefer the Ribbon UI.
@ John D'oh
that post almost sounds like a commercial, and it's exactly what i mentioned you keep repeating.
please hear this. the people with comments about the ribbon are specifically commenting on the ribbon. whether or not it can be minimized. they dislike the ribbon design. the ribbon is what they are talking about. it's the subject of their critique, even. it's like if someone said "i find the design of this building awkward, not efficient, and not shaped by anyone who's spent much time doing [xyz] in it and here's why", and you reply "so don't go in that building!" point missed.
what if you have to, daily? what it it's work or home to you?
@ Calvin
dunno that the developers would see eye to eye about making it minimized by default. makes more sense that they'd lay out the everything-spelled-out features first and let seasoned users figure out how to hide them than the reverse and have novices figure out how to show them, they'd be oblivious to their existence. examples: common tasks sidebar, cartoonish default themes, nagging tray bubbles, start menu.
I want to leave my sympathy for whoever at MS has to go through all these posts.
As a hard core power user, I heartily welcome these changes, can conclude with myself that MS "finally get it", and am amused that so many people manage to twist the update into something negative.
Custom toolbars. Extensive keyboard shortcut support. Finally.
A.
I really don't understand that in part of the ribbon bar are these monster icons and then in other parts a single word. Is the large icon to facilitate shaky hands if so then why the use of the smaller word in other parts of the bar. Or is the larger the icon reflective of user percentage.
B.
I still use File Manager where possible e.g X P and 2003
A power user is really someone who needs just a thin GUI layer on top of the command shell.
example
using md from the command line you can easily create a set of cascading nested directories from anywhere
md abc123
you can do the same thing with File Manger
Alt + F
E
abc123
Trying to do that with any version of Windows Explorer is ridiculously painful
To try the following is copy winfile.exe from any NT version and drop it in system32 on XP or Server 2003.
Maybe Microsoft should first observe a base line of productivity with File Manager and then see if they can make the new Windows Explorer as powerful and sleek as FM
Ribbon bloat is for the those who need the eye candy and only use the screen to view pictures.
thx jg
i miss a function, that has never ever been implemented and so now you have the chance to: a file and folder comparison… to compare two folders and see, whats missing in one and the other.
right now, i would need something like this without searching for a thrid-party program in the net: i do upgrade my Windows Home Server to version 2 (2011) and have to copy 1 TB from the server to a external HDD. unfortunately, my one year old son unplugged the powerline from the notebook processing the copying. to prevent staring all over, i had to get a folder comparison program because winexplorer did not start all over again by looking up, whats already copied. it just said "not enough space free on ext HDD". 🙁
@Tuxplorer
Please re-read my post: I did not say anything against ribbon in MS office!
I am merely pointing out that adding ribbon to explorer does not an 'improvement' make…thank you for your attention…
@good_doctor
It's obvously not an improvement for you, but for most of the users, when you look at the article: "Rated Good [4.14 out of 5]"
There are improvements: More customizability, more functionality and it's easier to use for newbies. It doesn't help you, but other users are happy.
@duq
You like context menus and you don't like (minimized) Ribbon. So why don't you just ignore it? It seems there are two different approaches: Old Vista/Seven without customizability and less functionality and new Win8 with customizability and more functionality. Win8 still let you use you're context menus. But it brings improvements and helps newbies. So no disadvantages for you, because you can still use your context menus, but a lot of improvements for other people, more customizability, more help for newbies, more functionality for power users. Windows 8 Explorer including Ribbon UI has so many different ways to navigate/control. You use your way, I use my way, everybody is happy. It may sound like a commercial, because I badly want more customizability and functionality. If it comes with Ribbon UI, that's cool.
To be honest: I HATE the ribbon style. Its the most stupid thing you ever implemented into Windows. Till Windows 7 i used Paint very often to quickly and easily create screenshots with some simple cut&paste jobs but now with Windows 7 i prefer Photoshop because of that annoying ribbon crap. I also still use Office 2003.
I say that Windows 8 will be a much bigger loss than Vista was! I would love to still use Windows XP but since you didn't made DirectX 11 compatible i had to go to Windows 7 … and i have some hardware i cannot use anymore because there are no compatible drivers. Sorry Microsoft BUT THAT SUCKS!
@ Per, i agree customization and shortcuts are much welcomed. wasn't trying to overlook the positive.
@ John D'oh, those you're replying to aren't talking about whether it can be collapsed, but about the design itself in full effect WHEN IT'S EXPANDED. please give it a rest.
(seems my post didn't go thru…)
@John D'oh
John, I'm dissapointed to see you evading my question…
I _was_ genuienly interested in your answer…
But if you're unable to give a _single_ example of how ribbon helps YOU in day-to-day explorer tasks (while being so vocal of how great it is) please then give us some examples of how it 'helps newbies': I'd be interested to look at your extensive telemetry data…(or if you can point me to Microsoft's that would be great too…)
i'll be waiting – cheers…
Bring back the Print-to-file a list of all files in a directory. Still use DOS and Dir to pipe to a file or write a batch file for same
What I'm hoping for is an option to turn off opening IE from explorer, or at least to search harder onthe LAN before searching the web. When I open Windows Explorer and type in "fileserver" in the address bar I want it to open the shares on fileserver on my corporate network, not search the internet for a website called "fileserver"
Yes I know typing in "\fileserver" works, but I shouln't need the \ In IE I don't need to type in the http://www. I can just type in microsoft.com and get a website. Same things should apply in Windows explorer.
I have never intentionally typed in a web Address in Windows explorer.
Jim
Feature request:
(1) select mutliple files in Windows Explorer, and copy to clipboard
(2) when pasting into text field (e.g. Notepad) — paste them as list of file names
@good_doctot
(@duq, or not, since I should give it a rest )
QAT is a new functionality. Advanced Search bar/Ribbon is a new functionality. Mounting VHD/ISO is a new functionality, etc. I bet there is more coming. I want this new functions badly. I'm using Freeware right now in Win7 to improve Win7 Explorer a little bit.
QAT brings new customizability. I want this new functions since it was removed in XP.
Ribbon helps newbies. Not good for me directly, but I acknowledge, it helps other people. That's good for me.
So it brings improvements and helps users. And on the other hand, nobody is forced to used it.
Like I said before: There seems to be two alternatives. Option 1: Vista/Seven Explorer without customizability and less functionality. They would polish it a little bit and call it Win8 Explorer. Not a good option. Option 2: New Win8 Ribbon UI with customizability and more functionality. I don't think they consider Win8 Explorer to become an improved XP Explorer clone with hierarchal menus. Yes, they could do it theoretically, they could build customizable toolbars and more functionality in a Win8 Explorer with menus. But this will not happen. Old menus would be no innovation. Cloning/Improving XP Explorer from 2001, his would be the joke of the year, even if I would get along with. So the alternatives are: 1) No customizability and less functionality. 2) Customizability and more functionality, that comes with Ribbon UI. I chose 2. It's not only good for my needs: It helps newbies, better than menus could ever help.
Ribbon UI: There is a huge benefit for users who love functionality and customizability and for users who need more help. And there is no loss for users, who don't like Ribbon, who want a slim design, etc.
I never understood what was wrong about the ribbon. I literally can't use any Office before 2007 since I'm so used to the Ribbon. Vista and 7's Explorers always seemed a bit light on the options for me, and I like how the Ribbon places many commands right in front of me while still not really cluttering the UI. Good idea with the Ribbon. And for all the hater: you already knew this was coming. First Office, then Paint and Wordpad, then Windows Live Essentials, now Explorer. And those who dislike it can just minimize it and go back to their keyboard/right-click menu shortcuts. It's not as if the Ribbon prevents you from using the shorcuts.
That being said, there is room for improvement. The Ribbon needs to be flatter. Since most screens are widescreens, it makes more sense for the Ribbon to expand horizontally rather than vertically. For example, I would move the "Copy path" option to the right of the "Cut" option, then move the "Paste Shortcut" option to where the "Copy path" option currently is. This will shave some pixels and give the Clipboard section a more consistent look (no awkward space under Copy and Paste). Additionally, the team could further cut down on size by shaving off blank lines that don't fit any content. A few rows of pixels could be removed from the space between the section labels and the lowest row of buttons. Try to follow the example of the Windows Live 2011 ribbons like the one for WL Mail. I think that was very well done, with no buttons hanging below others like the "Paste Shortcut" one is right now.
I think this Explorer Ribbon can be a great feature for Windows 8. Just make it smaller and tweak the organization a bit.
Nice and consistent interface. The only thing that troubles me is speed of it.
While we're on feature request subject,
Recycle bin: I've found no way to get previous path of the file, before it was deleted; or know where will this file go when I click Restore. This is what causes much grief for me.
I think 'Resize' would be a great addition to the Picture Tools, especially when importing new pictures from a flash drive, camera or another computer.
As a developer who stares at multiple monitors for long periods of time, I prefer light text on a dark background. This is also true for a significant percentage of designers and CAD operators around the world.
I would really appreciate an option to customise the text and background colours for Windows Explorer, or at least have two themes: white and black. This should not be terribly difficult or costly to implement, surely?
(Changing the Window and Font colours through the Window Color and Appearance dialog is not a viable option as it makes a complete mess of most software.)
interesting. cant wait for the release of this os.
Context menus FTW! I don't want to click on a file at the bottom of the screen, then move the mouse pointer to the top of the screen to click on "Rename" or whatever.
Hi,
I'm not seeing any changes in the windows taskbar, do have any news about it
The new Ribbon is nice, its a great idea in my opinion, however, it makes Explorer look cluttered. Its like the hardware keyboard on phones thats always there whether its needed or not. What happened to Metro and minimalism, isnt that the direction Microsoft is heading in?
It would be better i think if the Ribbon would slide up and disappear when not needed and come down when the ALT key is held, or something like that, but I wouldnt like it to ALWAYS be there…
@Fahd Riyami
As already mentioned in the article and in comments, you can minimize the Ribbon. It's not always there, if you don't want to.
You get a minimalism design by Minimizing the Ribbon. You get Metro when you switch to the Metro UI, which is also included in Windows 8.
Ribbon looks great, because it will give Windows 8 a unified look and feel, given the fact that other Microsoft software like Windows Live and Office already use it. I would like to see an option to customize the background color of the Ribbon (and not only in Explorer but in future versions of Windows Live and Office as well).
To organize fotos and other media files I use keywords, f.e. like "holiday", "summer", "vienna", "Alex", etc. Handling keywords in explorer in windows xp is not quite comfortable. You can type a keyword wrong, you can forget a keyword and you can't set a single keyword for two files, if the two files have different keywords. I think that keywords make it easier to find your files fast and easily and therefore they have to be allocated to one or several files quickly and accurately.
Hopefully this suggestion would be heard !
First things first: I love the Ribbon in Office. After going Office 2007 I never looked back.
But the Ribbon in Explorer? Sorry, but if that makes its way into Win8 I will do anything in my power to remove this from my screen completely – and not only by minimizing it. Or I'll skip Win8 completely. This has to be one of the worst design decisions you made in a long time. In light of the fantastic Metro this is even more horrifying. What went wrong here?
Another thing that really surprises me is that you seemingly never asked the big community about Ribbon. Why didn't you start a big poll? You could have avoided the reaction you got in the last days because you'd have learned that almost nobody wants this. Even I who loves ribbon in Office.
