Occasional Thoughts

Congratulations Microsoft for finally introducing some features KDE users already enjoy.

Just saw some Windows 7 screenshots on Heise Online that once again reveals some Microsoft "innovations" that KDE users already enjoy.

OK, the first screenshot shows something really new. It associates an entry on the taskbar with documents recently opened with that application. Could be a nice feature. However in general I think the list of recent documents is more useful. Why shall I first start an application to see it in the taskbar and then open a document related to that? But OK... let's give Microsoft one point for that.

The next screenshot shows an astonishing new feature: Widgets can be placed everywhere on the desktop and not only in the sidebar. Wow! How innovative to release a stupid restriction, which Mac OS never had and also KDE does not have since the introduction of Super Karamba with KDE 3.5 some years ago. (in fact Karamba was available much earlier, but it was not part of KDE before KDE 3.5).

Let's take a look on the third screenshot. Windows 7 allows to organize files in Libraries. So you can group them without the need to copy these files to another location. KDE4 has Nepomuk which can do that by tagging files and even more.

On the fourth screenshot you can see a device manager that shows plugged in devices. Once again nothing new for KDE 4 users. OK... the Windows equivalent seems to be capable to do a little bit more like showing the state of the attached device.

Finally on the last screenshot you can see the new paint, which gets the new MS Office toolbar. Thank God that KDE does not do something like that.

Finally here is my list of features for Windows 8 that shall be copied from KDE/Linux:

• Long overdue: Virtual Desktops. I mean a real integration, where you can preview the desktops and move Windows from one desktop to the other. Not a cheap show/hide Windows emulation like MS already offers.
• Make it responsive. I do not want to wait 30 seconds for opening a context menu right after logging in.
• Magnetic windows borders - once again something that Linux users enjoy for a very long time already.
• Let the user configure global shortcuts like they want them to be - including the Windows key. Also allow to override existing shortcuts, e.g. Win + R to run Launchy.
• Introduce Folder views for the desktop.
• A useful Run... dialog, which can also quickly execute shortcuts from the Start Menu.
• Better organization of executables so that these are included in the PATH without requiring a PATH variable to have hundreds of entries. Something like /usr/bin.