On 13/01/18 07:02 PM, Doug wrote:
Well, I'm using KDE5 ("plasma") and I like it, but Windows 10 comes
stock with a really gross interface--great big boxes on the screen for
just a few apps. You can abolish that junk with a free
app that makes the screen look and act like the Win 7 desktop, or one or
two other earlier Windows versions. It's called Classic Shell, and I
heard that it has been taken over by some open source
group, but I have no further info. There's probably another similar app
someplace. Fortunately, the Windows upgrade does not delete it, as I was
afraid it might. (I very seldom use Windows,
but I did upgrade to the latest slop just a few days ago.)
Windows really blew it with HiDPI, which is why those apps are so ugly. Rumour has it that it took Microsoft three tries just to get Notepad right, let alone their other apps. I ran into this recently (I write a lot of Windows stuff) where my program, which spaces buttons evenly across the screen, had them run off the right-hand side when run on a machine with a HiDPI monitor. It seems that with a HiDPI screen, Windows lies to you about screen co-ordinates, presumably in an attempt to fudge things before you realize what's going on. Similarly, if you ask Windows 10 to tell you what version it is, it lies and says it's Windows 8.1.
Microsoft's new policy apparently is "You can't handle the truth!" Let's hope Linux developers don't make the same mistake.
Thanks for the tip about Classic Shell. If I'm ever sentenced to use Windows 10 it might make life a bit more bearable. (On my own machines - which run Debian - I run Windows XP under VirtualBox. IMHO Windows' usability, such as it is, peaked somewhere between 2000 and XP and has been going downhill ever since.)
-- cgibbs@surfnaked.ca (Charlie Gibbs)