Seriously, where's the improvement in cluttering space? The Ribbon in its current design and size literally screams for attention although the attention should be with the files I'm working with. On the other hhand, it seems that you didn't add any new task related improvement. Like Batch renaming, copy queues or other stuff.
Really, the Ribbon is too big and simply too clutter-y. On the other hand I think I know why you added so many icons: if you only went with the necessary ones we'd have so much white space that anybody would know the Ribbon is not necessary at all.
And what's with "Files", "Home" and "Manage"? Why is the "Home" button called "Home"? This is not a website with a starting page! "Home" – thanks to the internet – is connected to a certain location but not to the most basic tasks
Even if you decided for yourself to keep Ribbon you seriously need to redesign this. Really, it looks cluttered and feels like it's 2002 again. Seriously, take a neutral look at the minimized QAT and tell me it's look great because it doesn't. The same goes for the "Up" button.
Oh and one last thing: the whole communication on your side feels a little bit like the Firefox Version Number Disaster some days/weeks ago. The team announced that they plan to ditch the version numbers, which was followed by an outcry everywhere. But instead of seriously addressing the concerns, nothing happened. Somehow I get the same vibes from this thread and the rare answers from you. There are so many people who are not happy with the decision but instead of trying to win them over or to promise to make it better we get…nothing. If you want to include the community (in other words: us) then treat us with respect and issue at least statement regarding this fiasco. If not, then I advise you to close down this blog completely because in that case it's nothing more than a marketing site.
OMG, how cam someone say this Ribbon thing is GOOD? I hate it even on Paint! It sucks. I can't never find what I want. It is cluttered, messy and ugly. Will take out a chunk of screen real state int turn of nothing. The Window's 7 Explorer is the most perfect and they wanna mess it. WAY TO GO!
"It also includes a hidden feature that we love, Open command prompt, and a really useful new command, Open command prompt as administrator, both of which launch a command prompt with the path set to the currently selected folder."
Then why in the world are you burying them in the file menu?
What a POS. Can you clutter up a screen any more than this?
@John D'oh
Yes, we've heard. Still it's pain to the eyes of those that do not minimize it. It's just ugly as hell. Just take a look at link that ArchTech01 posted before:
skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx
I'm not completely against ribbon – it organize commands and expose them nicely to not experienced users. But it could look much better than it was presented. Not mentioning that arguments about place taken by ribbon controls are misleading if not manipulated.
I don't think ribbon should be minimized at start because some people will never discover this. So it should look good and should be useful for all users. I dream about tabs (like in IE – new window/new tab) – it would be nice and Ctrl-Tab would allow to switch between folders more effectively than Alt-Tab browsing throught all applications.
You've wrote that this article was rated 4/5 so the changes are good. Well, in may opinion it is rating of article – if it is interesting, well written etc. If you run poll about changes in explorer – the results could be different.
I really hope that someone at MS is still reading these comments as lots of people complain about the look.
ps. Please check the comment mechanism – it's third time my comment goes I don't know where.. And there are other people comments pointing this issue out.
@Thenigmas
Windows 8 Explorer with minimized Ribbon is as slim as Windows Vista/Seven Explorer. If it's still unbearable for you (although there is no cluttering space and it's as slim as Vista/Seven Explorer): I bet, there will be a registry hack to remove Ribbon completely.
Why don't you consider the article rating as a poll? Although there are hundreds of "I hate Ribbon" comments, the Rating says: "Rated Good [4.2 out of 5]". So the majority likes these improvements.
It's great to see the ribbon in Explorer, replacing the convoluted system of context menus, text/toolbars and the obsolete menu bar. I hope it makes it into Internet Explorer next, with Office-like keyboard shortcuts to ease the transition from menu bars.
@jm
Yes, but the poll should be representative. If 1000 Ribbon sceptics vote say no, 1000 trolls who say no for troll's sake and 1000 normal users who say yes or no, and no newbie votes, this isn't representative.
Trolls shouldn't be able to vote. And voters should read the whole article, before they can vote. And there have to be some alternatives to choose: A simple yes/no vote isn't accurate. There are different UI approaches and different UI approach combinations. Voters should be serious, think about different alternatives, balance pro and contra arguments and not just spit out their blind hate by clicking "no".
Until there is a good poll, I think Windows Team poll and article rating are quite good.
An Observation
A: [Contemplating an item in a gallery] "Hm. This painting needs… something. It needs work."
B: [Random guy out of woodwork] "Ok so you don't like Painting there are many people that do like, let me refer you to rating of it 4 of 5 obviously. If you don't you can just ignore it? Not always in front of you if facing another wall, you can easily turn if you want."
A: [Indeed sees 4/5 on the plaque below] "Um. Regardless of which way I'm facing or who gave it 4 stars, as far as the painting itself, I think, personally, that it needs work."
B: "Did you see the whole Painting? There are 2 alternatives I see but leaving a building is not a good option. So 1) that the bare wall as before this gallery or 2) excited about new emotions introduced in Painting like furbishness and confondrament and new shapes such as squircle, or you can always look another place minimal if you want. Myself I will be using new emotions are quite useful, congratulations artist!"
A: "That's great and all that it's expressive of something, and I'm sure much thought went into it, but it could use a tweak. The artist won't hear me through the picture but whatever, that's my opinion. I wasn't even saying it to you, why do you care?"
B: [Sigh] "If you don't new emotions that's up to you, and I don't know why you wouldn't, but like I said before and is in the pamphlet by doorway if you don't use Painting easily Turn Your Head Away from it toward an old direction missing advanced Painting like this one. It's a loss."
A: "That's not in the pamphlet. It says there are controversial items viewers may not agree on and that there's token variety to interest all demographics, but this is a showing of work. Looking away defeats the purpose. If I don't like a piece I just won't spend money on it or take it home, but I'm here to check them out."
B: "Please put this in perspective with rating 4 of 5, and nobody is forced to look at Painting. As stated if this isn't what you want you can always turn elsewhere. This is the opposite of looking. Perhaps there will even be an option to unhang it."
A: "Look, I don't know if there's a language barrier I should be aware of, or if you're just young, or what. And that's 4 of 5 who knew about the rating system and bothered to rate it, not 80% of everyone whose seen it and had an opinion."
B: "There is such a problem I can't understand? Because yet if you flip Painting around –"
A: "You gonna leave me alone, or would you like to step outside?"
I can't believe I [read] the whole thing.
@Eh, Steve
And that's why you shouldn't compare UI approaches and UI approach combinations for hundreds of millions of different users with two guys watching at a painting.
As you easily can see by yourself, there is a huge amount of problems with your comparison. But if you really like this comparison: A can have his favourite painting his way (Ribbon) and B can have his favourite painting his way (no Ribbon; Quick access toolbar, context menus and/or shortcuts instead). No conflict. You and I could use this comparison the next years, so I end it here.
PS: You really think a loud minority complaining at this level will let Windows Team remove their 6-12 months work from Explorer which targets many different groups of users and/or bring you hierarchal menus like from the last century? Well, keep on trying. I'm curious if this will work.
What an incredibly impressive step backwards.
muy complejo su nuevo explorador de windows, tiene mucho opciones, un usuario normal se puede perder. como se dice: "demasiada informacion confunde al usuario", deberian de buscar otra manera de organizarlos
Hi Steven,
The work your team is doing is amazing, leveling up standard users knowhow and giving power user the ability to chose how to deal with the new stuff (customisation, hiding).
I'm a windows power user now (i'm using a PC since the DOS era, and really started using windows with the 3.11 version).
I welcomed WIN 7 as my savior thanks to the folders "Jump list", customizable Libraries & customizable taskbar.
That only upgraded my productivity about 15%.
You argue about the command usage. You did great spotting about the most used commands, but I hope you did not forget that before executing a command on a file there is -sometime a long- navigation before each command.
Not to speak about the "Back to previous folder" button that was/is so often misunderstood with the
"up folder one" (xp/2000 users)…
Yes Win 7 did a big improvement there removing the "up folder" button and rendering clickable the adress bar (even showing the content of a folder when clicking on the tiny right arrow).
But navigating is still discouraging when you have to go to a huge folder tree for each/many projects.
I would like to see in an instant all the content of my "ups folders" without having to aim that really tiny black right arrow (and aim & click again to see the content of another up folder).
To my taste OSX found the ubber solution with its "Column View" added to its "Colorized Folders" believe me or not I almost took the twist of Mac only because of this. PathFinder went a step beyond.
Is it a fantasy to imagine that one day Windows user would also benefit this visualisation in its Explorer ?
You could even do more than coloring folder ie: setting opacity onto folder and its name for better clarity – MultiPane – Multi-tabbed explorer – compare/synchronize/… tabbed views.
About the ribbon I would like to say to all detractors – YES this is a way to educate people with poor basic knowledge in computers. BUT it is also a Fantastic opportunity for hotline oriented businness.
To detractors : don't forget that's because of all those inexperimented users that buy computers that the market is what it is today.
Power Users make room for those people, their the base of our computer economy.
Any toughts about it ?
Thanks for your time reading me,
Philip from Tahiti.
I realise that there are many people voicing their own criticisms regarding the design and implementation of the Ribbon GUI in Windows 8 and I trust that Steven Sinofsky knows what he is doing and that Microsoft are certainly pushing forward in rethinking their products and strategy.
Though my opinion is that the ribbon is actually an amazing development of Windows that should be integrated throughout the OS, I do feel however certain aspects need improving such as positioning of elements, less chrome and better spacing. — more to the point it should be "intelligent and dynamic" in the way it behaves with the user and it's environment.
I have designed a full concept of what this would look like. A ribbon that uses the Metro design language, Touch-First scenario and lays everything out in a simpler more structured method.
Please refer to my blog post: adamhaider.com/…/windows-8-explorer-metro-ribbon-ui-touch-first
I had been waiting for this for a long time….This is awesome
The UI looks impressive.
But performance improvement for windows explorer is needed. I end up waiting for few milliseconds when I open or close windows explorer. If I goto command prompt and type dir under any folder, I dont see any performance issue indicating that it is the code behind windows explorer having some issues.
Will this improvement be part of windows 8?
Hi and thanks a lot for opening your blog to comments
Concerning the windows explorer I have some suggestions :
– I use al ot the "Favorites" feature to pin folders to my explorer. Is it possibile to vrowse these folders directly form thei favorites position ? :
imageshack.us/…/favoritesfolder.png
When you have a lot of folders, you don't want to browse directly by the main tree, it takes too much place and you are lost
– Why the favorites folders and the "Pinned" folders of the explorer taskbar jumplist different ?
It oculd be usefull to synchronise them no ? :
imageshack.us/…/favoritesfolder2.png
– When I search file on a folder, it could be very usefull to open the folder conaining a fond file just by right-clicking on it and selecting "Open containing folder", with the file already selected
@John D'oh
I appreciate what you commented about my concept. However, the thing I want to point out is lightening the color of icons is just one of two options along with redrawing new icons that I previously commented in this blog. Unfortunately, Microsoft seems doesn't want a change so there's only one choice left. By the way, since Microsoft also goes for more picture-realistic styled icons rather than cartoonist style (look at folder, hard drive, key icon and all), it's always possibility "colorful" this time may OR may not be good (not better) choice for already cluttered ribbon. Trust me, icon color contributes as one of reasons why there are so many negative responses about ribbon feature. It makes users get headache because of how much space it takes along with too many messy icons with non-unified styles (2D/3D) and different color saturation (light/colorful).
