If you look at what both of you are saying, at least part of your confusion is seems you are under the impression Metro is to replace desktop applications. If I'm wrong I apologize but that is what I'm reading. It's mainly for touchscreen enabled apps etc. They are not supposed to be as fully functional as desktop apps. They have to work 100% without a mouse. If you try to use IE like the desktop version, you will be disappointed. However if you use it on a tablet, you will likely find some things work better when you don't have a mouse available. If you look at Windows 8 in that light, you will be happier. I don't use anything but a weather app from my desktop PCs. I use a lot more on my tablet.
Not exactly, for me. I'm trying to set it up for use on a HTPC (that is the subject of the thread, after all). In my case, I
want to use Metro in some places on the HTPC, because many of the "limits" of tablets apply equally to HTPC use (needing big targets, large fonts, full-screen UIs).
It does not seem optimally designed for this use-case, of course, but some of the things in there are
so close to being good.
I'd also say that I fundamentally disagree that the current implementation of WinRT (the Metro OS environment, not Windows RT) is "just better for touch". Keep in mind, I
have a
bunch of touch screen computers, and I've been trying it on them too. My issue comes down to this fundamental design choice they made: WinRT (Metro) is completely gesture driven.
I think gestures are best reserved for "shortcuts". I think of them like keyboard shortcuts. They are
extremely handy if you know them, but
most people don't, so the system needs to be designed so that you can still use it without knowing a single keyboard shortcut (and basically all desktop software does work that way).
I'd never put my mom in front of this thing, even on a touchscreen device. I can give my mom or dad an iPad and let them use it with a very minimum amount of instruction (basically, the home button gets you back home). Sure, they won't use it optimally, but they'll be able to figure out how to do simple things like add their email account and switch applications. If I put my mom on this, opened the Weather app, and asked her to add her zipcode to it, she'd never figure it out. She might not even ever figure out how to exit the app to "get back home". This is
very dangerous, and I think they're in for a world of hurt as "real people" start getting it with the HP they bought.
Experts (like us) just learn the gestures and then forget about the weirdness. But most normal people don't. My dad has had an iPad since version 1 (his work bought it for him) and he
still never remembers the double-home-button application switcher trick. I've showed him it about 1000 times. But he still just hits the home button to go back to the springboard and then opens whatever he wants next. It isn't optimal, but he can still use the device, and get to what he needs.
As for control panel, there is one "built in" to metro. It has all the settings you need on a Metro only device (RT). Once again, if you are on a desktop, you will likely want to use the full fledged control panel.
No it doesn't. I completely disagree here. There are many things you need to go into the "full" control panel for, even on a RT device. How do you change the delay before sleep in Metro, for example? Or install the update from Office Preview to the final in RT? (You don't, for either, you need to go to the "real" control panel in the Desktop.) The Metro Control Panel has some of the stuff you need, but certainly not "all the settings you need". There are basically three places to go for settings, with little rhyme or reason for what shows up where.
How about?
* Change your language
* Change your keyboard layout.
* Add a certificate to the "trusted store" (for corporate email, for example, or just to visit an Intranet site that uses a self-signed cert). This one, in particular, is a pain if you've un-defaulted IE.
And it isn't just settings. The split personality pervades the OS. For example, navigate to a file using Windows Explorer, and use the Right-Click Send To Mail function. This doesn't work, because the Desktop doesn't know about the Metro UI at all. You can only send files this way via a Desktop application, and there isn't one included with Windows. You can, of course, attach files using the mail app itself, but the UI there is confusing and more difficult to navigate. How about this, send an email via Outlook from a Metro app. Nope, cant. If, instead, you decide to use the Metro mail app, and you're in the Desktop version of IE (to get to a site that doesn't work right in the Metro one, for example), and you want to send a URL to an email recipient? Again... Nope. Click on a mailto: email link? Nope, won't launch Metro mail. And don't even get me started on the disaster that is the default photos app.
