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Microsoft pulls the same BS. Look at Edge. Absolute mess. No menu. No title bar. What application am I even using? This stupidity seems to have spread across W

Microsoft pulls the same BS. Look at Edge. Absolute mess. No menu. No title bar. What application am I even using? This stupidity seems to have spread across Windows. No title bars or menus... now you can't tell what application a Window belongs to. And you can't even bring all of an application's windows to the foreground... Microsoft makes you hover of it in the task bar and choose between indiscernible thumbnails, one at a time. WTF? If you have two Explorer windows open to copy stuff, then switch to other apps to work during the copy... you can't give focus back to Explorer and see the two windows again. You have to hover, click on a thumbnail. Now go back and hover, and click on a thumbnail... hopefully not the same one, because of course you can't tell WTF the difference between two lists of files is in a thumbnail. And Word... the Word UI is now a clinic on abject usability failure. They have a menu bar... except WAIT! Microsoft and some users claim that those are TABS... except that it's just a row of words, looking exactly like a menu. So now there's NO menu and no actual tabs... just a row of words. And if you go under the File "menu" (yes, File), there are a bunch of VIEW settings. And in there you can add and remove these so-called "tabs," and when you do remove one, the functionality disappears from the entire application. You're not just customizing the toolbar; you're actually disabling entire swaths of features from the application. It's an absolute shitshow of grotesque incompetence, in a once-great product. No amount of derision for this steaming pile is too much.