I truly know that more colorful icons are just always obvious and catchy at the first glance but they has nothing to do with usability. For example: If you take two windows (original and mine) apart and use them for a while without knowing before which icon looks lighter than which–> the way/experience you feel just the same –>after this small test, if you still say the lighter icons are unreadable so perhaps some serious problems with your eye vision otherwise everything is fine and not the problem at all BECAUSE I not only added brightness but also increased its contrast to improve readability of the icons. In addition of it, in graphic design view- LIGHTER icons in already cluttered ribbon will help easing user eyes when they look at them. I know my Photoshop skill is not good enough to reach the most necessary amount of color saturation to look more appealing to you but at least you get the idea how the lighter icons positively help to solve this ribbon complication.
About the "group name" thing that you commented: although I don't know if it's good to remove the group names____–>JOHN, If I didn't go to look what elements to trim off to save window space for my concept, I would never know there's group name there because I never ever pay attention to it but still be able to use ribbon productively. Really, there is no use of it.
The importance level of usability and design must be the same otherwise it's not a great product because these two together make up user experience not just one.
It's just all about design choice JOHN.
Thanks again!!!
If possible please overlay the exact format of a file or program. Such as exe on all executables files in explorer. avi on all avi video files.This away it will be easy to recognize the exact file type without enabling show file name with extension. This will help to recognize the trojans (which shows folders as executables).
@John D'oh
Oh John –about the removal of "Help" icon on the ribbon—>you see in this screenshot of the blog
blogs.msdn.com/…/8400.Figure-14-_2D00_-File-menu-crop_5F00_2.png
There is already "HELP" section and it's big and friendly enough for both touch or mouse and keyboard. I don't like duplication of features especially at the same bar plus our goal is to make ribbon as clean as possible so I trimmed that small icon off.
I hope that horrid space stealing garbage can be hidden. Stop designing for the thickest people out there.
nice design windows explorer. looks way better than windows 7. i cant wait to see windows 8 beta. keep up the good work.
Don't mind the ribbon, but would like to hide it, or autohide it once I know the keyboard shortcuts or choose to use contextual menus. Too much real estate is being taken up with menus/buttons.
On reflection I agree with Jim
You could even add to sort files according to the most visited…
1. I am liking the Ribbon in Windows Explorer 8, but I hate that it's Not consistent with Office 2010 in terms of appearance. Sometimes, a bit of light visual design can help.
Faster elevators were invented, but they are still no match to slow elevators that have mirrors inside — The difference? People in elevators without mirrors are bored, getting this impression that the elevator is still slow.
I know you can please more people even with the Ribbon in Win8 Explorer! http://www.nontoxin.com/slow-elevators-and-long-ass-queues-how-to-get-to-the-root-of-the-problems
2. I am liking the Ribbon in Windows Explorer 8, because at last, bigoted Linux users who use WINE will start to realize that they have to stick with Linux and Linux only. These folks hate the Ribbon, and that's a good way to sort them out.
I think I've said this elsewhere, but one major thing people don't like about the Ribbon is basically the visual aspect of it, it looks cluttered AND it takes up a lot of room, especially important for netbook users. Anyways, the cluttered aspect is something I think that can be remedied just be simply hiding the Ribbon. This also solves the room it takes up in explorer. The problem is, you guys don't ever show it minimized. Long time Ribbon users should know that double clicking the Ribbon title minimizes it as you guys mentioned very vaguely, that I'm sure most readers skipped. It probably would have benefitted the team greatly if you guys had screenshots of it minimized to show the minimal look that can be achieved, or better yet, showcase it in that video showcasing hidden gems about the Ribbon, which you did not.
Great features and improvements.
By "one-click access to the ACLs for the currently highlighted file," does that just provide a way to get to the ACL's in the Security tab of the Properties window, or does it allow true one-click access to changing bits on the selected files read/system/hidden attributes? As a .NET programmer, it gets cumbersome flipping bits through the properties dialog in Explorer or various Save dialogs, sometimes multiple times a day, such as to flip the read bit to overwrite read-only config or hosts files or to work locally on a file checked out to another developer.
Trying to undo the hidden/system bits on specific files is cumbersome too, and requires a command prompt.
It would be great if files selected could have bits set/cleared by the click of the mouse or a keyboard shortcut without having to open an intermidiate properties or command window. Perhaps if the user has turned on the Attributes column in Explorer, then left-click or right-click access to that column could allow the various bits to be set/cleared — available for the power user but not available to allow casual users to accidentally change a bit.
Thanks for the great blog posts.
Please people, read all the article, if you ever use Office 2007 or 2010, you already know how to hide the Ribbon! 😀 so please, if you wanna use the archaic menues of XP or Vista, you can use it and you will be forever alone. Just leave the progress to go on 🙂
Thanks and best regards from Peru
Return of the "up one level" button–yes!!! Looks like MS is really thinking about this. Looking forward to it.
Return of the "up one level" button–yes!!! Looks like MS is really thinking about this. Looking forward to it.
@nowuniverse
Sorry, but this is not convincing me right now. I don't say, it's unreadable, but it's less readable/usable. I need to distinguish icons by colors easily. Especially with a lot of (small) icons sidy by side. I just don't get the point in lighter icons. It doesn't look fresh to me, it looks washed-out to me and it doesn't help usability, it looks less usable to me. I need a certain level of colors, so I can use the icons fast and easily. I think the current level is just perfect and there is no need to change it.
Maybe I don't see the point, because your picture doesn't show exactly what you mean. At the moment, it's just like a white fog enveloping the icons and this is not an improvement for me.
Oh my sweet Jesus. You cannot be serious.
What about add a ZIP and E-mail option, and it will remove the zip file from the area after adding to e-mail
In the Windows Explorer, would there be a way to indicate what files, and who you are sharing file with?
Many users in a business are not computer savy. Some users use drive letters for network access to files and don't understand network pathing, but when someone uses the "copy a path" option, will there be an option to copy the visable path (using the drive letters), and an option to copy the true UNC path?
When using ISO or VHD as a virtual disc or drive, is there a way to add small lettering VD on top of the drive icon? This way, people will know what these drives are.
Just a thought.. I work with a bunch of confused Window users and simple things like this will make things much easier to deal with.
Can you please support RAR compression – just as a viewer/extractor?
Can you please support RAR compression – just as a viewer/extractor?
Please add a simple sequential file renamer option. Nothing fancy, but just to rename a group of files or folders sequentially with an option for prefix and suffix, number of digits and start position. One simple dialog box would sufice – that shouldn't be too complicated to accomplish.
I know there are 3rd party software to accomplish the same task and would do even more, but it would be nice to handle simple tasks such as renaming a large group of picture files easily.
Would the new copying process continue even if it ran into a corrupted file, instead of stopping and not completing the remaing files without any warning or status report? If there's an error the user needs to know what is happening, becasue without any information, people assume that all is copied without any problems.
This is extremely important that this process get fixed or enhanced.
BTW, the multiple copies and pauses are great.
I would be nice to add a simple spanning feature when burning data to CD/DVD that's larger than a standard CD or DVD, it would request a put additional media to compete it's task. Will the copying feature support DVD9 format?
Adding a "burn to Media" (ie: CD/DVD/DVD9) button on toolbar for non-advance users.
Please add a simple but professional image resizer that can handle multiple images (without seriously distorting the image), with a preview of the image before performing the action.
Ok, I am done for today. hehehe.
God, I hate the damn ribbon. This might be the final straw that pushes me to buy a Mac.
In order to improve screen real estate and because of wide screen formats on most computers these days, why not make the ribbon vertical (along one of the sides and/or both sides). This should not be too hard to do. Microsoft has the option for the task bar.
To make use of maximum screen space, especially on wide screens, the ribbon should be able to be put vertically on the edge of the screen, rather than along the top.
To make use of maximum screen space, especially on wide screens, the ribbon should be able to be put vertically on the edge of the screen, rather than along the top.
ehh looks stupid imo seems to focus more so on looks rather than what it can do…
i love ribbon. thats the best thing i have seen for windows 8 so far. looks nice. well done microsoft.
+1 For using the familiar ribbon interface, leading to a uniform UI
+1 For making sure buttons are easy to understand, by providing word descriptions
+1 For using a color scheme and not doing the dull grey icons like Apple
+1 For making all of the major functions accessible on the first home tab
+1 For killing the context menus, since they are always disorganized, ugly and hard to use
+1 For making the large buttons that you cannot miss. I hate to accidentally press the wrong button or a wrong context menu choice.
If it hasn't been mentioned by anyone yet… Double-Click IS one of the most used commands in Windows Explorer, you gotta have a button for it…
Looks great. These are my suggestions;
1. Add a Twin-pane button (for easier drag-drop and copy/paste)
Now we need to save as much column space as possible…
2. Default columns
a. Eliminate 'file/folder type' completely, and display files with the format; <icon> filename (ext) OR <icon> filename<.dulledExt>. Currently your displaying file type in two ways (icon and description). Overkill?
b. Display date only in date/time column. Do we really need to know what minute of the day a file was saved, last week? Add time to files tool tip.
c. If folks think the ribbon is too tall, then perhaps you could locate buttons in the 'least important' details view column. Switch between column and buttons view with stacked menu buttons (like Outlook). This would be a good option when the Explorer window was in Restore size mode.
3. Libraries: The word library suggests a system, as oppossed to a function, and is therefore a bit daunting. (Four libraries!?) A better name might be 'Folder Sets' or 'Collections'. The Libraries 'home page' could do with a Definitions button, for easier access to folder sets list management, and to make it more obvious that the libraries are not read-only (like a physical library), but can be defined and shared by the user as required.
4. Tab names. I'd prefer;
a. Main for Home
b. Shares for Share
c. Layout for View
d. Options for Manage.
Backup options should be available under Manage.
I only think that icons and graphics should be improved… maybe with some "easy look" of metro.
Felicidades. Tiene un aspecto estupendo.
Mis recomendaciones son:
1.- Carpetas destacadas: En carpetas con muchos subdirectorios a veces es dificil encontrar una determinada sin tener que recurrir al teclado, sería interesante poder destacarlas al igual que resaltamos un texto en Word, bien poniendo el texto en negrita, o cambiando el color de la carpeta.(El cambio de icono que ya se ofrece en Windows 7 y anteriores me parece demasiado tedioso para algo temporal)
2.- Modo "movimiento archivos". Activar en el explorer un modo en que la pantalla se comparta entre dos navegadores(similar a los clientes FTP) para poder tener en una misma ventana la carpeta de origen y destino) evitando asi tener abiertos dos exploradores y facilitando la tarea de movimiento de archivos de forma masiva.
Saludos y enhorabuena.
Felicidades. Tiene un aspecto estupendo.
Mis recomendaciones son:
1.- Carpetas destacadas: En carpetas con muchos subdirectorios a veces es dificil encontrar una determinada sin tener que recurrir al teclado, sería interesante poder destacarlas al igual que resaltamos un texto en Word, bien poniendo el texto en negrita, o cambiando el color de la carpeta.(El cambio de icono que ya se ofrece en Windows 7 y anteriores me parece demasiado tedioso para algo temporal)
2.- Modo "movimiento archivos". Activar en el explorer un modo en que la pantalla se comparta entre dos navegadores(similar a los clientes FTP) para poder tener en una misma ventana la carpeta de origen y destino) evitando asi tener abiertos dos exploradores y facilitando la tarea de movimiento de archivos de forma masiva.
