As you may remember, Microsoft is testing an update to Cortana in Windows 10. In the latest Insider Preview build, developers separated Cortana and search in the taskbar by giving them individual taskbar buttons and flyouts. A server-side change adds a new section to the search pane.
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As you may remember, Microsoft has introduced Fluent Design with Windows 10.
Fluent Design is the modern Windows 10 UI, previously known by its code name "Project NEON". It is a new design language which is focused on simplicity and consistency along with cool animations. It also adds Windows 7’s Aero Glass-like effects to the Universal app frame and controls.
Key aspects of the Microsoft Fluent Design System are as follows.
Material: A graphical solution which emulates the "sensory and invigorating" feel of the materials that things around us are made of.
Motion: A set of animations which give an idea on how to interact with new UI elements like an app menu opening or drawing the user's attention to controls and flyouts which appear on the screen.
Light: Soft highlights of important buttons and features to draw the user's attention.
Depth: Transition animations which make an impression of opening the next level or layer of data presented by the app.
Fluent Design inherited flat icons and square corners from its predecessor, 'Metro', the design language of Windows 8. Finally, Microsoft decided to update the style of the apps.
In the development branch of Windows 10 that represents the upcoming version 20H1 of the OS, the search pane comes with rounded corners. According to Zac Bowden, these rounded corners are coming to Fluent Design. You'll see it all over Windows, Xbox, Office, and other products in the coming months/years. The rounded tabs in Microsoft Edge Chromium are another confirmation for the upcoming changes in design.
Source: Zac Bowden.
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So after several failed experiments they’re slowly coming back to Windows Aero lol. I always said that Vista was the most beautiful OS ever, they should not have abandoned it with Windows 8. And instead of owning up to their design mistakes, they’ll just call it Fluent Design and pretend it’s completely different from Aero.
Whilst the rounded corners are a very welcome idea, I feel that they need to bring back proper glass effects too. That would go a long way towards making 10 at least semi-desirable, but lots of other things need to be considered too.
I’ve recently switched a couple of my machines back to 8 by buying cheap oem keys and activating them via the phone line, and then I’ve got my spare box running Linux Mint right now, so I can get used to that ecosystem, just in case MS ever decide that the silly store apps are all they’ll support at some time in the future.
If they keep the current capabilities with regard to allowing us to continue using legacy software like CS6, which I paid a lot of money for, rather than forcing the store and the useless UWP apps/architecture down our throats, (which from pieces I have read, has been speculated about, with regard to that CoreOS idea they’ve been playing with), and they introduce a choice with regard to a true Aero type look and feel, they could be on to a winner as far as I am concerned.
However, I do not want to be stuck in a world where the only way is the MS way…
They have made awful design choices, so the OS looks bland and uninspiring, and feels unintuitive with all the ribbon nonsense instead of menus.
Then there’s that distant, but ever present threat of losing the ability to run anything that’s not UWP based.
They want to decide what updates I will get, even if I don’t want them.
That’s not a world I would ever wish to reside in.
I want colours, depth, gradients, shades, glass effects, customisable interfaces, and freedom from what they think I need.
I want rid of bloatware and unneeded apps,
I’m bored with the idea that ones size fits all, my PC isn’t my phone!
I had a Nokia Windows phone, and I loved it, but if I stick with Windows 10 and MS’s attempts to control every aspect of my machine on my desktop systems, unless things change, it literally feels like I’ve been herded onto a bus that’s on a one way street to digital hell.