Can the modern user interface of Windows 8 replace the traditional desktop?

Summary: PC Web site author Inpaolo (Ian Paul) has published an article on his own in a notebook without touch-control features, abandoning the traditional Windows desktop, completely using the Windows 8 new Metro interface experience. Paul says this modern

Ian Paul, PC's website author, has published an article describing his own experience with the Windows 8 new Metro interface, abandoning the traditional Windows desktop in a notebook that does not touch-screen control. Paul says this modern user interface is easy to use, and the habit of doing so is not as difficult as it might be, but because of the lack of Office applications in Windows stores, there are many difficulties in working. In addition, the design of this interface also has some inconvenient places.

Paul concludes that this modern UI is highly efficient after operating habits, even with the use of a mouse and a non touch screen operation. But users need to rely more on web apps for social, office, communications, and video.

The following is the full text of the article:

Can the modern user interface for Windows 8 replace the traditional desktop? Everyone has been asking this question since Microsoft launched Windows 8 last October.

So far, it is generally accepted that the answer is in the negative. Critics point out that the Windows store does not have many modern applications, and the full screen of the application's modern style is not conducive to PC-style multitasking. In addition, they say the control panel is still on the desktop!

Is that so?

Despite all the complaints, no one can answer the basic question: with these limitations, can you imagine using all of your time on the modern UI when you're completely off the desktop?

Although a desktop operator, I decided to answer the question before Windows blue. Windows Blue's enhancements depend on the modern UI in general, which means Microsoft wants the "start" screen, not the desktop, to be the future of Windows.

With these considerations in mind, I completely closed the table in the past week and lived a pure "modern" life. This UI is just an extension of my normal life, and I'm using a still trustworthy Lenovo X220 laptop with no touch screen, only an external mouse and a built-in keyboard.

Getting Started: Surprisingly simple

When my exile began, the first accident was that no touch screen was a burden.

Switching apps or using snap features is always a hassle before my experiment starts, and I have to always think about navigation instructions. Starting the system menu from a hidden corner is very patient: when the pointer slides up the selection, if it is too far left or right, the selection bar disappears, and I have to do it again. This annoys me so much that I often choose the Alt shortcut keys on my keyboard to switch applications.

But after a day of dedicated use, I was able to skillfully use the modern UI, the thought of opening the application bar disappeared, and the inaccurate mouse march ceased to exist. I can switch apps as fast as desktop operations, even faster.

For a modern UI experience without a touchscreen, keyboard shortcuts are important, especially if Windows keys can return to the start screen, and the Windows-c key opens the charms bar. Even with skilled mouse skills, opening the Charms bar and clicking on the "Start" button can be very slow.

You can also adapt to full screen application in a short time. Of course, at first, there's no Windows taskbar or desktop that feels limited, but it also makes you focus on using an app. In my opinion, there is no difference between switching windows in the desktop and the modern UI, but modern applications need more scrolling because they don't use the space well.

Multi-screen stubborn users may disagree with my point of view, but for more common multitasking users, they can use the Snap-screen display feature of Windows 8.

Put into work: unexpected difficulties

The first major hurdle is finding work tools. I need three simple apps: text-editing tools, table programs, and pure picture-editing tools.

Windows has more than 50,000 types of applications, but can hardly find useful Office applications. There are a lot of apps in the store that offer the "undisturbed" writing environment, but it's hardly useless. There are some markdown editing tools, but I need word processing software that can add links to text without having to appear in HTML tags.

After a few hours of fruitless search, I dropped the search for effective text editing tools and form programs. The only one by one acceptable applications are Tabularapp, which allows you to create your own tables, even to export to Excel files. Unfortunately, it can't import the Excel file, which kills its purpose.

Windows stores lack effective Office applications, which clearly criticize Microsoft Office applications. In fact, many Office application developers have revealed that if you are a small Windows 8 application developer, the last thing you want to do is compete with the world's most popular Office applications, especially the developers of this app that control the platform you need to participate in.