Saludos y enhorabuena.
As someone who "lives" in explorer, the ribbon interface will be a refreshing welcome.
The show paths and shares are great additions, and I also think a twin pane or tiling of two panes might be a nice feature for those of us doing a alot of copying or moving around of files.
How about adding symbolic links and hard links, you know, something that might be useful.
What I like about hte office ribbon, is that it offers functionality that I don't use often and makes it easily accessible. You shouldn't focus on the most used functions. People already know how to use it. This is what you proved here. That's why I like the extra ribbons: view, share and manage. Make those as intuitive as possible!
I know that tabbing/docking like in Visual Studio is too much to ask for, so I'll just plead with you to add IE-style tabbed sessions so I can consolidate my typical dozen Explorer windows down to two. I can't tell you how much time and additional cognitive processing is wasted daily shuffling those windows and finding the right one.
And if I could further impress upon you one UI DESIGN PHILOSOPHY: when I move a window or pane or tab or icon or ANYTHING, or re-size it, I expect it to stay there, at that size FOREVER, with persistence that survives login sessions.
It's bad enough that I have to have 12 Explorer windows open to be productive. It's abysmal that they jump around and resize on me without my say-so. Similarly, please fix Customize Folders so it remembers state FOREVER.
Again: tabbed sessions please. Good work and thanks for listening!
Please, dear Microsoft people, please:
Could you just pull out the sources of Windows XP Explorer, compile them in 32 and 64 bits and put the binaries somewhere on this blog?
Thanks in advance.
Pfft, Finder is so much better. Microsoft – get on it!
time to bring back those imfamous video tours of the XP days…… The ones you had both on the websites (comparing Windows 95 and 98 to XP) and the one that came shipped with XP…
I appreciate your data collection methodology. But think about one thing. If you have a donkey, there are
only certain ways of riding a donkey. And if your telemetry data shows the top 5 ways of riding a donkey
and try to optimize the next rev of your donkey, you still have a donkey.
Problem with your methodology is, you are trying to improve something based on the usage pattern of
that something. That rarely works. If you have an opportunity to start with a clean slate, rethink
what the users are doing that led them to using your current donkey. If the users are going after the
donkey ears 80% of the time to make the donkey do something, that does not mean you need to
give them an easier way to yank at the donkey ears. Find out what they are trying to do that
makes them think that yanking at the donkey ears is the way to accomplish it.
Reason I am stating this is, your ribbon solution is so busy and noisy. This is not what I
expected out of a modern user interface for the masses of people out there. And don't even
think of putting anything like this on a tablet.
The 1990's called, they want their filesystem back.
@Allan Simpson
I am frustrated by the same issues you mentioned. I use a plug-in called ShellFolderFix to remember the size and position of your Windows Explorer folders. It works well. I also use QTTabBar which has recently been updated to work in Windows 7. It supports middle-clicking like good web browsers to open folders or favourites in new new tabs.
@Allan Sampson
I am frustrated by the same issues you mentioned. I use a plug-in called ShellFolderFix to remember the size and position of your Windows Explorer folders. It works well. I also use QTTabBar which has recently been updated to work in Windows 7. It supports middle-clicking like good web browsers to open folders or favourites in new new tabs.
i like it. ribbon is awsome. keep it guys.
Hope someone involved with the dev team seems this..
Improve picture thumbnails in explorer. I work off a network drive and i have to sit there scrolling line by line so that the thumbnails get loaded for each image.
Could you please have an option which either loads all thumbnails when you are in a folder or at least offer an option to "build thumbnail cache" so that i dont have to sit there scrolling every time i connect to the networked drive.
I hope that the dev team would include:
1. a feature that will create a text or html file containing a list of the files and folders selected.
2. advanced renaming options (Append, Truncate, Find Replace)
3. and auto-delete of empty folders.
those features and a lot more were included in a tool called "filerfrog". I think they should check it out and incorporate some of its features in windows explorer. 🙂
Keep up the good work guys. 😀
Now Windows8 looks more user-friendly. Thats good for people (especially elderly people) who doesn't grow up with Windows.
You should most definitely add Facebook, Linked In and Twitter integration into the Ribbon just as what you have in Windows Live
maybe an exit button in ribbon for close all windows explorers
So, basically you put out every hidden, right-click and shift-right-click out to the ribbon.
Power users are familiar with all of that.
What is *really* new?
Good day,
-I have a request/suggestion: could you make a "History List" for Undo and Redo commands in Explorer (or something like it)? When I'm doing a lot of moving jobs (CTRL+X > CTRL+V), it's really easy to accidentally press CTRL+Z instead of CTRL+X – which undo/move back the files to original location – without realizing it until several 'move jobs' later.
Thanks.
Native support for *.rar files is possible?
Please check my review of the Windows 8 Explorer at http://wp.me/pT8uW-LH.
The Windows 7 Explorer Treeview bug (expanding folders with the keyboard scrolls the tree in the wrong direction) is a huge issue. The issue is not that there is a bug – we all understand that happens sometimes. The issue is the Microsoft response. The problem was identified 3 years ago in beta, and after SP1, it is still not fixed. There are 20 page forum threads at answers.microsoft.com, where Microsoft representatives say the behavior is "by design", which simply makes no sense. Why would the expanded tree scroll in the direction that makes it invisible? This issue and the response is hugely frustrating to customers, and causes a feeling that Microsoft is out of touch with reality.
Steven, can you comment on this? Your perspective would be very helpful. Simply acknowledging that it will be fixed in Windows 8 is a step in the right direction.
This is the worst UI I have seen since Office 2007, both in visuals and function… Hell I think I'd prefer to use Windows 1.0's UI over the one in Windows 8.
To echo what some one else said:
<sarcasm>
Wow amazing. Now i can copy and paste my files.
</sarcasm>
Absolutely despise the ribbon UI. Heavy, slow, inefficient.
When this abomination finds its way into Explorer, I'll just use Windows Commander more..
@timg11 "The Windows 7 Explorer Treeview bug (expanding folders with the keyboard scrolls the tree in the wrong direction) is a huge issue."
I agree. This is terribly annoying. Microsoft, please fix this.
Something quite important for Internet Explorer users !
Can you please fix the tagging and rating functionality for the .url files in Windows ?
Whenever I try to save a Description, or add Notes or a Rating to an Internet shortcut I get a dialog saying Apply Property Error. An error occurred when writing the property 'Rating' to the file….
This has been this way for years now and is a big frustration because I can't manage Internet Shortcuts with Windows Search.
I must specify that I don't need the .pinned files on my desktop when I drag the icon to the desktop.
I just want an .url Internet Shortcut file, for Good God' sake.
And I also must specify that I've tried with .url files outside of folders, so there was no permissions issue. Please Microsot, fix this. It's been frustrating for years.
Overall design is amazing! The only gripe I have is that the look seems a little off, but I'm sure that will be streamlined and improved as this project develops. This is one of the must have features of Windows 8, and I can't wait to try out the beta!
i really miss just clicking the navigation bar on/off (folders button in xp) without having to go trough a series of menus. plus the 'selected' colors of items in 7 is barely noticeable 🙁
Please provide some kind of "commonly used folders" feature for ALL Explorer open and save dialogs. The current "recent places" feature is slow, you can't order things how you want, and did I say it was slow?
As others have said here in the comments, please make Batch Rename part of the new fancy file explorer. It is something that should have been part of the OS since Windows 2000!
Another feature request: An option to auto-size Explorer column widths, including the tree-view pane.
The default tree-view pane width is far too narrow for modern resolutions – perhaps another 150 pixels or so, would be about right. There are possibly many existing dialogs that were designed when 1024*768 or less was common, but are now unnecesarily small.
Many commenters are remarking on the specific look you are creating for Win8, but i'm hoping just as much design emphasis is placed on the general and relative *size* of windows (including dialog and popups), columns, tiles, buttons, icons and fonts.
This is great! But I would also like to have Tabs for different folders (under the ribbon?) I like to keep multiple folders open, and it would be nice to have tabs for folders too.
In Windows XP, in the details view, we have columns : "Audio Sample rate", "Audio Bit Depth", "Audio Sample Size"… For audio professionnal, it's very usefull to sort audio files but these details disappeared in Windows 7. Did you plan to bring it back in Windows 8 explorer ?
In Windows XP, in the details view, we have columns : "Audio Sample rate", "Audio Bit Depth", "Audio Sample Size"… For audio professionnal, it's very usefull to sort audio files but these details disappeared in Windows 7. Did you plan to bring it back in Windows 8 explorer ?
As a power user who is picky about interfaces I think the ribbon is great. I don't understand why people don't like it. I keep it minimized anyway but it's one the best designs Microsoft has come up with. Looks like a huge improvement over explorer in Windows 7 which was just as bad as Vista.
The RIBBON IS GARBAGE, a complete waste of space…
If this is true, I am calling Windows 8 "A turd with a BOW on it". This release seems to have all the makings to be line line with the horrible "WinME" and "Vista" releases. bleh….
What would be cool though would be an option to use mouse gestures like in Opera for commands like new window, back, refresh, etc…
and… can it be???? has the "up" button FINALLY returned??!! As simple of a fix it is, I suppose you can call this an "upgrade" from Win7. The funky "click the address bar" was a nice add back then but the up button is much more useful. I've had to adapt to using the "alt+up arrow" work around for this. And these two buttons must be the WORST combination as it either requires 12" fingers or to remove one hand from the mouse, thus eliminating its effectiveness. Still beats squinting at the address bar though if sitting from across the room or clicking a parent directory in the address bar on accident and taking to the totally wrong place.
The biggest change I want to see is in drag-and-drop operations.
When dragging a bunch of items from the right pane to a folder in the tree-view on the left, if you hover over the folder, it will spring open. This is a great feature except for one problem… the folder you're pointing at MOVES. If there are enough sub-folders, and especially if the folder is near the bottom of the window, it will jump up above the cursor, leaving a random target under your mouse.
This is a problem because if you're trying to drag to that folder, not a sub-folder, and you just hesitate a moment too long, you'll release the mouse button thinking you are copying to the folder, and instead the files will go into some random folder within that folder!
So please, please, please fix Windows explorer so that the "Drop Target" doesn't move when a folder springs open! Thanks
I am quite happy with the keyboard shortcuts and the "new folder" button so let's see if I will ever use the ribbon.
But I would like to have some syncing commands. You could eventually integrate the sync framework features.
keep up the good work
LH
Argh, I hate to be a luddite but my greatest fear was more ribbons in Win8. As an Excel poweruser, I *still* find myself hunting through the ribbon aimlessly for infrequently used commands. Drop down menus simply make more sense! The day VS builds them in will be the day I give that up too!
Please make a 'classic' menu a possibility.
