Windows Vista's IE 7 Imitates OmniWeb

[Jonathan Tyzack]

Hi,

I watched as much of the keynote as I could bear (a little over half)  
and it was as if parts of all the Apple Keynotes of the past 4 to 5  
years were being repeated as though they had never occurred. There  
was little to nothing demonstrated in Vista that hasn't been  
available in OS X and the iApps for over a year and a lot of it for  
about 4 years. The main difference is that the way it has been done  
in Vista is pretty badly implemented with a few exceptions (an always  
on view slider to adjust image icon sizes in the Finder would be very  
useful). If Vista doesn't offer much more than shown, then MS has  
barely even caught up to OS X... and from the screenshots, the font  
rendering still blows chunks. What is even more amusing is that MS is  
making the same mistakes with transparency in title bars etc that  
Apple did with the earlier versions of OS X, only in huge spadefuls.  
The glass interface is *appalling* for being full of visual clutter  
and confusion. It is all about doing something because they can  
rather than because it is of any use.

Their version of Exposé is a joke as well... take all the windows  
open on screen and make it so that you can only see the content of  
the very front one and no others! Way to go.

If Apple were in the frame of mind to sue over UI patents, they could  
have MS's arse over their "stacks" of icons implementation - yup,  
collapsed piles of file types are used all over the place in Vista...

FWIW, the IE7 tab thumbnails are a really stupid implementation -  
they make the content disappear when you view them (i.e. they replace  
the window's content with an equivalent of the OS X Finder icon  
layout). They aren't always on view like in OmniWeb. Instead a  
standard tab bar across the already cluttered toolbar that every  
other browser uses (other than OmniWeb) is present.

Cheers,

Jonathan

On 5 Jan 2006, at 21:04, Derek Currie wrote:

> This is kind of fun, so I thought I would share it.
>
> The great David Pogue posted a Circuits email article this  
> afternoon from CES, where he will be doing reporting all week. In  
> today's email (which you can access at <http://www.nytimes.com/ 
> circuitsemail>) he discusses the Bill Gates & cohorts keynote from  
> last night. Several aspects of Vista that were directly "stolen  
> from Apple" are pointed out. It is all quite amusing.
>
> But at one point Mr. Pogue made an apparent error. He had begun a  
> section in the article discussing ideas in Vista that actually  
> appeared to be original. Sadly, in one case he was apparently  
> mistaken. Here is the relevant paragraph:
>
>> * Thumbnail tabbed browsing. Internet Explorer will finally get  
>> tabbed browsing (a feature that Firefox, Safari and other browsers  
>> have had for years), in which you can keep multiple Web pages open  
>> at once, all in the same window; you switch from one to the next  
>> by clicking little file-folder tabs at the top. But in the Vista  
>> browser, you can also view all your tabbed Web pages as window  
>> miniatures, so that you can jump to one according to what it looks  
>> like (rather than just its name). A great idea.
>
> Window miniatures is a great idea isn't it!
>
> And it originated in OmniWeb years ago.
>
> I sent Mr. Pogue a note about this fact and offered to send him  
> screen shots if they would be helpful. Of course I have not yet  
> seen the Vista implementation of window miniatures, but so far I am  
> not hearing anything I can't already do in OmniWeb.
>
> Share and Enjoy!
>
> :-Derek
>
>
> ================
> Derek Currie
> derekcurrie at mac.com
> <http://www.insanely-great.com/>
> ================
> Fortune Magazine, 11-29-05: What's your computer setup today?
> Frederick Brooks: I happily use a Macintosh. It's not been equalled  
> for ease of use, and I want my computer to be a tool, not a challenge.
> <http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,1135298,00.html>
> [Frederick Brooks is the author of 'The Mythical Man Month'. He  
> spearheaded the movement to modernize computer software engineering  
> in 1975]
> _______________________________________________
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> OmniWeb-l at omnigroup.com
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