The Windows 8 Desktop

In a previous post I enthused about the new Metro interface introduced with Windows 8 and its utility on a touch enabled tablet. This time I'll cover how the old Windows desktop fits into this new interface, which is what is causing nearly all of the controversy along with how Metro works with a mouse and keyboard.

Accessing the Windows desktop is certainly different to how it has been done before on previous versions of Windows. Whilst before Windows booted into desktop and you then started loading and using your applications from there, with Windows 8 you always boot into the Metro start screen. Access to the desktop is acheived by tapping (or clicking if using a mouse) a tile called 'Desktop, or by tapping a tile representing an application which runs in the desktop such as Microsoft Word or Excel. Doing so invokes the desktop (which in a way is kind of a Metro app) and loads the requested application.

The loading of all applications regardless of whether they are a Metro app or a desktop application is generally done through the start screen. The only exception to this is that you have the option, as you did in Windows Vista and 7, of 'pinning' an application to the desktop task bar. Thus you could load the desktop and then click on the taskbar button representing that application to load it. But, you can also do something that you've been able to do since the days of Windows 95, which is to create a shortcut to either a file or the application on your desktop and invoke it from there.

Once loaded a desktop application behaves in exactly the same manner as it did before, with the same Windows interface that we've become accustomed to since Windows 95. Which is an issue when using a tablet as that 'old' interface is nowhere near as easy to use in touch mode as Metro. However, since the desktop interface was developed for the accuracy of a mouse, when it is used with one in Windows 8 you will notice no difference to previous versions of Windows, except for some cosmetic changes.

A lot of changes have been made to the desktop environment, changes in Windows 8 aren't just limited to the new Metro interface. For instance Windows Explorer has perhaps had the biggest change in that the ribbon interface has been added to it, which on the whole I think works quite well as it easier to get at an activity that you might want to perform on a file.

However, unless you have pinned a shortcut to your application on the taskbar or saved a shortcut on the desktop, you are taken back to the Start screen when you want to load a new application. This has drawn a lot of criticism as many feel that the switch is jarring and somehow detracts from the desktop experience and overall productivity.

I'm not so sure, once you've got used to it I don't think it's that jarring and the fact is that we are human and we tend to only focus on one thing at a time anyway. We don't tend to click on the Start button in Windows 7 and search for the application we want to load, whilst simultaneously reading a web page for instance. All our attention is focused on the Start menu and finding that application, once it's loaded we focus on performing the task we wanted to do. So in that sense switching to the Start screen makes no difference as our attention is not on any other application that is loaded at that time, so I don't really have a problem with it. But with Windows 7 I have shortcuts on my desktop for most of the applications that I regularly use, and taskbar buttons for the ones I use every day, and that's what I'll continue to do with Windows 8. So when working in the desktop which will be most of the time for me I'll hardly see the Start screen anyway, and all users have that option.

Another 'feature' which has drawn a lot of criticism, some of it justified I think, is how you interact with a mouse and keyboard. Obviously once you're working in a desktop application there is no difference, but the problem lies in how you get to the Start screen or switch to a Metro app. For instance to get to the Start screen you move the mouse to the bottom left corner which will result in a 'button' for the Start screen being displayed which you then click, or you can simply hit the Windows key on your keyboard. If you then start typing, the system will immediately start searching for an app with the name you're typing, or you can navigate the start screen with the mouse.

While you can use the Start screen to switch to another loaded Metro app (you use the taskbar to switch between desktop apps) you can also move the mouse to the top left corner which displays a bar listing all the loaded Metro apps, of which the desktop is one, if loaded. You then click a tile representing the app you want to switch to, this is equivalent to the left flick & reverse gesture that I talked about in the previous post.

Likewise to access the Charms bar you move the mouse to the top right corner and then click the relevant button. As with the Metro gestures, these are all new behaviours of Windows which need to be learned. I don't think they're difficult to learn, but new users will need to be shown what to do because they are not intuitive behaviours.

At the moment there aren't that many Metro apps available, and since all of the applications I use are desktop applications when I'm doing work with my Asus slate I'm using the desktop environment a lot of the time. Since it's got a stylus using the old Windows interface isn't quite so difficult as the tip of the stylus gives the accuracy lacking in the end of a finger. But when I'm in the office I plug a keyboard and mouse into it and so I've put in a lot of time using Windows 8 in that mode.

Do I find it to be as big a problem as some headlines would have us believe it is? I have to say no, the corners of the display are easy to find with a mouse and once learned it soon becomes 'normal' to interact with the operating system in this way. Likewise interacting with a Metro app isn't really that much different whether you're using a finger, mouse or stylus although it is probably a little easier with a finger.

I like Windows 8. From a touch point of view Metro is a huge improvement on what we had with Windows 7 and there are also plenty of enhancements in the desktop that there is no-way it's fair to say it has been neglected in favour of Metro. On a slate there is no doubt that the dual interface works, and while it is less so on a desktop PC it does enable Windows 8 to remain backward compatible with older desktop applications which at the time of writing are by far the most dominant Windows application around.

So it's a pragmatic solution to providing that compatibility, and when I'm using my slate I certainly feel that I've got the best of both worlds as most of my applications are desktop applications. I tend to only use Metro when web browsing or playing a game. As for my desktop PC there's always the option of sticking with Windows 7, although since I might want to write a Metro app that's not really an option (you can only write them in Windows 8). So as I mentioned earlier, I'll use the Windows 8 desktop in the same way I used the Windows 7 desktop with pinned applications on my taskbar and lots of shortcuts to the other applications I use.

I also think that over time most laptops will be sold with a touch screen (an obvious evolution in my opinion) and I suspect that more touch desktop screens (and all-in-one PCs') will be sold. I think touch is a natural evolution of our human computer interaction, as touch is an important part of how we interact with our real world environment. In my opinion it's only a matter of time before we're all interacting with our PCs in this way, whether it's a desktop, laptop or slate. 

Since I started using a touch interface on my slate (which was almost 12 months ago) I have often caught myself reaching to touch something on my desktop, momentarily forgetting they're not touch screens and feeling a fool afterwards. But on thinking about it, I soon realised why, once learned the touch gestures are more natural and are quite often quicker than reaching for the mouse, repositioning it and clicking.

But for those of us with with non-touch screens I expect that it won't be long before someone comes up with a way to control Windows 8 using Kinect for Windows, to be honest I'd hope that Microsoft are working on this themselves as it seems like a logical use for that technology. Besides the geek in me thinks that it would be really cool ;).