I can live with all of this as long as the ability for folders to remember individual view settings and positions is back in the OS.
you describe only the GUI differences. currently the 'explorer.exe' model is even worse than in XP in context of administration – there is [and never was] no way to launch separte 'explorer windows' in different user context than a currently logged on user [small problem – simple command line operations], since vista – no way to launch conrol panel, add remove/programs etc – they used to be separate controls and one could simple use 'runas'. since vista those are somehow moved into explorer and thus there is no way to launch them. command line operations for those are more time consuming [installing/uninstalling apps, checking system prefs, windows update etc].
will there be any change in that area? please do not forget some ppl administer that staff q:
@Steven
I have seem many posts for context menus. I know Ribbon is fine and nice and powerful, but please do not forget the Power of Context Menus!
The Context Menus, allow for the simplest method for doing the most demanding operations.
Why the simplest? Because:
Especially for the mouse-keyboard users:
1- It makes the least mouse travel.
2- It causes less distraction because you stick to your selected object rather than mouse ravelling.
3- Less wrist/arm pain, because of less wrist/arm moving.
4- It requires less energy. It may need 2 clicks + smaller mouse travelling rather than Ribbon (2 clicks+ larger mouse travelling)
Also, mentaly/logically, you select a file(s) with a right click and choose the action from the context menu. This is by far the simplest method.
These problems will be ten folds if one uses a large display monitor; 23" to 30" and even larger.(Imagine the bother to use the Ribbon in a 30" , High Res-monitor. Really a pain!)
Please take Context Menus seriously.
My SUGGESTION is to improve the Context Menus.
It can be improved to be the most valuable gem in Win 8.
Thanks.
@Steven
I have seem many posts for context menus. I know Ribbon is fine and nice and powerful, but please do not forget the Power of Context Menus!
The Context Menus, allow for the simplest method for doing the most demanding operations.
Why the simplest? Because:
Especially for the mouse-keyboard users:
1- It makes the least mouse travel.
2- It causes less distraction because you stick to your selected object rather than mouse ravelling.
3- Less wrist/arm pain, because of less wrist/arm moving.
4- It requires less energy. It may need 2 clicks + smaller mouse travelling rather than Ribbon (2 clicks+ larger mouse travelling)
Also, mentaly/logically, you select a file(s) with a right click and choose the action from the context menu. This is by far the simplest method.
These problems will be ten folds if one uses a large display monitor; 23" to 30" and even larger.(Imagine the bother to use the Ribbon in a 30" , High Res-monitor. Really a pain!)
Please take Context Menus seriously.
My SUGGESTION is to improve the Context Menus.
It can be improved to be the most valuable gem in Win 8.
Thanks.
Hello.
I suggest using POLLS wherever applicable.
I know you have a big responsiblity to more than a couple of hundred million Windows users worldwide. The polls would provide you with the feedback for hard to decide situations.
Please could you add both "Extended Tile View" and "Sort By Priority" as options to the view and sort/group by menus respectively, or simply enable them in the "Saved Networks" window. This will really come in handy for situations where the "Saved Networks" view unexpectedly changes. Check out the following images for better understanding:
<a href="s814.photobucket.com/…/Random%20Stuff target="_blank"><img src="i814.photobucket.com/…/NoExtendedTileOption.png" border="0" alt="Building WIndows 8"></a>
<a href="s814.photobucket.com/…/Random%20Stuff target="_blank"><img src="i814.photobucket.com/…/NoPriorityOption.png" border="0" alt="Building WIndows 8"></a>
This occurs after I apply a view to all folders of the same type, not sure which type the "Saved Networks" folder was given, but it best fits with the "All Files Types" folder and I did once apply a view like that. BTW, anyone know of a way to fix this issue?
Are we getting tabs for our explorer windows in addition to the Ribbon? LIke the tabs in IE?
Are we getting tabs for our explorer windows in addition to the Ribbon? LIke the tabs in IE?
All divisions of Microsoft need to work together not just Windows and Windows Live division alone since Windows 8 borrows the look of Windows phone and productive ribbon from Office so these two departments also need to be involved to create a unified style among platform instead individual business. That's why many people who are not criticizing with ribbon still unsatisfied with current proposed ribbon of explorer as well as other app other than office 2010 like wordpad, paint, windows live essential….the ribbon needs to be lightweight, clean, and Aero glass friendly and by the way I would love to see animating live tile (MANGO like) of Windows 8 not the static title which showed at D9 conference.
Yep, as long as I can turn this feature off.. more power to you roll it into Win 8.
The ribbon bar is why I stopped using Office.. BTW.
@Windows 8 Team
Idea: a floating QAT on top of the Context Menu!
very much like the Ecxel and Word context menus which from 2007 is accompanied by a floating toolbar as well.
It can be turned off if anyone doesn't like it.
new theme to complex for users:-s I think make theme more simple for users to use
new theme to complex for users:-s I think make theme more simple for users to use
Too much stuff on the Ribbon. The vast, vast majority of users won't want "Copy path", "Paste shortcut", etc. They will think "Paste shortcut" is a "quick" Paste button, and then lose data when they delete the file they think has been safely copied elsewhere. It's too cluttered.
Also having the contextual Library tab there a lot of the time (for many users, who work exclusively in subfolders of My Documents, *all* the time) would be an extreme distraction.
PLEASE add folder size as a column selection.
PLEASE add folder size as a column selection.
@Chris
Ditto. I need, need, need a folder size in the size column.
Ditto. I need, need, need a folder size in the size column.
Ditto. I need, need, need a folder size in the size column.
PLEASE add folder size as a column selection.
PLEASE add folder size as a column selection.
Please add file size and dual file lister options
Please add folder & file size and dual file lister with tabs options
and copy to other lister side option
Please add folder & file size and dual file lister with tabs options
and copy to other lister side option
Please add folder size. This will make Windows file Explorer usable again.
and further, adding dual file lister with tabs options with button copy to other lister side option, will make Windows file Explorer unbeatable
This is great. the new ribbon and quick access bar looks perfect all we need is folder size and tabbed dual file list. and I will be able to use Windows Explorer again.
First, this article was well written with very detailed content.
However, if this new Explorer UI is what you consider thinking out side of the box please put it back in and burry it someplace. After seeing other Windows 8 UI demos I was genuinely excited about where you were heading. But now I am not so sure. This UI is so old school, extremely cluttered, has no sense of style and most importantly does not seem to match the look and feel of other Windows UI 8 demos. I consider myself a extreme power user dating back to the first version of MS-DOS and I would not want to use this interface.
Give Windows 8 a chance and redesign this mess.
The new ribbon and quick access is a step in the right direction. When Microsoft add a FOLDER SIZE Column option and tabbed detail views Microsoft will join the great software developer’s world.
Absolutely love the ribbon! Easy to see / find what you want! Well Done!
A power user feature that I would love, is to have a split view for files.
I use xplorer2 right now to get this, but it would be great if this was built into windows explorer
I wish in Windows 8, the Copy/Move window improves a lot. I mean the window that comes up when you hit Alt or press F10 in Windows Explorer, to active the menu. In Edit tab, you see Move to Folder and Copy to Folder. When you hit one of those, the window that comes up, first, doesn’t have the Resent Items, and second it’s a bit hard to find folders. Maybe in Windows 8, we can have a better view when this window comes up.
Thanks, but no thanks… Glad I switched to the Mac.
When will explorer have TABBED BROWSING come on its 2011 it should be there.
Tabs feature seem to be still missing………………. which is a MUST nowadays…..
Tabs feature seem to be still missing………………. which is a MUST nowadays…..
LOOK AT Q-DIR Features…..
Tabs feature seem to be still missing………………. which is a MUST nowadays…..
LOOK AT Q-DIR Features…..
The ribbon is fine when you know where to find a specific command. But it's tedious to search through it if you have no idea on which tab you placed a command.
I'd like to see a little search box where can enter (parts of) a command name (e. g. "copy") and somehow get directed to the tab (and button) for the associated command(s). You could use that as a filter (show only tabs and buttons which match the entered command name), or at least somehow highlight it (e. g. flash or highlight the tab item).
Should behave similar to the Win 7 Start menu, and should be available in all ribbons (incl. Office and 3rd party apps).
Please:
Folder Size column in the Details View
PLEASE
Selecting files in the explorer by using MASKS.
Using Unix like expressions/wildcards for selecting files is simple and necessary.
I have a 15" Notebook.
In Detail View:
Currently in Windows 7 explorer window (Maximized) I can see 28 Files,
While in OSX Finder window (Maximized) I can see 39 files!!
That is almost 40% more
Will these issues be addressed in Windows 8?
As one more example; the Paint program in Win7 ; the Ribbon takes a lot of the vertical space. No wonder why many dislike the Paint in Win7.
Not important for Large Monitors, but for small screens like Notebooks and Touches, EVERY PIXEL COUNTS!
I have a 15" Notebook.
In Detail View:
Currently in Windows 7 explorer window (Maximized) I can see 28 Files,
While in OSX Finder window (Maximized) I can see 39 files!!
That is almost 40% more
Will these issues be addressed in Windows 8?
As one more example; the Paint program in Win7 ; the Ribbon takes a lot of the vertical space. No wonder why many dislike the Paint in Win7.
Not important for Large Monitors, but for small screens like Notebooks and Touches, EVERY PIXEL COUNTS!
I love the ribbon in Office and definately will love to see it used in Explorer.
Next up: ribbon for IE-X?
Tip: you can double click on the ribbon tab to hide it for extra monitor space.
I can't imagine Microsoft will remove this functionality in Windows Explorer…
I love the ribbon in Office and definately will love to see it used in Explorer.
Next up: ribbon for IE-X?
Tip: you can double click on the ribbon tab to hide it for extra monitor space.
I can't imagine Microsoft will remove this functionality in Windows Explorer…
I love the ribbon in Office and definately will love to see it used in Explorer.
Next up: ribbon for IE-X?
Tip: you can double click on the ribbon tab to hide it for extra monitor space.
I can't imagine Microsoft will remove this functionality in Windows Explorer…
I love the ribbon in Office and definately will love to see it used in Explorer.
Next up: ribbon for IE-X?
Tip: you can double click on the ribbon tab to hide it for extra monitor space.
I can't imagine Microsoft will remove this functionality in Windows Explorer…
@Mr. Sinofsky
For Multi-Lingual keyboard Input:
Please make Keyboard-Language Change Indicator MORE DISTINCT! (Especially for keyboard input)
Currently, there is no other way but the tiny language indicator in the task bar.
in OSX when you change the langugae (by keyboard) a BIG INDICATOR appears in the middle of the screen which is impossible to go un-noticed.
PLEASE,PLEASE, This is a MUST
(especially on large monitors this method is abosoloutly necessary)
@Mr. Sinofsky
For Multi-Lingual keyboard Input:
Please make Keyboard-Language Change Indicator MORE DISTINCT! (Especially for keyboard input)
Currently, there is no other way but the tiny language indicator in the task bar.
in OSX when you change the langugae (by keyboard) a BIG INDICATOR appears in the middle of the screen which is impossible to go un-noticed.
PLEASE,PLEASE, This is a MUST
(especially on large monitors this method is abosoloutly necessary)
@Windows 8 Team,
More shortcut support is wonderful.
PLEASE;
WIN-key is very important.
More system-wide shortcuts utilizing the WIN-KEY is ESSENTIAL and very much appreciated.
for example WIN-KEY+'P' for PROPERTIES
and so on
Also, a quick preview using a SPACE key of files and items.
@Windows 8 Team,
More shortcut support is wonderful.
