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Micro$oft just doesn't get it

jknight8907

jknight8907

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 14, 2004
804
49
Hudson Valley NY
I was reading an article today about Longhorn (shudders), and it said that in WindBlows Explorer, when you mouse over a file or folder, a POPUP window will appear with all kinds of information about the file. You'd think that with all the popup blockers and such they would get the picture we don't like popups.... Thats why I shall be a Jaguar, not a Longhorn cow.
 
lol, first feature to be "hacked" away I imagine (unless Microsoft decided to put an option to turn it off somewhere...)

Either that or announce an included OSX theme so people don't have to spend time downloading one off the net. I swear, there's more people with XP boxes themed to look like OSX than there are real OSX boxes.
 
It's actually pretty useful, and in use right now. It's not so much of a "popup" in the advertising sense, but like a little sticky...
Let's demonstrate:
Move your mouse over the thumbs up logo I put on this message. What does it say? Wouldn't that be useful to be able to see file size and info using that format?
I think so!

Lee Tom
 
That would be me :) I've got a ton of mac related desktops that cycle ever few minutes, a OS X startup screen, ect. Hopefully I'll have the real deal pretty soon.
 
pop up is not inherently annoying. it's actually a very useful way to present information provided that

1) it shows up only when requested (web popups fail this and are thus annoying)

2) it's not intrusive or persistent (XP desktop popups fail this)

3) provides useful information

i think jaguar already has this within Finder to a degree, no? in the column view, if you hover your mouse over a file, with say, a really long name that doesn't fit, a popup will show up to tell you the full name? not sure.

if done right, it's useful. i don't know if M$ can do it "right" though. :D
 
I can see it not going the well.

Microsoft will probably make it so that it pops up with unneeded info like,

porn.jpg
Filesize 120893 bytes
Filename porn
Filetype JPEG
Creation Date 03/07/2004
Modification Date 03/07/04
Copyright N/A
Creator Paint.exe
© 1985-2004 Microsoft Corporation
Comments N/A
 
This topic is so ridiculous. The original poster sounds like he's in 5th grade.
 
Gherkin said:
This topic is so ridiculous. The original poster sounds like he's in 5th grade.
Click to expand...
Spot on, this is bullsh*t. You (jknight8907) don't even know what they are actualy doing. You make yourself look stupid picking wholes in somehting you don't know any detail about :rolleyes:

meh, maybe I'm talkin crap myself, it just is annoying to see people criticize something that is such a long way from completion, at least wait until they say it's finished before tearing it apart!
 
LeeTom said:
It's actually pretty useful, and in use right now. It's not so much of a "popup" in the advertising sense, but like a little sticky...
Let's demonstrate:
Move your mouse over the thumbs up logo I put on this message. What does it say? Wouldn't that be useful to be able to see file size and info using that format?
I think so!

Lee Tom
Click to expand...

The screenshots I saw were actual popup windows, about 2in by 2in. Hopefully this will change before actual release but, if not..... all the more reason to get a PB.
 
jknight8907 said:
The screenshots I saw were actual popup windows, about 2in by 2in. Hopefully this will change before actual release but, if not..... all the more reason to get a PB.
Click to expand...

Could you show us these actual popup windows? I'm interested in seeing what they look like.
 
jknight8907 said:
I was reading an article today about Longhorn (shudders), and it said that in WindBlows Explorer, when you mouse over a file or folder, a POPUP window will appear with all kinds of information about the file. You'd think that with all the popup blockers and such they would get the picture we don't like popups.... Thats why I shall be a Jaguar, not a Longhorn cow.
Click to expand...

[Michael Jackson]That's ignorant[/Michael Jackson]
 
Wow such insight.

7on said:
lol, first feature to be "hacked" away I imagine (unless Microsoft decided to put an option to turn it off somewhere...)
Click to expand...

