[xpclient]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 30 June 2012 - 03:30 PM, said:

xpclient,

Question: when you click the Start Button in Classic Shell, what message does it send to Ballmer and Sinofsky who are so busy watching the telemetry data from the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program?



It be great if the telemetry was configurable, perhaps a custom message. Just sayin'.

The Classic Shell Start button is independent of the Windows Start button so no telemetry will be gathered about that. Maybe a lot of people were using Classic Shell on Windows 7 as well (we started it in 2009 after all after the lack of the real Classic Start Menu). So that explains why few people used Microsoft's Start Menu. No just kidding. I'm sure MS is lying because millions did use the Start menu. Let's all hope they remove Metro in Windows 9 because no one used it.

This post has been edited by xpclient: 01 July 2012 - 03:20 AM

[JorgeA]

xpclient, on 30 June 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

The just released 3.5.1 version by Ivo Beltchev has an option to boot to desktop (slapping Metro on the way).

xpclient,

Very glad to hear this!

You're probably one of the best people in the world to ask this of: In Windows 8, using ClassicShell is it possible to re-create a Start Menu in Vista/Win7 style, with no fly-out All Programs listings?

--JorgeA

[xpclient]

Nope unfortunately that's not possible because by fundamental design, it is first and foremost a classic flyout style menu which Ivo and I believe is a better approach because it utilizes all of your screen when using multiple columns. Classic Shell in fact started as a classic menu because Windows 7 removed it and then "evolved" to become the XP style dual column menu+a little filter box like Vista/7. I know the usability of menus which expand and close by hovering the mouse pointer has been criticized by many usability experts for being inefficient. Classic Shell addresses this with a simple solution. If you find it difficult to navigate flyout sub-menus expanding horizontally because of the menu closing as soon as the mouse pointer crosses its boundary, you can set the "Menu Delay" setting on the 'General behavior' tab to a higher value. This causes the sub-menu to not close immediately but after a while. If you set it to a very high value, the sub-menu will expand and close only by a mouse click, not by hovering.

What the non-flyout style introduces is a scroll bar and that is something to be avoided if all the programs can fit on the screen. Still, if you prefer a scrolling menu, you can have that as well with Classic Shell but just not the in-place expanding one. But even if you use a single column layout in the Classic Start Menu, you can use the mouse scroll wheel to scroll up and down the menu. The menu also supports scrolling with the mouse wheel if you place the pointer to the right of the single column so that the folders do not expand unnecessarily as you scroll. Or like I said, set the "Menu delay" setting to a very high value.

This post has been edited by xpclient: 02 July 2012 - 11:26 PM

[JorgeA]

xpclient,

Thanks for explaining.

I can go either way with the menu -- the classic and the Vista menu are both WAY better than the Metro Start Screen. It's just that there are cases where having a smaller menu display works better for me. For example, sometimes I'm trying to follow complicated onscreen instructions (say, from a Microsoft troubleshooting page) and it helps to be able to read the next step without the menu covering it all up (as the Metro Start Screen does).

--JorgeA

[xpclient]

Yes that I can understand how it's better in some cases. As a compromise, Classic Start Menu can be compacted very much by checking "Small icons" in Skin options, using a single column main menu skin, changing the column style of sub-menus to single column, removing the caption as well. And the width of the both main and sub-menus can be reduced too. That way, it will overlap very little with what you are doing on the screen.




I can't think of ideas to reduce the height vertically if you have many programs installed.

[MagicAndre1981]

xpclient, on 01 July 2012 - 01:23 PM, said:

Nope unfortunately that's not possible because by fundamental design, it is first and foremost a classic flyout style menu which Ivo and I believe is a betterapproach

for me not. This is my main issue with ClassicStartmenu. Otherwise I would install it everywhere

[xpclient]

MagicAndre1981, on 02 July 2012 - 02:51 PM, said:

xpclient, on 01 July 2012 - 01:23 PM, said:

Nope unfortunately that's not possible because by fundamental design, it is first and foremost a classic flyout style menu which Ivo and I believe is a betterapproach

for me not. This is my main issue with ClassicStartmenu. Otherwise I would install it everywhere

You mean you also prefer a more compact drop down style where the folders expand vertically (Vista/7 style?) Or some other reason?

[JorgeA]

xpclient, on 01 July 2012 - 02:37 PM, said:

Yes that I can understand how it's better in some cases. As a compromise, Classic Start Menu can be compacted very much by checking "Small icons" in Skin options, using a single column main menu skin, changing the column style of sub-menus to single column, removing the caption as well. And the width of the both main and sub-menus can be reduced too. That way, it will overlap very little with what you are doing on the screen.

xpclient,

Wow, I have to admit that looks pretty compact! I wouldn't even have to "restore down" windows to see what's in them. Beautiful wallpaper, BTW.

Thanks for the description, too -- this would work for me.

--JorgeA

[MagicAndre1981]

xpclient, on 02 July 2012 - 11:25 PM, said:

You mean you also prefer a more compact drop down style where the folders expand vertically (Vista/7 style?)

Yes, I like the Vista/7 style It is MUCH, MUCH better for me. I always hated the classic flyout style menu, that's why I've hammerd my desktop with icons in Win95. Starting with Vista this changed because of the new Menu layout.

[xpclient]

The latest Classic Shell 3.6.2 adds jump lists and ability to launch Windows Store apps from a neat sub-menu, along with faster skipping of the Start screen. Enjoy.

This post has been edited by xpclient: 29 October 2012 - 05:51 AM

[xpclient]

We have released a skin for Classic Shell over at Winaero.

It looks good in Windows 8, much better than default skins. The skins shipping as part of Classic Shell do not match the look of the Windows 7 Start Menu or the style of Windows 8. Many settings also need to be heavily tweaked to get a more closer look. We tried to match the look on Windows 8 while making some changes from the Windows 7 style. For example, the skin has square corners, not rounded corners, like Windows 8 has. Also, because Windows 8 no longer has blur or glow, the glass is replaced by simple transparency, just like the Windows 8 taskbar uses. Semi-transparent Start Menu without blur makes the content behind it much harder to read, so we made the skin with very subtle transparency, that keeps the content behind it readable.

Download link: http://winaero.com/b...-classic-shell/
Please read the provided FAQ there.

Sample:

This post has been edited by xpclient: 23 March 2013 - 01:20 PM

[NoelC]

I've thought of an advantage to ClassicShell that maybe hasn't been brought up much...

Consistency across platforms!

I have it running on Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 machines at the moment.

I have Vista x64 on an old workstation that now serves as a file server. I don't log into it much, but after having switched to ClassicShell on my main Windows 7 workstation, I found myself wanting the UI to be better on the Vista system whenever I'd log in for maintenance or whatever... Bingo, ClassicShell solves that problem.

I run Windows 8 in a Virtual Machine for development and testing. Bingo, ClassicShell solves the problem there too.

Gotta love an application that does its job better than Microsoft's own software and provides consistency on no fewer than THREE generations of OS. Bravo Ivo (and thanks for your part too, xpclient).







-Noel

[xpclient]

Yeah, it fixes different annoyances on each f***ed up NT6 OS Thanks.