PLEASE;
WIN-key is very important.
More system-wide shortcuts utilizing the WIN-KEY is ESSENTIAL and very much appreciated.
for example WIN-KEY+'P' for PROPERTIES
and so on
Also, a quick preview using a SPACE key of files and items.
New ribbon and quick access bar are good, add folder size and tabbed dual file list. Windows Explorer will be great.
Ribbon and quick access bar great, folder size column and tabbed dual file list. Greater!
Great work! One think that i've always missed in explorer though is support for Miller Columns. I really wish that you could touch on that subject 😛 Cheers!
I totally agree with Tabbed Explorer design.
This really saves the clutter of many open explorers while doing file management operations.
I totally agree with Tabbed Explorer design.
This really saves the clutter of many open explorers while doing file management operations.
Can you design Windows Explorer in Metro Design?
I like all these things. But what I really miss in Windows (since many years) is the possibility to copy CDs and DVDs. (of course only non-protected) It's very annoying to use third-party software for this. The Windows-Explorer should have an option for this.
Ribbon is useful BUT the user should be given the freedom to hide it.
What a nightmare! Makes me really happy for switching to Mac one year ago.
How clean and useful is a Windows XP Explorer on your screenshot. User can freely customize any commands and freely rearrange them. Icons size can be large or little, text labels can be turned on/off/partial on… What a beautiful design and great engineering.
Why and HOW you throw all this to the waste? What happened to you, the once great software company???
By the way, when you want to copy a file to a folder, using the Edit menu (pressing Alt or F10 in Windows Explorer) if a copy of file exists on a destination folder, Windows doesn't prompt for that. Is that a bug?
My friend also tested that and he said: “indeed it doesn't prompt, but creates the file with the suffix "copy" here”
In windows 8, it'd be nice if the standard folder selection dialog, ( I mean the Copy/Move window that comes up when you hit Alt or press F10 in Windows Explorer, to active the menu. In Edit tab, you see Move to Folder and Copy to Folder) which currently only displays a directory tree, also had more options, such as recent items, network…., as we can find in the standard explorer window.
It would be easier to find folders that way.
Please replace the "Open Command Prompt" with "Open Windows Powershell"! No one uses cmd anymore!
Shortcut keys is the way I do my most common tasks. More screen space, like Google Chrome is what sells, not selling that real estate space to clutter with in-your-face commands. Its overload and its immediately unappealing and makes a new comer feel like giving up straight away. BAD CHOICE.
I would like to see the ability to create and verify CRC checksums (SFV, MD5, SHA1).
As a future PM, I think it's too complicated for me to use Windows 8 Explorer. I "see" many unreasonable settings. Actually, I like Ribbon UI, but I can't accept that it is complicated. I like Multi-Tab, but I think some buttons must be cancelled, like the Open Button, History Button and so on. Just some most important buttons left is great. The bottom Bar must be cancelled. It's no need for users to know how many files there are and how large the items you selected.
Most importantly, I think the Back Button should be changed to the one of IE 9 because it's big and easy-clicked.
What's more, you should consider to introduce the organization form of the Mac OS Lion., which can be easily see all layers folders in one page. Mac users don't need to always go back or forward. Your know, users have many files that they must be jump between folders in Windows.
Hope you can consider my suggestion.
@Wonderful Windows Team
We expect ultra-user freindliness in Windows 8.
One of the most major tasks in Windows is window/task switching with ease. Although the current Win 7 taskbar with live previews on the taskbar are actually very exciting, it is not sufficient.
An enhanced version of EXPOSE' with live previews is a MUST for a real productive, efficient way of window multi-tasking and switching.
The Flip3d is not even comparable with Expose' by any means.
PLEASE CONSIDER!
@Mr. Sinofsky
Hello.
I suppose Microsoft cares about Users! right?
I am a pro user of Context Menus and Unfortunately I find them very cluttered, especially in Windows 7 .
For example in IE 9, when I open the contex menu of a web page, I find 21 items in which 6 items (for me) are grayed out. It takes me some time to find the item I want. (no other program or plugin or accelerator has been installed yet!)
PLEASE do not leave the 'Context Menus'
Please ENHANCE them and make them more productive.
-Crowded context menus does not mean productivity
@Windows 8 Team,
Please make system-wide easy method for especial signs and symbols; like Euro, British Pound, Yen, Copyright, Registered and other symbols.
I can enter them easily in Mac, but it is hard in Windows.
-Please do not expect users to type alt+0128(for Euro) or alt+0163 (for Pound)!!
@Windows 8 Team
Will you include Thunderbolt support in Win8?
We (Users) are sick and tired of all the cables that goes to the monitor.
@Windows 8 Team
Will you include Thunderbolt support in Win8?
We (Users) are sick and tired of all the cables that goes to the monitor.
PLEASE!
Still, even in Windows 7 the warning messages are not very helpful:
Example:
I received this error message when trying to unplug my external hdd:
"The device is currentlyh in use, Close any programs or windows that mght be using the device, and then try again."
I wish it would tell me which process is causing the error and what I really should do.
I have closed all the explorer windows and all the programs, but still the same error. Maybe a hidden process!
customize the ribbon as an Office 2010
The colors
The commands
it would be amazing!!!!
unless you want a bad product as Windows Vista
The naming of the File menu is wry is it called File? Does it have to do anything with Files? No. Please follow the Mac's idea and give these backstage menus the name of the application itself. Call it the Explorer menu. And for Office the Office menu. And for Wordpad, the Wordpad menu. It is more understandable. A menu that helps you carry out tasks that are not related to the current item(s) being viewed. It is the backstage view. Calling it File is very confusing. It has no file management commands in it at all. Why call it File then. Instead File opens new windows, command prompts and changes options. Why call it File then?
What does "Hide Selected Items" mean? Please make this option clear. I don't understand what it means.
If the command bar isn't used very much despite being the most visible thing in Explorer for Windows 7, the Ribbon is making something used less take up even more space. This logic does not make very much sense to me.
@Unsolved Cypher
yes, that's what every logical thinking person thinks when he sees the data, but not Microsoft. The fact that most user doesn't use the command bar (10%) and the most users only have 768 vertical pixels should result in maximizing the usable space, but MS does the opposite. Wasting too much vertical space and making this nonsense not customizable (I must agree "an usser" here) and defend it. It's really a shame
improvements made in win explorer is a great thing to hear man…i am expecting a lot more in windows 8
development team
hello, this isnt strictly an explorer (though preview gets grouped in tasklist with explroer, so it does count a bit 😉 ) issue, though could you still consider letting pics be rotated in compressed folders in win8 again?
while using xp, we were able to rotate pictures using preview, no matter if the picture was in a normal or a zip compressed folder.
In Win 7, the photo viewer preview seems to be unable to rotate the picture when openend from a zip compressed folder.
One of my biggest wishes for the Explorer is, that you can choose which folder is standard, when you open the explorer. E.g. I don't use the libraries and instead of them, I want my "personal data"-folder (that I have linked in the favorites) as default, when I open the explorer.
@Tim
change the shortcut of the pinned Explorer in Windows 7 to %windir%explorer.exe /n,/e,C:Users<Username>Documents
This works since Windows 95!
Come on Microsoft, give us Ribbon and quick access bar with, folder size column and tabbed dual file list.
Be a good group of boys and girls and give the file explorer a Ribbon and quick access bar with, folder size column and tabbed dual file list.
OK, so you've added the ribbon bar. Great. Love it. The one thing I hope they fix from Windows 7 is the "feature" whereby when you expand the currently selected folder in the tree view pane, everything jumps down to the bottom of the screen. When you expand other (non-selected) folders, the tree view expands properly without scroll or jumping around. Why would I want it to jump when expanding the current folder? Please fix this.
If Windows Explorer is intended to manage files on your computer would it easier to use if it were possible to have as much data to user to make better choices in that task. So the need of a Folder Size column is essential to manage folders and to determine what needs to be managed. This is elementary.
Please give the user the option to turn on a folder size column
Hey how about older Size column is essential to manage folders and to determine what needs to be managed. and the abilty to select multiple folders in the tree by holding the CTRL button
I think it would be awesome of there was a shortcut for new folder! I would use it so much!
Please give the user the option to turn on a folder size column
Any improvement's on the taskbar for Windows 8?, seen some leaks that the taskbar can be expanded to more screen, which is exactly what I'm looking for. Windows 7 is a very nice experience except the taskbar which utterly fails by itself when using three monitors, I hate using third party apps for something as this which should be built in. And when having literally hundred windows open it can get quite messy without this function. Thanks
Has the "dropping folder" issue, where the folder selected in the left pane "drops" to the bottom, and you have to scroll it all the way back up been fixed?
I've been presuming this was to always ensure "libraries" stayed at the top of the explorer tree, which was probably seen as good for casual users?
At the moment I am using "Classis Start Menu" which fixes this.
Thanks.
What about tabs? Like a qttabbar.sourceforge.net . I'm installed this program on all of my computers. It's amazingly useful and easy thing. I would like to have this feauture in Win8 out of the box!
Why did you people at MICROsoft kill of the support for third party Folder size columns? what was that? Put folder size column back in!
Improvements in Windows Explorer Huh? That Folder size column option is number one.
If there is a final decision not to provide users an option for FOLDER SIZE Columns, what is Microsoft’s official reasoning for not providing casual users or power users this basic tool? It better be a critical, windows crashing, life ending reason not to provide it. You know, there is no reason to not provide at least an option. Is Microsoft afraid that we power users may take over the world if we had a FOLDER SIZE COLUMN option?
It is obvious that Microsoft listens to crying IT manager whimpering over there slowing network when it comes to Folder size column option. If this is the reason, all Microsoft has to do is allow network administrators to control whether or not a network share can be scanned by this FOLDER SIZE COLUMN OPTION. This will empower the user over there local machine. Or is this to big of a task for the great MS Dev Team?
So basically we have a Windows+Office mix? Too much visual noise, too much buttons, too much of everything, it looks like a Nuclear Center control pad.
Can we rearrange (drag n' drop) icons in the Quick Access Toolbar yet?
Can someone at MS *PLEASE*, *PLEASE*, *PLEASE* fix the non-focus in explorer after pressing "enter" to go into a sub-folder. Why is the first item not focused?
This happen when bringing up explorer Win+E as well. When navigating through directories my right hand is able to easily hit the arrow keys and enter, but for some reason to select the first item in the list I have to hit spacebar OR down-arrow then up-arrow == fail.
Please add the option to unpack RAR and 7-Zip archives in Windows Explorer.
It would be necessary:
While ejecting USB storage/devices, forcing the non-critical Open Applications shutdown or Windows help user to close the very specific application which keeps the device from being safely removed.
آقا دستتون درد نکنه . فوق العاده است .
Windows 8 Team
Please:
Improve LOGIN SCREEN
It would be nice to show some more info on the login screen:
The remaining battery charge, the clock, network status (connected/disconnected), also the system IP , etc.
Windows 8 Team
Please:
Improve LOGIN SCREEN
It would be nice to show some more info on the login screen:
The remaining battery charge, the clock, network status (connected/disconnected), also the system IP , etc.
Windows 8 Team:
Please consider this future:
"New Folder with Selection" in the Explorer window.
After selecting some files do a "New Folder with Selection" to place the selected files inside a new folder automatically.