Unfortunately, Microsoft does not offer a modern version of the Office software suite. The Windows RT system comes with a desktop version of Office software, but Windows 8 systems do not come with any office software. Therefore, there is no reliable text or table program in the Windows store, the only way is a desktop program or a Web program, I am using Google Docs.

Looking for a picture editing tool is much easier. All I need is a screenshot of the tool, the price of 2.5 dollars clever photo value for money.

Peripheral applications

For anyone who wants to use the modern UI for a long time, it's important to choose the right browser. Of course, choosing the right operating system is also important, but modern UI browsers are either designed based on touch screens or traditional PC browsers. The choice of interface has a lot to do with your device and the way you enter it.

Without a touchscreen, the modern version of the IE10 browser is frustrating. Full screen browsing mode forces users to frequently click the right button to open a tab or address bar. For mouse users, the modern version of Google (Weibo) chrome is better than IE because its interface is very successful at imitating desktop versions. In addition, the Chrome browser extension extends to the modern interface.

The recent Windows 8 Twitter apps that entered the Windows Store have satisfied users ' tweets, but Facebook has yet to launch an official version of Windows 8 apps. So I have to log on to Facebook, but there are some Facebook apps in the Windows Store.

The same is true of the social functions of arranges applications. Windows 8 schedules and email applications are also good, just a bit monotonous and simple. The Calendar app doesn't match Google's schedule, and there's no Microsoft Outlook.com schedule. e-mail applications do not support POP3 accounts. If possible, use Internet services as much as possible, because the communication applications in the Windows Store, like Office applications, have very little choice.

The office says enough, no music can do.

In desktop mode, Spotify is my favorite music software, but since Spotify didn't launch a modern UI version, I started looking for replacements. Many of the most popular streaming music services are not yet in the Windows store, but Windows 8 's Xbox Music service (10 dollars a month can also enjoy an ad-free version) meets the requirements, offering millions of songs on demand, as well as intelligent DJ features, You can play all the music associated with a singer.

No YouTube apps, only landing page version.

Inconvenience: Unexpectedly many

An important part of the operating system experience is simplicity. Unfortunately, after a week of use, I found that Windows 8 had some minor details.

Many modern UI manipulations are hidden under the right mouse button, as some UI experts point out, which makes the learning curve extremely steep. For example, when I first started using the Windows store, I didn't know to click the right button to see a link back to the home page. Even after I knew it, I was constantly going back to the previous page by clicking the return button on the Site page.

Snap split screen display is quite good, but its screen can only be limited to 75-25 proportions, 50-50 proportional distribution is more conducive to multitasking. It is learned that Windows Blue will add this feature, but so far there is a lot of inconvenience in this area, as many applications lose navigation on the smaller screen panels.

Windows 8 also has a long way to go in terms of overall system compatibility. For example, when I want to add some Android apk files to the SkyDrive network, I click on the app's upload button to navigate to the download folder where the file is located. But there are so many things in my Downloads folder that it can be cumbersome to find these apk files.

Initially I wanted to search, but after clicking the Search button on the Charms sidebar, Windows took me back to the file selection dialog and returned to SkyDrive, my files of course not here.

Later I want to search through the "Start" screen, hoping to be able to import the file into the SkyDrive network disk. This method also does not work. Finally, I had to scroll through the download folder to find the apk file I wanted. This is not a big problem, but it can be a waste of time and inconvenience because users may have to repeat the process many times in one day.

Can you adapt to Metro environment?

After a week in the modern UI, I can say for sure that you can survive without a traditional desktop. In fact, once used, modern UI is highly efficient, even with a mouse and a touch-screen operation.

But this modern life is not easy. At present, Windows stores do not support every application you work all day, which means you need to rely more on Web applications: in social networking, basic office, communications, video, and so on.

There is another question: Is it really different from using the cheaper Chrome OS to use a network-centric, expensive modern UI? This may be the question we should discuss on an alternative day.