Gotta love windows 7's new WM features

[fela]

As much as I hate Windows and anything Microsoft-related (apart from of course the Xbox :)), I have to say that I love one of Windows 7's new WM features: you can drag a window to a side or the top of the screen and it will do the same as the compiz 'grid' plugin does - maximize to that half of the screen if you get me.

Anyone know of a feature like this for Kwin? Possibly in development? I'd love to hear from you if you do! Please vote on the poll aswell!

[kyuubi777]

windows desktop environment is about 6 years behind gnome, 8 behind kde and 4 behind osx... makes sense that they'd call it win 7... that's the story w/ microcrap.. always three behind apple :D
windows will never be as good to work with as linux or osx.

[fela]

windows desktop environment is about 6 years behind gnome, 8 behind kde and 4 behind osx... makes sense that they'd call it win 7... that's the story w/ microcrap.. always three behind apple :D
windows will never be as good to work with as linux or osx.

I disagree actually. The windows vista/7 UI is, like it or not, quite advanced. It supports composting and window-blurring, amongst other things. While both these features aren't necessary, they are quite advanced as UI technology goes. I think the one that is leading the pack in terms of UI design is actually Apple at the moment. I prefer using Linux for lots of reasons, and I prefer KDE to Apple's Aqua due to Apple's distinct lack of customizability and KDE's huge amount of said noun. But I still think that Apple leads the way in terms of technology, purely because Aqua has such good graphics engines and such like. I'd be one happy person if I could play around with Aqua and have it made open source, and port it to Linux. I have to say that if it had as much customizability as KDE does there'd be no contest between the two. As it stands, I can't stand using Aqua in its current state. Apple have a sleeping giant and if only they unleashed the true power of what they've developed...anyway.

Back to the vista/7 UI, I'd say the experience is worst of all, closely followed in terms of bad-ness by Apple. It's mainly really to do with my necessity of having a system that I can have complete control over and be able to customize to my heart's content. Well that's why I use Linux. But I can also truthfully tell you that if the windows shell was available on Linux and had as much customizability as KDE does I'd still use KDE. I just prefer it at the end of the day. :)

[Asraniel]

i know this has been implemented. if it's in trunk (kde 4.4) or somewhere in playground i don't know. but know that it has been done

[fela]

i know this has been implemented. if it's in trunk (kde 4.4) or somewhere in playground i don't know. but know that it has been done

wow, I should test the KDE trunk when I have the time!

[mrboojive]

That feature seems to me more like a marketing gimmick for Windows 7 than an actual usability improvement. You've always been able to right click on the Windows task bar and do "Tile Windows Vertically," which is pretty much exactly the same thing.

[fela]

That feature seems to me more like a marketing gimmick for Windows 7 than an actual usability improvement. You've always been able to right click on the Windows task bar and do "Tile Windows Vertically," which is pretty much exactly the same thing.

Really? I thought it was new in Windows 7. A tiling window manager, for me at least, is definitely a massive usability improvement. This is because my screen is wider than usual - 16 by 9 aspect ratio, 1920x1080 - and this means I can fit two applications side by side on it (as well as on my other screen, a 17 inch dell 1280x1024 - perfect for things like checking mail and the like).

[mrboojive]

The part where you can drag it up and the window manager expands it to half of the screen is new, but at least since XP you've been able to tile all of your open windows horizontally or vertically by using the menu that you get from right clicking on the task bar. So, if you'd had two applications open, you could have tiled them side by side, which is essentially the same thing as the 'new' feature.

[e-Gee]

That is why Karmic Koala have so many bugs everybody testing windows 7 instead ubuntu:lolflag:

[KeLa]

Don't wanna see anything new from ms.
In Vista they messed the UI totally (last good UI was in XP, all tought it take coupe years to get liking it)
In Vista if you wanted older Ui it was W2K and i have tested only one day of this Win7 and didn't like it and didn't tested the other options of UI (may be that older is same as in win 1.1 had) so who cares what ms do with the UI it's always crap.