-Could be done via context menu, file menu and shortcut.
This is a nice future, currently in OS X.
Windows 8 Team:
Please consider this future:
"New Folder with Selection" in the Explorer window.
After selecting some files do a "New Folder with Selection" to place the selected files inside a new folder automatically.
-Could be done via context menu, file menu and shortcut.
This is a nice future, currently in OS X.
Windows 8 Team:
Would you make accesing accented characters (like e (acute accent, grave accent, circumflex, cedila, etc) easy?
Also, please make entering symbols (like Euro, Yen, Sterling Pound, TM, Copyright, ….) easier.
Windows 8 team:
I wish you would include:
"Universal Scrollin": Moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus)
This is especially very helpful for the touch-devices as well as the mouse input devices.
Please consider.
Windows 8 team:
I wish you would include:
"Universal Scrollin": Moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus)
This is especially very helpful for the touch-devices as well as the mouse input devices.
Please consider.
Windows 8 team:
I wish you would include:
"Universal Scrolling": Moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus)
This is especially very helpful for the touch-devices as well as the mouse input devices.
Please consider.
Windows 8 Team:
Some IDEA:
In Win 7 we have:
WinKey+ NUMBER : Start the program pinned to the taskbar in the position indicated by the number
Most of the times, I find it difficult to count the icons on the taskbar.
It would be nice while holding the WinKey for some miliseconds, pinned applications show their position number (in their icon). Very neat and clean.
Windows 8 Team:
In Win 7, The Aero Sanp keys for snapping to the left and right and the whole screen are very nice.
Would you include futures for moving and resizing the windows without the need to grab the Borders or the TitleBar?
Windows 8 Team,
Please do:
Enable window resizing with locked aspect ratio and anchored window resizing.
Windows 8 Team,
Please do:
Enable window resizing with locked aspect ratio and anchored window resizing.
Windows 8 Team,
Please do:
Enable window resizing with locked aspect ratio and anchored window resizing.
Windows 8 Team;
While the desktop screen gets locked , it will show a (User-Defined) Text Message .
This can be the user mobile phone, address or anything.
It may be of several purposes like contacting the owner if he/she has lost it.
Windows 8 Team;
While the desktop screen gets locked , it will show a (User-Defined) Text Message .
This can be the user mobile phone, address or anything.
It may be of several purposes like contacting the owner if he/she has lost it.
Windows 8 Team
PLEASE
Please include:
1- Spell Cheker
2- English Dictionary (Upgradable to other languages as well). Please consider OXFORD or CAMBRIDGE or WEBSTER. Encarta is fine as well, but it is more concise.
Please, Please. This is a must
Windows 8 Team
PLEASE
Please include system-wide TextBox/EditBox that supports:
1- Spell Cheker
2- English Dictionary (Upgradable to other languages as well). Please consider OXFORD or CAMBRIDGE or WEBSTER. Encarta is fine as well, but it is more concise.
Please, Please. This is a must
Windows 8 Team
PLEASE
Please include system-wide TextBox/EditBox that supports:
1- Spell Cheker
2- English Dictionary (Upgradable to other languages as well). Please consider OXFORD or CAMBRIDGE or WEBSTER. Encarta is fine as well, but it is more concise.
Please, Please. This is a must
well what more can be said.. Perhaps – Bring it on! 🙂
I just downloaded windows 8 dev ver. and ther is no folder size. if there is no folder size column, combined with this new interface, it is obviouse where microsoft is trying to do. make everyone run to apple
@Mr. Sinofsky
There is one important future that you must include:
Make changing Input-Language Keyboard layout hevenly easier.
In OS X, when one changes the keyboard language by key shortcuts, there appears a very large window in the middle of the screen, like a large menu with large menu-items in which the highlight shifts from one to the other with every shortcut strokes.
Of course the whole window is transparent and very nice.
I really which you would include this future which is very important and handy.
Currently there is no other way to make sure of the layout change but to look at the tiny language abbreviation on the languagebar/taskbar.
Most of the times when I change the layout, it does not register correctly and makes a lot of mess and agony.
This is necessary and yet simple. PLEASE, PLEASE DO IT.
@Mr. Sinofsky
There is one important future that you must include:
Make changing Input-Language Keyboard layout hevenly easier.
In OS X, when one changes the keyboard language by key shortcuts, there appears a very large window in the middle of the screen, like a large menu with large menu-items in which the highlight shifts from one to the other with every shortcut strokes.
Of course the whole window is transparent and very nice.
I really which you would include this future which is very important and handy.
Currently there is no other way to make sure of the layout change but to look at the tiny language abbreviation on the languagebar/taskbar.
Most of the times when I change the layout, it does not register correctly and makes a lot of mess and agony.
This is necessary and yet simple. PLEASE, PLEASE DO IT.
Hello to every body.
Inquired Future in Brief: Quit programs directly within the ALT+TAB Task Switcher by a key. (This can be applied to Flip3D as well)
It would be very nice that while cycling through the open programs with ALT+TAB ,pushing the Q key on every highlighted program 'Quit' that specific program.
it can be enhanced further by providing the 'hide from the que' and other possible actions.
Hi.
There is a very powerful third-party add-on for os x called quicksilver. This app is so powerful that most mac users actually use it.
http://qsapp.com/about.php
There is no equivalent for windows.
Could you add an equivalent for Win 8
Hi.
There is a very powerful third-party add-on (app launcher, finder, contact lookup, and a lot more) for os x called quicksilver. This app is so powerful that most mac users actually use it.
http://qsapp.com/about.php
There is no equivalent for windows.
Could you add those futures into Win 8
I May have missed it, but I haven't seen any mention of gesture support "à la" Mac OS …using a track pad. I believe that this will be very useful for devices with a keyboard.
The Open Command prompt is a great feature, one thing i found was that is does not understand the Libraries on the side of explorer. Say i click on my Documents under Libraries "LibrariesDocuments" It will not give me the option to open the command prompt. I would have to browse the long way first then open it. Figured I would put that out there, would be a nice time saver if I had to run a command from one of the Libraries folders.
Thanks for the Tip, I didn’t tested Windows 8 yet. need to check it.
Hi
I would like to ask that you consider the following
1). The normal view should show the size of a folder along with the size of files. When your trying to tidy up having to either hover over or use properties to find a folder size is annoying and time consuming. So lets get that folder size in the file/folder list on the right.
2). Can we solve the network copy of files between clients and servers. Do we have to rely in this day and age on file level success. Can we please have a copy facility that works between W8 clients and W2008/W8 servers, that is fault tolerant to a byte/block level and can restart a copy from where it stopped. (rsync for example, but embedded in the OS). The benefits are enumerable.
3). Please allow a feature to export the list of files/folders to a spreadsheet or other external tool. Allow options to include file/folder attributes in the columns by selecting from a list of them
4). Allow a way to tag file/folders in a semi-permanent way, so I can basically go through a long list of files/folders, tag them and then perform a copy based on the tagged items. basically going the next step beyond multiselecting within a single folder. This is very useful with pictures.
Happy to explain any of these further should you show any interest
Thanks
Paul
My comments keep disappearing for some reason, so I'll keep posting until it shows up, As a developer who manages our source control system, this affects me on a daily basis.
The new interface looks fine, but what I really care about is performance. Operations on folders with lots of files take forever today. I'm waiting right now for a folder to get deleted, and it is taking over 5 minutes. Deletes and moves (on the same drive) should be nearly instantaneous, regardless of the number of files in the folder! I don't want to wait for a discovery dialog to tell me how many files are getting deleted, just delete the folder!
The fundamental problem with the Ribbon is that it promotes every single command into an interface that is always visible. Why should "Edit" be on the same level with "Copy" and "Paste" when your own data already shows that (comparatively) nobody uses it? The menu bar is much better than the ribbon because it allows the position of a command to be appropriate for its usefulness: the most useful commands are at the top level, where everyone can get to them easily, while the less useful commands are lower down the hierarchy, still accessible, but not always in your face when the vast majority of the time you don't want them.
This problem is not specific to Explorer, it is a fundamental flaw in the design of the Ribbon, and it has been manifested in every Ribbon implementation I have seen. Yes, I can minimize the Ribbon, but that's like telling me to hide the menu bar. I don't want to hide it, I want it to be useful, and the Ribbon just isn't.
Can you please, Windows team, find a way to enable searching into a partition through Windows Search? Overall, I really like Windows Search. But this is a huge deficiency. I had this problem in Windows 7 and, unfortunately, it is still there in Windows 8 Developer Preview. Thanks.
Happy to be a part of WIndows explorer user. Her we are running Windows 7.
Ahsima
http://www.m6.net
The key flaw in the ribbon concept is simple "time and motion" ergonomics – now the user has to both switch tabs and then choose tasks.
I fully agree with performing 90/10 analyses, but that analytic approach stops short of measuring the time required to move between tabs during a work session.
Without the "Quick Access" toolbar as an escape hatch the ribbon would be a complete disaster.
Also, at least through Office 2010, the Quick Access toolbar is severely limited – the positions of icons cannot be changed and no custom icons are supported. What I object to here is that the rewrites end up with new but reduced functionality.
Dear Explorer team, there is this annoying scrolling bug in the navigation pane of Explorer which annoys many many users: connect.microsoft.com/…/bug-when-expanding-folders-in-explorer-server-2008-r2-and-windows-7 Please fix this for the beta/RC/RTM. Thank you.
Dear Microsoft,
Merging the preview pane and detail pane is counterproductive. I have my Vista set up so that it shows both details at bottom and preview at right. It helps me quickly preview files. Also, having details pane at right is a waste of space.
Hi,
You should remove the Up button, because breadcrumb is faster to use..
Don't you want to mix the search filed into the explorer bar like IE9 ?
Have you plan to give the yellow icon folder a facelift ?
the back and forward button are not good.
Design is important.
Ótimo blog, parabéns!
I have no problems with the Ribbon Bar, my problem is with 16:9 screens! I use my computer primarily for computing, not for watching videos. Maybe (but doubtfully) Windows 8 will bring back demand for 16:10 screens whose increased vertical real estate is more intuitive to working on documents, viewing webpages, and using Windows applications that utilize the Ribbon Bar…
You can keep the ribbon, in all MS products, give me an option to get rid of it and use the good old File menu.
Why not a metro style Windows Exporer?
Good post…. But more information Developed. http://www.customtoolbardevelopment.com
techcrunch.com/…/we-need-an-invert-selection-button
Hi,
I sincerely hope this comment is read by Steven. I am a kinda dedicated user of Windows since windows 3.11. and don't miss any chance to upgrade to latest OS as soon as it's available to me. I have switched over to Ubuntu for a short duration recently to find out what that OS feels like. I am not writing this comment to tell you what's good, but to tell you, what's not good about Windows.
I am not a programmer or has much of a tech background, so my observation and language is more like an average user with a bit of tech knowledge.
Well, after couple of months with Ubuntu, I have found certain features that are truly needed to make Windows a killer OS.
1. Top of my list is support for multiple WAN system, auto recognition about multiple internet streams available and sources, and option to combine the bandwidth to get enhanced speed. This option is the mail reason for which I switched over to Linux. Linux has a support for this from a long time back, and MS is constantly ignoring this facility from consumer version of Windows. If I am not wrong, this feature is supported by Windows Server version. Then, why not bring this feature to Windows for remaining stand alone machines?