*sighs* The ignorant masses speak. First off its not a popup in the sense you get popups in your browser its a balloon that appears after hovering over the file for a second. This "feature" is already in XP and yes you can turn it off Tools -> folder options -> view -> (uncheck) Show popup descriptions for folder and desktop items.

Uncheckmark it and you are done. And yes I've disabled it because the delay in showing the popup isn't long enough consequently it sometimes gets in the way when I'm power browsing through a dir and for me knowing the size of file and its relative stats I rather prefer the status bar at the bottom. (See screen shot.)
I don't agree with your post but I do agree with your title to a point. There ARE things that Apple could learn from MS and things that MS could learn from Apple. Panther isn't the end all be all of OS's. I much prefer the file browser to Apple's Finder. The interface, IMHO, is just to slow.
 

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SiliconAddict said:
*sighs* The ignorant masses speak. First off its not a popup in the sense you get popups in your browser its a balloon that appears after hovering over the file for a second. This "feature" is already in XP and yes you can turn it off Tools -> folder options -> view -> (uncheck) Show popup descriptions for folder and desktop items.

Uncheckmark it and you are done. And yes I've disabled it because the delay in showing the popup isn't long enough consequently it sometimes gets in the way when I'm power browsing through a dir and for me knowing the size of file and its relative stats I rather prefer the status bar at the bottom. (See screen shot.)
I don't agree with your post but I do agree with your title to a point. There ARE things that Apple could learn from MS and things that MS could learn from Apple. Panther isn't the end all be all of OS's. I much prefer the file browser to Apple's Finder. The interface, IMHO, is just to slow.
Click to expand...

Why am I ignorant? And this feature isn't in XP as indicated by kingjr3's screenshot. Popup's are what generally 98% of all consumers don't want. In any form or fashion. I've never talked to anyone who liked popup's (you're the first). Anyhoo, this is how Panther does it and yes it can be turned off (I had to turn it on to take the screen).
 

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jknight8907 said:
I was reading an article today about Longhorn (shudders), and it said that in WindBlows Explorer, when you mouse over a file or folder, a POPUP window will appear with all kinds of information about the file. You'd think that with all the popup blockers and such they would get the picture we don't like popups.... Thats why I shall be a Jaguar, not a Longhorn cow.
Click to expand...

Windows Explorer is not Internet Explorer (though Longhorn's integration of the browser into the operating system might blur this distinction somewhat). Windows Explorer is basically the equivalent of the Finder. And it already has this functionality you're talking about, but with less detail.

If I go into Explorer here on my work machine running Win 2k and "hover" the mouse pointer over any given file, a similar tooltip-like text box will pop up and tell me the type and size of the file, similar to the screenshots posted earlier in the thread. I bet that Longhorn's version of this is not only more detailed, but that in true Microsoft form, they've bloated a nicely simple and usable feature with an image of some kind.

But it's not a pop-up in the web browser sense, and wouldn't occur unless the user hovered the mouse over the given item long enough.
 
Well it's not a brower "pop-up" (that happens out of your control); its more in the sense of appearing only when you mouse-over it.

And for those who don't know where the setting is in XP, here's a screenshot:
 

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I think it's a good idea, if done correctly. I'm sure there will be a view sorter kind of like the present Win XP: List OR Details OR Thumbnails OR etc. etc.

Or more likely is that they'll make it an option which you can choose to use or disable (like the guy earlier said)
 
jknight8907 said:
I was reading an article today about Longhorn (shudders), and it said that in WindBlows Explorer, when you mouse over a file or folder, a POPUP window will appear with all kinds of information about the file. You'd think that with all the popup blockers and such they would get the picture we don't like popups.... Thats why I shall be a Jaguar, not a Longhorn cow.
Click to expand...

It's just a more detailed version of tolltips that is in Windows XP now. You can toggle the feature. I like it. If I hover of a graphic image seeing a thumbnail in place rather than a preview pane is nice.
 
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