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[Roj]

...Use, Test, and true Cancel gadgets on preference windows.

Apply doesn't count. It's just an OK gadget that leaves the preferences window open. Cancel? They should just change that to say Close. Opening a preference window, making changes, hitting Apply, and then hitting Cancel should revert to the settings before the preferences were opened. It doesn't. It's largely useless.

Just for example, my father has hearing and vision problems. When he visits and wants to watch a movie, I turn on subtitles and set the subtitle font size to something ridiculously large for him. If I forget to change the settings back to normal, my wife won't watch movies because subtitles ruin the show for her. She's not savvy enough with tech to change the settings herself*, so she just does something else instead.

There are many other reasons to include gadgets that promote experimentation with settings. But for some reason, Microsoft deems experimentation too dangerous for their userbase...I guess.



*I've tried teaching her, but it's more than she cares to learn. You know how that goes I'm sure.

[lsmart]

... Two state icons of arbritary size and folder icons. They help you distinguish important files from standard ones and tell you visually what is about to happen once you doubleclick on them.

... a button to bring windows to the back (ALT+ESC is a cludge).

... a menu bar on maximized windows that you can click by dring the mouse all the way up.

... a way to select multiple menu items, without closing the menu intermittently.

Intuition was superior!

[psxphill]

Originally Posted by Roj

But for some reason, Microsoft deems experimentation too dangerous for their userbase...I guess.

Most users would be too confused by it. undo/redo functionality would be better.

If you want different settings for different users then you should setup different users.

[chris]

Originally Posted by lsmart

Intuition was superior!

is

Microsoft's improvements to their GUI over the last fifteen years are... changing the taskbar so there is no text by default, and making everything look a bit different (in such a way that I've had three different window designs on screen at the same time under Windows, and it wasn't obvious which one was active). There have been no functional changes at all (I don't include "mouse gestures" as they are a different way of getting to the same functionality)

The annoying thing is that Linux doesn't have any of this stuff either, although the GUI is amazingly more consistent.

[chris]

Originally Posted by psxphill

Most users would be too confused by it. undo/redo functionality would be better.

I don't see how it is confusing - however Windows doesn't have undo functionality in prefs either. AmigaOS has, by default, in all system Prefs apps, "Reset to defaults", "Last saved" and "Restore".

Most people I've worked with click "Apply" before clicking "OK", despite me saying the "Apply" step is unnecessary. The implication of the design is that "Apply" applies the settings and "OK" doesn't. That's confusing. As is Microsoft's insistence on requesters that have "Yes" and "No" as an answer, resulting in long paragraphs of explanation as to what each does, when changing the button text would have been more logical for the user.

If you want different settings for different users then you should setup different users.

Agreed, for the scenario given, different user accounts is the correct solution.

[rvo_nl]

Originally Posted by Roj

But for some reason, Microsoft deems experimentation too dangerous for their userbase...I guess.

Or perhaps they just dont care?

Its a different OS, its doing things different. And I guess by now there are more things in Windows that AmigaOS lacks than the other way around.

Dont get me wrong, I love AmigaOS (3.x). Its (still) usable and I love the responsiveness and its efficiency. I dont 'love' Windows, I just dont hate it as much as I used to, because it did evolve quite well.

But hey thats just my opinion.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by chris

The annoying thing is that Linux doesn't have any of this stuff either, although the GUI is amazingly more consistent.

Linux has nothing that can be called "the GUI".

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by kolla

Linux has nothing that can be called "the GUI".

True dat. Though, I suppose there is twm

[paul1981]

Originally Posted by Roj

...Use, Test, and true Cancel gadgets on preference windows.

Apply doesn't count. It's just an OK gadget that leaves the preferences window open. Cancel? They should just change that to say Close. Opening a preference window, making changes, hitting Apply, and then hitting Cancel should revert to the settings before the preferences were opened. It doesn't. It's largely useless.

I couldn't agree with you more. This is a major flaw in Windows. I'm just glad I have my Amigas to remind me of how preferences should be handled.

[Matt_H]

Originally Posted by lsmart

... Two state icons of arbritary size and folder icons. They help you distinguish important files from standard ones and tell you visually what is about to happen once you doubleclick on them.

... a button to bring windows to the back (ALT+ESC is a cludge).

... a menu bar on maximized windows that you can click by dring the mouse all the way up.

... a way to select multiple menu items, without closing the menu intermittently.

Intuition was superior!

... screens.

... active window doesn't have to be frontmost.

You'd think these would be mind-bogglingly obvious UI features on all platforms by now, but they're not.

[kedawa]

I'm just disappointed that no version of Windows has ever been able to recall multi monitor settings if you don't keep all monitors active.
Sometimes I only need one monitor, but if I disable my extra displays, it just resets the desktop coordinate to default.
I've had to deal with this problem across many versions of the OS and dozens of different computers.
It's just flabbergasting, especially with laptops.

[Kesa]

What really peees me off about Windows is the download window that opens when you download something. Then you have to close it manually which is highly annoying. Especially as it flashes until you click on it

[swoslover]

I find it annoying that downloads aren't automatically put in the downloads folder.

[danwood]

Two things I miss when on Windows:

1) Shift + Backspace to delete a string of text behind me

2) Drag and drop into file requesters! This is a big one, if I find a file using Workbench/Ambient I can then open a file requester in an app and just drag it onto it and it will load it. In Windows I have to navigate to that file a second time, even though I may have the folder already open on my screen, very annoying.

[kedawa]

Originally Posted by Kesa

What really peees me off about Windows is the download window that opens when you download something. Then you have to close it manually which is highly annoying. Especially as it flashes until you click on it

There's a checkbox you can check so that it automatically closes after the download is finished, at least for web browsers.

Originally Posted by swoslover

I find it annoying that downloads aren't automatically put in the downloads folder.

Stuff automatically downloads to whatever folder you choose.
I have my browsers and torrent client set to download everything to the desktop, so that I can do what I need to do with them, and then either delete them or move them to another folder for storage.
I hate having to go hunting for something I just downloaded.