2. Installation process of Ubuntu is pretty impressive. It doesn't stop for user input for customization info like keyboard language, User Name, Computer Name, country and time zone etc etc. In Ubuntu, it continues, while I fed the necessary inputs.
3. Flexibility of uninstalling and removing stuff what we don't want or whatever is not required for a user, ought be much more simplified. At present, there is a hell of a lot of junk on C drive locked down and irremovable by Windows, which keeps on bloating the Windows folder. There should be an option of auto delete the temp files used / generated by Windows / program files, and clean the mess better. I had to resort to use RT7Lite to remove all the unnecessary junk from my Windows 7 setup DVD. Why can't it be done using some built in windows utility itself?? Come on MS, its not that hard… If programmers @RT7Lite can do it, why can't you guys??
4. The Disk Defrag utility is one of the lousiest one I have ever used. I trust Revo Uninstaller much more than your built-in Uninstaller. Ditto for your Defrag Utility. Why can't your programmers wake up to the developments happening elsewhere? Why depend on a 3rd party tool for the job of clean and tidy C drive, why not improve built-in tools of Windows to that level of performance?
5. Windows Media Player still lack some pretty basic codec support. I have to install a codec pack like K Lite Codec Pack or CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack), which comes with free player called Media Player Classic. Why can't WMP have all those codec in built? Second: Subtitles support in WMP is pathetic. It refuses to identify and display most of the standard subtitles formats. Come on MS, your market for Windows is worldwide, and spanned in more than 100 languages around and so is Hollywood market. People love to watch movies of all languages, and not just English. And vice-versa, Hollywood movies are watched by people of non-English speaking countries as well. If we could see the subtitles, it makes the movie lot easier to understand. I live in India (population: 1.21billion, and many people here don't watch Hollywood movies 'cos they can't make sense of English dialogues. Those who do prefer alternate players like VLC/Divx Player/MPC/WinAmp player and a million others.
6. Aero Glass theme is one of the nicest looking interfaces till date for Windows. But why stop at a translucent glass only? Why not make the glass completely transparent when we drag the marker all the way to left in windows colorization menu? I had to take help of other sites and softwares to patch theme files and replace DWM and uDWM.dll files to make glass fully transparent. Though I really don't like to mess with C drive and Windows folder and its contents.
7. I prefer to enable compression in partitions and all the contents within, C drive included. Well it's quite tricky 'cos lots of time it results in compressing boot manager file, forcing me to reinstall the OS, as even recovery disk fails to decompress the boot manager. Why not disable the compression for boot manager all together? No matter what we do, no matter what software we use to compress the C drive, windows will refuse to compress it?? That would save a lot of hassles for an end user.
8. Internet Explorer has a tough competition from Firefox and Chrome. IE is way behind them, from offering useful options to an end user. My suggestion is to study features of FF and Chrome much more closely and offer those features in IE too. Two of the most common features, for which I install FF is tab handling of FF is lot more flexible and offer much more choice than IE (choice to open last open tabs automatically, which is a common sense feature, is still missing from IE even at its 10th avatar.) Level of customization in FF is far superior to IE, especially add-ons, like ad block, and script blocking. Plus java and flash handling of FF is far smoother than IE. I am writing this comment in FF and not IE.
9. Another feature which I think would be good is backing up bookmarks online itself (a-la Google Bookmarks), and including other options offered by software companies like Google and Adobe too, like opening up an email link to Gmail / Yahoo Mail, and not just Outlook/Windows Mail only.
10. Messenger : If you have to include a messenger built into Windows (or WL Messenger too), please make it compatible with other protocols as well. I use Trillian / Digsby because they have facility to log into Gmail / Google Talk / Yahoo Messenger / Yahoo Mail and Facebook, all in one neat package. WL messenger is compatible only with Yahoo. You have a long way to go MS. Though, frankly, I liked the interface of WL messenger. If you offer this functionality as well and integrate into windows itself (like Ubuntu), it will make a complete package, and no further messenger would be required to download.
11. The disk burning utility is unreliable as well. I have to depend on Nero for burning a DVD, purely ‘cos it offers far more flexibility and choices than the built in utility of Windows. If you include similar functionality into Windows, it will make Nero Burning ROM a thing of past.
12. Why are you still continuing with Wordpad and notepad both? Keep one of them only. I have never seen anyone using Wordpad. There are far better free text editors available online, like Open Office. Too bad, I can’t get rid of Wordpad easily.
13. Some of the softwares MS offer are purely duplication of its own products. Like if you improve MS-Paint with all the features of Office Picture Manager and Windows Fax and Picture Viewer, you don’t have to include Office Picture Manager in MS Office at all, that image handling can be assigned to Paint during installing Office, and F&P Viewer can be done away with.
14. Zipping/Unzipping utility needs to be improved with much better handling of files and compression levels, and lots of file formats (at least formats offered by MS itself). My choice of Software is WinRAR or 7Zip.
15. Windows inbuilt partition management utility is pretty basic, and doesn’t offer advanced features, when it comes to creating or deleting partitions of moving partitions on hard drive. I have to install 3rd party tools just to do this job. Please have a look at the advanced features offered by some free software like Paragon Partition Manager or EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition. Time to upgrade your Disk Management Tool too.
16. Device Manager of Windows is pretty dumb as well. When Windows can’t identify a device why can’t it give better clues to what it looks like or seems to be. Playing guessing games with unknown devices in Device Manager might MS’s idea of fun, but not someone who barely understand the complicated technology residing in the chassis of laptops / desktops.
17. Flash and Acrobat Reader are free products already, so why can’t MS tie-up with Adobe and include their technologies within core windows? I guess Adobe shouldn’t object to it, as they are not making money on these 2 products anyway, so rather allow MS to slip them well into Windows.
18. Transliteration (Like Google Transliteration) can be offered in language options or with MS Office Suite. It will surely make life easier for whom, English is second language.
19. One of most criticized point about Windows is inherent lack of security. The built in Firewall and Anti Spyware / Anti-Virus is not as advanced and trust worthy as those offered by Norton, McAffee, AVG or Avast. I use Avast Internet Security, for level of protection and much more enhanced features it offer. I would rather not trust MS for keeping virus out of my machine any day.
20. There would many more points, if I sit down and make a list of all the features I would want to see, but for now, I would stop at this. My last suggestion (strong suggestion) is pay attention to what those hackers/crackers do to your beloved Windows, and what modification they come up with. They do it not because they hate MS, but because Windows is like jack of all trades. You will gain an invaluable insight, but also real world test and feedback of Windows. Stop shooing them away, partner with them and they will tell you what an ideal (or near ideal) OS would look like. Don’t remain under impression that Windows can’t be cracked. MS has a long way to go, before you reach anywhere near Linux level of security. See the modifications done to Windows 7 on internet. See the amazing level of variety in them. It should have been there already in Windows. I have a copy of .iso image of Windows 7 Ultimate x86 versions which is only 700mb, and occupies only 2.45GB on C drive!!! That’s less than the size of winsxs or system32 folder in standard installation of Win7 Ultimate x86. And it boots in 6 seconds flat!!! Perfect for a netbook!!!
21. Tabbed Windows Explorer… It's long overdue..
22. Recognition of File Systems being used in Linux for interoperability and crossover file / folder management between them, in dual booting machines
23. Convert taskbar clock into an all-in-one world clock and alarm utility, which could handle added task of launching/killing any application/process and shut down machine as well.
I know it’s a long list of complaint, but it’s necessary to let you know. Hope I will see them (at least some of them) in Windows 8 when it comes to market.
Thanks for reading this long… 🙂
Please add an option "open folder with last folder view", which overrides the stored view of the
folder to be opened next
please see
http://www.mindgems.com/…/Folder-Size.html
a good article. thanks!
Using Ribbon > less menu > easier touch experience
And yet there are still no tabs for actual explorer windows?
Ribbon Not practical，Does not look good，Do not like office！
Up button, yeah, but why Microsoft deleted it in Vista & 7?
QAT – customization options great like in XP , but why only in small wersion, you should add big like in XP version of QAT
There are already so much comments on this post, so I hope I havn't overlooked a post concerning the issue I'm posting here 🙂
Personally I like ribbons, but what about "real" tabs, in the sense of browsers? Personally I often have the problem of accessing different places often and therefroe I'm left with multiple opend Explorer instances, instead of having some tabs opened. I'd be glad so see such a feature in a future version of Windows Explorer 🙂
The Details pane was moved from the bottom to the right but now it cannot be resized any smaller than the default size. You can only size it larger. Previously, we have Small, Medium and Large options for the Details pane. Please allow it to be resized to an absolutely minimum size and not such a wide minimum size. 🙂
windows explorer uses high memory when there is too much more folder and drive windows are opened at one instance. so there should be a tab browsing like improvement in windows explorer . also this trick applies to all other things like notepad word-pad and each and every program running in windows before opening a file of any type should check first for is the default program or service is already open(started) and the new instance should auto tabbed in that program
there is tool seen for xp vista and rarely in win 7 which gives tabbed browsing facility for explorer
qttabbar.sourceforge.net and http://qttabbar.wikidot.com/
and for tool like notepad projects.gnome.org/…/screenshots.html
bhilare_kaustubha@rediffmail.com
In XP File Explorer I could add the IE Favorites panel and create folders with which to organize my file system links into. As a power user it gave me a quick way to navigate my system.
In Visa, Win7 and now Win8 the favorites can only add one level of links.
Can you please add the ability to add folders? See the video on my skydrive at: http://tinyurl.com/MyWin7Wish
(Sorry, about the poor audio at the beginning)
microsoft should drop the Extra large icon view from windows and add and slideshow view(say filmstrip like ) but 3d like for icons just shown like at http://www.youtube.com/watch
which looks like good for beating the coverflow view for mac.
bhilare_kaustubha@rediffmail.com
To the people in charge of Windows Explorer:
1. social.msdn.microsoft.com/…/27314d0a-9c70-4b79-93e7-23fe60e7e374
2. social.msdn.microsoft.com/…/10efd13a-ee9b-4107-832c-29e1df32c336
3. social.msdn.microsoft.com/…/aab31c79-1747-4620-8279-94a3f0b11e2c
4. social.msdn.microsoft.com/…/a6e7fc6a-071f-48b8-91d7-365597395069
5. social.msdn.microsoft.com/…/ea66dfd9-d85d-4483-86b3-d3da844a0188
Asking for these since Vista released in 2006. Please please please fix these Microsoft.
I hope you also listened to the feed back from the Internet as well as your telemetry. If I search for "Windows explorer 7 sucks" I get > 6.7million hits. A lot of these are specific gripes about features/functionality that is harder to perform in Windows 7 than it was in Windows XP.
Adding functions that weren't used might not make much sense, but at least they use up more vertical space! Wait…
i support xpclient's requests. Fürther, please add a button "collapse all" analogous to that one
you introduced in VS 11 solution explorer.
Regarding the Ribbon – we made an benchmark to see if it really is more efficient than the interface found in Windows XP. And we've found that:
1. it generally is more efficient.
2. in Windows Explorer you have the maximum of improvements, making the ribbon up to 23% more efficient.
Details can be found here: http://www.7tutorials.com/windows-8-analysis-new-ribbon-interface-more-efficient