And then there's the Charms bar, which is utterly useless in Desktop mode. The Search Charm won't search the foreground desktop app. Desktop apps can't share, or be share targets, and don't store their settings in the Settings charm. So, yet again, multiple places to look and some things work one way in one place, and another in another place.
It wouldn't be so bad if Windows acknowledged the split personality and separated the two via a strict wall, but it doesn't. It acts like the two are integrated (the Metro Photos app being the default application for opening image files from Windows Explorer, for example), when they're not. It writes checks promising integration that it can't cash. As
Peter Bright wrote...
There is a hard and dividing line between the two worlds. Far from allowing seamless switching between the two environments, they barely even acknowledge the other's existence. It's extremely limited, and it means that as a person who has to use the desktop for some things, I find myself avoiding Metro apps for all things. Bridging the gap is just too painful and annoying.
The only silver lining to this cloud is that there's no real technical reason for these restrictions. It would be relatively easy to, for example, allow desktop applications to participate in the share contract and other mechanisms. I've heard claims that other scenarios are being considered too, such as allowing drag and drop from the desktop into Metro apps. So the situation could improve in some future version.
Right now, though, it's a big pain point. Until this gap is closed, it leaves Windows 8 feeling like two separate operating systems poorly grafted together. You can never avoid the join entirely, but your happiness with Windows 8 will depend heavily on just how often you have to cross over. The more you try to treat the two worlds as equal, integrated peers, the worse Windows 8 gets. The more you stick to one paradigm or the other, the better it is.
Thanks for the heads up on Firefox. I have Chrome installed as default and I have both Chrome and IE available from the start screen - so I think the issue is with FF.
No, it isn't just a Firefox thing. The difference is that Chrome includes a Metro version of their browser (which is not really Metro, just a "port" of their existing skin, but whatever). Firefox and other 3rd party browsers do not. If I got the current Elm nightly of Firefox, it would include a Metro version of Firefox, but it isn't ready for prime-time (I've tested it in my VMs).
The problem isn't that Firefox (or Opera or whatever) doesn't include a Metro version. The problem is that if you select a browser as the system default, you can never get Metro IE again. The ONLY way to use Metro IE (or Metro Chrome, or whatever) is to set it as the default. So, with your setup, do this:
1. Set Chrome as the default browser.
2. Open Metro IE.
You
cannot do #2. It is just gone. Worse? Unpin the desktop IE icon from your Taskbar/Desktop. Now you can't open
that either (without pulling up the Charms bar and searching for it). It hides it EVEN from the All Programs menu. Basically, you have to pick one browser and that's all you get. That's absolutely ridiculous. Even the iPad doesn't have that limitation (I have Chrome, Mercury, and Safari on mine, and I use them for different things.)
I don't know... I'm frustrated. There are some really, really great ideas in here. But it is a mishmash of half-completedness, and UI incongruities.
It feels like this is what happened:
1. Engineers at Microsoft were building a next-gen "tablet" OS (WinRT), designed to be completely separate from desktop Windows. In other words, they were building their own iOS.
2. Bosses at Microsoft decided that it didn't matter how good their cool new OS was, because Windows Phone was cool too and was failing in the marketplace, so they needed a way to "force it". Plus, I think it is really because Ballmer is just a true believe in "it must all be Windows". Word comes down and...
3. They were 1/3rd of the way done with this new, separate WinRT OS, and bosses pulled them off the projects and set them to integrating it with Windows desktop.
4. This was going to require another 2 years or so to complete, which would be too late, so they shipped it half-baked.
As it is, there are really two almost-completely-separate operating systems in Windows 8, and they don't really "talk" much. But, since Metro is half-done, you need to use the "real" Windows 8 to get a bunch of simple stuff done.
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Topic: Windows 8: Amazing on a HTPC? (Not So Sure Otherwise) (Read 21990 times)