aniforprez 1y ago
For your complaints about the taskbar, yes I too find it incredibly annoying that they compress all the application windows into a tiny thumbnail but there is a setting to expand thumbnails to include titles and separate them if there are multiple windows which is what I use. I don't currently have access to my windows machine or I'd help you out with the exact setting but it's there somewhere in the "taskbar settings"
- DidYaWipe 1y ago
  Thanks very much. But it doesn't sound like that would help. First, I doubt a giant network path would fit in the title of a thumbnail. Second, I want to give focus to the entire application at once. ALL of its windows need to be brought to the foreground at once.
  - aniforprez 1y ago
    Yes there are limits to how long the title will go until it starts getting truncated so it is possible it won't fit a network path. I'm not sure if the behaviour of the taskbar was always to bring every window of an app to the foreground? But yes I don't think that's a thing either.
userbinator 1y ago
No title bars or menus... now you can't tell what application a Window belongs to. I hate when applications stuff other controls (like browser tabs) into the title bar --- leaving you with no place to grab and move the window. The irony is that we had title bars when monitors were only 640x480, yet now that they have multiplied many times in resolution, and become much bigger, UIs are somehow using the excuse of "saving space" to remove title bars and introducing even more useless whitespace.
- DidYaWipe 1y ago
  Amen. And then there's the idiotic peek-a-boo UI that hides controls until you accidentally roll over them with the cursor... not saving any space at all.
- devnullbrain 1y ago
  We don't do desktop computing like we did then. Most of what was separate applications then are now done in-browser: it's like running a virtual machine inside your OS. I don't need to know that what I'm using is Edge/Chrome/Firefox any more than I need to know that what I'm using is Windows/etc.
  - iamtedd 1y ago
    This argument would make more sense if it wasn't in a thread talking about all the other apps besides the browser that does this.
    - devnullbrain 1y ago
      My point is that there rarely are other 'apps' in use.
      - DidYaWipe 1y ago
        That assertion is absurd.
int_19h 1y ago
This isn't just a Windows thing. Look at Gnome for another example. macOS of late also likes to take over the title bar for random reasons, although there at least the menu bar is still present regardless.
- gylterud 1y ago
  At least on Linux you have 100 choices of window manager (and 100 themes of KDE). 101 if you roll up your sleeves and roll your own.
- DidYaWipe 1y ago
  I've always considered the Mac's shared menu bar a GUI 1.0 mistake that should have been fixed in the transition to OS X. Forcing all applications to share a single menu that's glued to the top of the screen, and doesn't switch back to the previous application when you minimize the one you're working with, is dumb. Windows and Unix GUIs had it right: Put an application's menu where it belongs, on the application's main frame. But now on Windows... NO menu? Oh wait, no... partial menus buried under hamburger buttons in arbitrary locations, and then others buried under other buttons.
  - danaris 1y ago
    ...The Mac menu bar is what it is for a very good reason. Being at the top of the screen makes it an infinitely-tall target. All you have to do to get to it is move your mouse up until you can't move it up any more. This remains a very valuable aspect to it no matter what changes in the vogue of UIs have come and gone since. The fact that you think that you've "minimized the application" when you minimized a window just shows that you are operating on a different (not better, not worse, just different) philosophy of how applications work than the macOS designers are.
    - layer8 1y ago
      This argument never made much sense to me, although I do subscribe to Fitts' Law. With desktop monitor sizes since 20+ years ago, the distance you have to travel, together with the visual disconnect between application and the menu bar, negates the easier targetability. And with smaller screen sizes, you would generally maximize the application window anyway, resulting in the same targetability. The actual historical rationale for the top menu bar was different, as explained by Bill Atkinson in this video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44338182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44338182. The problem was that due to the small screen size, non-maximized windows often weren't wide enough to show all menus, and there often wasn't enough space vertically below the window's menu bar to show all menu items. That's why they moved the menus to the top of the screen, so that there always was enough space, and despite the drawback, as Atkinson notes, of having to move the mouse all the way to the top. This drawback was significant enough that it made them implement mouse pointer acceleration to compensate. So targetability wasn't the motivation at all, that is a retconned explanation. And the actual motivation doesn't apply anymore on today's large and high-resolution screens.
ajolly 1y ago
Turn on never combine taskbar labels in the taskbar settings
- DidYaWipe 1y ago
  How does turning that off help? Does it let you bring an entire application to the foreground (all of its windows) at once?
  - fuzzy2 1y ago
    And when was that ever a thing on Windows?
    - DidYaWipe 1y ago
      I don't know. Was it?
      - fuzzy2 1y ago
        No, that's kind of the point. It's not something Windows XP/Vista/whatever made worse by hiding it or even taking it away. It simply is not available. macOS works like this though, IIRC, and no other way.
        DidYaWipe 1y ago
        I'm not really exploring the origin of the problem; I'm just saying it's dumb and a pain in the ass.
Avamander 1y ago
> This stupidity seems to have spread across Windows. No title bars or menus... now you can't tell what application a Window belongs to. I disable the title bars on almost everything I use. Except some custom applications that resist such attempts. I do not give a rat's ass what is open, it's already immediately obvious. Just wasting valuable screen real-estate.
- DidYaWipe 1y ago
  Except of course when it's not obvious at all.

aniforprez 1y ago

For your complaints about the taskbar, yes I too find it incredibly annoying that they compress all the application windows into a tiny thumbnail but there is a setting to expand thumbnails to include titles and separate them if there are multiple windows which is what I use. I don't currently have access to my windows machine or I'd help you out with the exact setting but it's there somewhere in the "taskbar settings"

DidYaWipe 1y ago
Thanks very much. But it doesn't sound like that would help. First, I doubt a giant network path would fit in the title of a thumbnail. Second, I want to give focus to the entire application at once. ALL of its windows need to be brought to the foreground at once.
- aniforprez 1y ago
  Yes there are limits to how long the title will go until it starts getting truncated so it is possible it won't fit a network path. I'm not sure if the behaviour of the taskbar was always to bring every window of an app to the foreground? But yes I don't think that's a thing either.

userbinator 1y ago

No title bars or menus... now you can't tell what application a Window belongs to. I hate when applications stuff other controls (like browser tabs) into the title bar --- leaving you with no place to grab and move the window. The irony is that we had title bars when monitors were only 640x480, yet now that they have multiplied many times in resolution, and become much bigger, UIs are somehow using the excuse of "saving space" to remove title bars and introducing even more useless whitespace.

