Windows Video #4 - Ribbon bar on Win8 on Explorer folders AND new features

When you hide the ribbon you still have the bar with the ribbon titles across the top with Home, Edit etc on it.

 

doubleclick the ribbon and then you have it!

 

Ribbons aside I seriously hope they'll fix two W7 Explorer pet peeves of mine.

The first is the forced sorting of moved/copied files. No, dammit! I want those items to be grouped at the bottom *until* I refresh the view or execute a sorting operation myself.

The second peeve is quite a bit harder to explain, but it sure makes up for it in pure and unadulterated annoyance. It concerns the copying/moving files by drag'n'drop to "full" folders. By "full" I mean a folder with (folder) entries from top to bottom when viewed in Details view. In XP only the name of the folder was highlighted and you could drag'n'drop a file or folder anywhere which wasn't highlighted to copy or move it to the (parent) folder. In W7 the row with the subfolder automatically highlights and you're asked if you want to copy or move the item to this subfolder. Example: You've got a lot of applications installed in your Program Files folder and now you want to copy a file to the Program Files folder. Problem is, when looking at the Program Files folder all you see from top to bottom are the subfolders for the installed applications. Now, when you drag the file to copy or move over to the Program Files folder you cannot avoid hovering over a subfolder, which subsequently gets highlighted and you're asked if you want to copy or move your item to said subfolder. No, dammit! I want to put it in the Program Files folder.

Whoever thought up those two "features" really should be... <insert something that involves a goat, cream cheese long beyond its last sell-by date, brussels sprouts and forced interspecies relations>.

 

I know that we're all highly technical on here, but seriously, who needs a button that big to copy or paste a file? Explorer in Windows 7 is excellent; it's simple and not cluttered at all, with only the information you need. Now, I actually like the ribbon: I think in Office 2010 it's excellent and helps you find lots of options more easily. But who seriously needs it in Explorer? I like it simple and this is just going to annoy me

And it's a poor excuse to say it's to "help people with touchscreens". Yeah, like all 3 of them...

I do however think the updated copy process is good, and VHD and ISO support is long overdue, although in Windows 7 VHDs can be mounted from Disk Management.

Click in the address bar; the path is selected and you can right click > Copy Hope this helps.

 

we might all be technical here, but i have loads of customers who don't know how to do basic things like copy and paste, even after i have shown them, and got them to do it. if its there on the ribbon, its easy for them to find

 

To be honest, I played with a Win7 tablet... ignoring price (x86 CPU), heat (x86 CPU + GPU), and poor battery (x86 CPU+GPU), and lack of RAM (only had 1 GB.. not enough!, but that is the manufacture fault). Windows 7 was actually pretty cool to play with on it. However, managing files, with the right click menu, on a tablet was a serious pain to me. I wished I had buttons. The size doesn't particular mater.. of course, bigger the better, but it took way to much time and fiddling to do it over the right click menu.

I really think that Microosft can pull it off with Windows 8. ARM support will be a HUGE plus. Because not only the CPU is more efficient and consume less power, they are kick-ass low-power GPU's integrated, like Nvidia Tegra, as example. So I think that will solve the problem of price, battery, and heat issue, which will make the Win8 tablet competitive on the market already. Now the rest is what I think will push the tablet.. maybe not win the tablet war, but at least a serious contender to consumers for them to choose (unlike Win7 Phone, where not only it's hard to find (well in Canada), but no sales rep really knows what they are talking about, no TV ad, no Zune pass service (in Canada), and well.. no one knows about it.

 

Are they introducing tabs? It'd be nice to finally move files around in one explorer window.. Moving files around is always a bit of a PITA in Windows.

 

Doesn't look like.
I find using tabs to be a pain.. I prefer separate folder windows.
You could use the tree on the side to move files there.

 

buy a bigger monitor

tabs are useless, in chat windows, in file manager and in email clients. only ever useful browsing related websites.

 

my customers it makes things easier for them,
and it can actually speed things up

 

What I don't like is the clutter. Currently, in a default Windows install, if you have one open explorer and wish to copy files to a different folder (while keeping the other open) you have to click start then got to the folder if it's there. If it's a different folder nestled somewhere, or a different drive, you have to open up computer then navigate to that folder. So, 2 clicks to get to the same position as you could by just, for example, middle clicking one of the folders on the left, or pressing ctrl + t...

As a part time Linux user, with nautilus, I got used to the tabs, and when I use Windows it seems cluttering when sorting files to have to have a different explorer window open.

Meh just my view..

 

First of all, you have the Explorer folder on the task bar.
Second if you press shift, and click on explorer (any folder), on the task bar you open a new instance of the folder.

Third, Ctrl+Mouse-Click on a folder will open a new instance of the selected folder in a seperate window.

So it does what you want

 

Explorer on the task bar just minimises/ maximises the current open folder though. It can just get cumbersome when sorting lots of files and you have 3-4 windows open, especially on a smaller screen with windows grouped.

 

Please re-read, I said Shift+Click.
As for the first point I meant for the first time.

Also, you can pin (within explorer) folders, and have a list of recent folders (default is 10 entries, in my case, I cleared the list except for what is showed).

 

Microsoft posted a post on their blog talking more on the ribbon bar.
Microsoft is convinced that this the way to go, and the post explains why:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/02/reflecting-on-our-first-conversations-part-2.aspx

Also it talks about more on the Metro design.