Windows 7 and JDK?

General Discussions
#21

That’s what I initially thought; but a few weeks using it, and I found all sorts of niggling problems.

  1. Applications that minimize themselves to the system tray have no taskbar icon, consequently their pinned icon no-longer appears highlighted.
  2. Launching new instances of existing applications requires more user actions; either shift-click, or right click->menu->left click.
  3. Unless you select ‘always combine, hide labels’, pinned applications are not positionally coherent - they move about depending upon what other applications are running.
  4. If you do select ‘always combine, hide labels’, you lose application title bars.

The classic XP interface can be explained clearly and concisely with a simple diagram:

[Launchable Applications][Active applications … ][ … Persistent applications]
(quick-launch bar) (task bar) (system tray)

The way in which applications move between these distinct states is equally simple to understand.

The Windows 7 interface cannot be explained with such a trivial diagram; definitely not KISS

#22

I agree… I like it. No more bloated task bar.

#23

My task bar has never been bloated. I always expand it to 2 or 3 rows, have about 20 odd quick launches, and generally there’s only ever about 4-6 apps running. Maybe people should possibly get used to closing windows they don’t want cluttering the place up… might explain why a lot of people complain about their computer running slowly too… ::slight_smile:

Cas :slight_smile:

#24

or just move the taskbar to the left side. I have 28 quick launch icons and can open 18 windows before running out of room. Plus I have quick links to all of my document folders on the startmenu too. There is tonnes of room if you have it vertically.

#25

@Abuse

I don’t really agree with any of your points. I rather like the side-by-side grouping, the resortability, etc.

But, if you really want to go back to the dark ages, you can just …

  1. Right-click
  2. Click toolbars -> new toolbar
  3. Select a folder that will contain all your quick launches

Hey, you can even select the folder that most apps install their quick launch icons by default. Ta-da, the icons act just like quick launch …

#26

[quote=“Abuse,post:21,topic:34785”]
These annoyed me too, that’s why I don’t use pinning. Especially that apps which minimize to the tray are still available on the start menu as a pin. To me that’s mixing quick launch functionality along with the task bar. Windows Live Messenger is a good example. I don’t want to see it listed next to the apps I’m running when it’s window is closed. That is why I close it. I want it to run hidden in the background so it only appeares when people send me messages.

One thing to bear in mind though is that the majority of PC users are not as confident with them as we are. There are lots of features I’d prefer to turn off which were added to make using Windows more friendly. For example starting with Vista when you minimize and restore a window it physically moves down and back from the taskbar. I don’t like it because when I restore a window it sometimes feels like they are trying to fly out and hit me in the face. But this was added because some users would minimize a window and not know that it’s only minimized to the taskbar. They wouldn’t know how to get it back.

#27

Arguing which is the ‘better’ user interface is futile.
No doubt M$ spent millions on researching which interface benefitted the most users.
Though I do wonder whether their research focused on satisfying the ‘most users’, or the ‘most user hours’ - statistically the latter would make more sense, but financially the former is better for M$.

Ultimately what I think is inexcusable is that the interface cannot out-of-the-box be customized sufficiently to suite all users.

#28

I agree with that statement.

Although I do like Windows 7 I must criticize that I don’t see much option of customizing the task bar. I can imagine not everyone will like that pinned stuff.

I also dislike that you’re not able to customize the look n’ feel, you’re pretty much limited to changing the opacity and and color.

Finally, which I do like, they have removed that “Documents and Settings” crap folder, and the user directory doesn’t fill up with nonsense crap folders. It’s been renamed to “Users/”. There is also a “Downloads” folder there!! Makes much more sense.

“Program Files” is also a crap name, should just name it “Programs” or “Applications”. I hate lengthy names with spaces. I mean, why would they call it “Program Files”… isn’t it pretty much given that there are FILES in there? What else could there be if not FILES? That’s like calling the “Windows” folder “Windows Files”.

#29

I guess, but I gave you a solution for your problem.

#30

Right-click the app and then select ‘unpin this program from the taskbar’. That’s it!

Agreed, but I can’t help thinking that it’s only command-line users who notice this.

#31

Hey, I’m a person too, I can troll every once in a while. But you have to admit that this topic has been derailed for quite a while.

I have to admit I’m a bit of an Apple fanboy (been using a Mac since I was 5 or so), and as such Microsoft has always been the evil idea stealer. I almost feel a need to point out to Windows users who are impressed with an awesome “new” feature that it isn’t so new after all.

That being said, to stay on topic: I have a dial boot machine, one with Mac and one with Windows XP. I have no plans at all to upgrade the Windows portion until I can’t play games on it, mainly because that’s what I use it for, but also because I have a stripped version of Windows XP that takes up like 80mb, starts up in 15 seconds, and is simple and works. Windows 7 seems altogether far too bloated to me, especially for $300.

#32

Going back to the original post, I just read in the release notes for 1.6.0_18 (http://java.sun.com/javase/6/webnotes/6u18.html) that Windows 7 is now officially supported.

#33

Then I assume Windows 7 was not supported in 1.6.0_17 and below.

#34

I’m running java 6 update 17 and it works fine for me.

#35

Well maybe not supported but I haven’t had any problems with Java, even in Windows 7 beta which I think I was using 1.6.0_13 ish.

#36

Just found this one: middle click a taskbar button to open a new window/instance for that app.