DidYaWipe 1y ago
Amen. And then there's the idiotic peek-a-boo UI that hides controls until you accidentally roll over them with the cursor... not saving any space at all.
devnullbrain 1y ago
We don't do desktop computing like we did then. Most of what was separate applications then are now done in-browser: it's like running a virtual machine inside your OS. I don't need to know that what I'm using is Edge/Chrome/Firefox any more than I need to know that what I'm using is Windows/etc.
- iamtedd 1y ago
  This argument would make more sense if it wasn't in a thread talking about all the other apps besides the browser that does this.
  - devnullbrain 1y ago
    My point is that there rarely are other 'apps' in use.
    - DidYaWipe 1y ago
      That assertion is absurd.

int_19h 1y ago

This isn't just a Windows thing. Look at Gnome for another example. macOS of late also likes to take over the title bar for random reasons, although there at least the menu bar is still present regardless.

gylterud 1y ago
At least on Linux you have 100 choices of window manager (and 100 themes of KDE). 101 if you roll up your sleeves and roll your own.
DidYaWipe 1y ago
I've always considered the Mac's shared menu bar a GUI 1.0 mistake that should have been fixed in the transition to OS X. Forcing all applications to share a single menu that's glued to the top of the screen, and doesn't switch back to the previous application when you minimize the one you're working with, is dumb. Windows and Unix GUIs had it right: Put an application's menu where it belongs, on the application's main frame. But now on Windows... NO menu? Oh wait, no... partial menus buried under hamburger buttons in arbitrary locations, and then others buried under other buttons.
- danaris 1y ago
  ...The Mac menu bar is what it is for a very good reason. Being at the top of the screen makes it an infinitely-tall target. All you have to do to get to it is move your mouse up until you can't move it up any more. This remains a very valuable aspect to it no matter what changes in the vogue of UIs have come and gone since. The fact that you think that you've "minimized the application" when you minimized a window just shows that you are operating on a different (not better, not worse, just different) philosophy of how applications work than the macOS designers are.
  - layer8 1y ago
    This argument never made much sense to me, although I do subscribe to Fitts' Law. With desktop monitor sizes since 20+ years ago, the distance you have to travel, together with the visual disconnect between application and the menu bar, negates the easier targetability. And with smaller screen sizes, you would generally maximize the application window anyway, resulting in the same targetability. The actual historical rationale for the top menu bar was different, as explained by Bill Atkinson in this video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44338182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44338182. The problem was that due to the small screen size, non-maximized windows often weren't wide enough to show all menus, and there often wasn't enough space vertically below the window's menu bar to show all menu items. That's why they moved the menus to the top of the screen, so that there always was enough space, and despite the drawback, as Atkinson notes, of having to move the mouse all the way to the top. This drawback was significant enough that it made them implement mouse pointer acceleration to compensate. So targetability wasn't the motivation at all, that is a retconned explanation. And the actual motivation doesn't apply anymore on today's large and high-resolution screens.

ajolly 1y ago

Turn on never combine taskbar labels in the taskbar settings

DidYaWipe 1y ago
How does turning that off help? Does it let you bring an entire application to the foreground (all of its windows) at once?
- fuzzy2 1y ago
  And when was that ever a thing on Windows?
  - DidYaWipe 1y ago
    I don't know. Was it?
    - fuzzy2 1y ago
      No, that's kind of the point. It's not something Windows XP/Vista/whatever made worse by hiding it or even taking it away. It simply is not available. macOS works like this though, IIRC, and no other way.
      - DidYaWipe 1y ago
        I'm not really exploring the origin of the problem; I'm just saying it's dumb and a pain in the ass.

Avamander 1y ago

> This stupidity seems to have spread across Windows. No title bars or menus... now you can't tell what application a Window belongs to. I disable the title bars on almost everything I use. Except some custom applications that resist such attempts. I do not give a rat's ass what is open, it's already immediately obvious. Just wasting valuable screen real-estate.

DidYaWipe 1y ago
Except of course when it's not obvious at all.