Metropolis or Windows 8 through the eyes of Delphi programmers

What is the truth?


Truth - the first page of search engine results. The company can push and puff with all its marketing efforts, trying to “sell” the technology to the masses of workers, but the first 10 links (+ Wikipedia) have a mechanism for weighing a specific solution. But while it’s too early to talk about decisions, they should be preceded by impressions. Armed with links selected from the floor, let's talk about the “Windows 8 interface design”.

Hey, why so one-sided? Why only the interface? Applied development is primarily based on component programming. A big misconception is that we use a programming language. Of course not. We use the component language for manual generation of the required functional with varying degrees of variability with respect to the predefined patterns of system construction. Our users are used to reasoning in terms of interface functionality like “Petrovich, dear, add me a button, when you click on it, a window should appear in which I see contracts whose contractors have lost their conscience ...”.

Microsoft Corporation for a long (very long) time indulged developers with carefully cultivated interface stability (it seems that designers were cut off their hands). But with the massive advent of tablets, stumps set in motion, and the world (almost) had a new Windows. The aesthetically dormant crowds of Delphi developers fluttered with varying degrees of intensity. What is this new OS, where did the Start button go, is it possible to use Delphi for development under Windows 8? It would seem that the questions are purely rhetorical, but they require some clarification.



The voice of the developer - the voice of God


The developer (programmer, developer) is the creator, and the creator is like a god. Therefore, it would be useful to start with the results of the polls. My data says that from 30 to 50% Delphi programmers have already used Windows 8 with a different level of positivity of post-reaction (otodnyak, in Russian). The general emotional background can be described in one word - “inevitability”. And if inevitability cannot be avoided, then you need to relax and have fun. Moreover, there are many reasons for this. But more on that later, for good enjoyment you need a good prelude.

Yes, being on habrahabr.ru can not fail to refer to the study. On the one hand, the results are predictable. On the other - useless. No, to feel self-worth it is cool to see your 0.02% contribution to public opinion. But the usefulness of such numbers = 0 with any degree of accuracy. Well, the new interface of Windows 8 is not aimed at the tastes of developers, not at you, my dears. But I would still write off such dead figures not on the incompatibility of a person programming with a new metaphor, but on the shy manner of a well-known corporation to convince.

How to sell a masterpiece


Let's look at the source. Here we have at least one entertaining video . For a real virus virus (1,000,000), he did not hold out, but elements are present.
  • 33 seconds - almost cut the carrots on the tablet (this was a similar movie with the iPad)
  • 46 seconds - the boy was poked in the eyes
  • 47 seconds - the uncle was slashed in the teeth (at least not on the neck)

The amusing little music reminded me of Africa, which symbolizes the region of the fastest growing IT market. For many, Windows 8 will be the first OS, so there will be nothing to compare with (for those who have forgotten what Windows 1 looks like).

I don’t know about you, but already for the second month I can’t forget the face that was stuck with “fat finger”. I hope that the gigantic money for advertising Windows 8 will somehow go to compensate for the moral harm inflicted on me - I love children, so what's wrong with that? By the way, the above document is used by Embarcadero as a study guide under the heading “How to Scold Competitors” (just kidding).

But the masterpiece of Windows 8 is more than compensated by the lack of imagination in its description. Often it seems that the speaker talking about Windows 8, in whose backpack lies an honestly bought iPad, or even Macbook Air. So I would ask you not to trust the evangelists and, especially, the search engines. Not that they are trying to lead you. It’s just that they are connected by certain corporate principles, but I don’t. This is the power of Delphi - the lack of a strong dependence on a particular platform. But overall, the impression is sluggish. If the impressionists were "sold" like this, Manet would be considered a Typo of Monet, and Renoir would be advised to rinse the nozzles on an inkjet cartridge to increase the clarity of the image.

Demotivator


Lack of rational justification is the strongest demotivator. You can constantly repeat yourself the mantra "5 principles of modern design for Windows." Here, by the way, there is an error. This Embarcadero can write “5 principles of modern design for Windows”, because even for Windows XP you can reproduce the described "modern design". But in the original article should have been called "5 design principles for modern Windows." Well, we will not be flea seekers, it is better to enroll in a "summer school" (at least counselors).

The classic Windows interface specifically bothered everyone. Change it - how to paste the wallpaper (reluctance, but necessary ... easier than to get a divorce). How can a woman change her hair color. How do you - buy a new car. Let it be the same Opel Astra, but only a new one. Of course, the corporation could also give up on the boring faces of consumers, but there was a protest wave. In MacOS X, there are also a number of ergonomic holes. Those. to put it bluntly, it is no better than Windows 7. But the people ran to grab the "apples" because it is clearly not Windows. Our grown children brought the “fathers and children” conflict into the plane of a purely consumer choice of a “non-daddy OS”. It was easier for us to fight with grandfather MS-DOS, but the new generation chooses not obsolete “windows-in-IT-space”.

What to do? If people need "non-visibility", then it remains only to lead this "anti-window" movement. And if MacOS is slightly different from Windows 7, then Windows 8 - absolutely nothing. Creating a non-Windows OS was simply unrealistic, but Microsoft did the impossible. No sarcasm, a great corporation made a great product. Metro is the apotheosis of the quality of electronic design (and not because I carry a captured phone with Windows Phone 7 on board).
I'll prove it now.

Let's start from the beginning (we will finish it)


Windows 8 Start Screen - Well, finally, humanity has made an effort! The rationality of using the classic “desktop” is easy to calculate by dividing the total useful area of ​​labels on the product of the width and height of the screen. Most of the screen is engaged in exhibiting visual images in the form of wallpaper (often, according to Freud). I have a gaping void of the universe. But I want to improve. And do not talk here about bauhaus, typography and look for sources of inspiration. You don’t have to take a guide from yourself in the contemporary art hall, reading the template texts and saying “what I see, I sing”. You just have to say: a dumb, irrational, statically dead “desktop” was initially bad, and Microsoft fixed this error. You can scold her, but for the “time delay” with a score of 1: 0 in favor of stagnation, and not for Windows 8. You need to mentally take the desktop icons and maximize their size until they come in contact with their neighbors (this is just TRIZ, not art history). We get the stats of the Windows 8 start screen. Can I add dynamics? Complex issue.

Start, RIP


Imagine you made an application with the main menu, and there is one item - “File” (or “Start”), and all the functionality is embedded in an infinite tree. So was it removed correctly ? Hey, no, they didn’t remove it because of its unpopularity. Removed for ideological reasons.

The "Start" button symbolized the driving force of the user's desires, his active, leading role in the "man-OS-computer" system. Information and functionality (to obtain information) was the result of a conscious choice of the operator against the background of the static readiness of a robot-like creature.

"Live Tiles" forever


The paradigm has changed - “living tiles” asynchronously create information fields, exposing the user's brain to their effects. Information space through the valves of living tiles penetrates us, passes through us, who are in a state of passive assimilation. Activation of consciousness occurs at moments when we focus on a specific transmission channel (“live tile”), without changing the principle of asynchronous operation, but choosing an information outlet for recharging. It used to be that the system should be strictly driven (up to program delays providing micro-latency), now the OS and applications have become more equal in relation to humans. Yes, we strategically define our informational (so far flat) space, but then it takes control, loading its part in us.

Therefore, throw away the longing for the Start button, which is more appropriate when the Macbook Pro 17 falls to the floor.

What does Delphi have to do with it?


Starting with the release of XE3, you can create stylized applications. Not being WinRT applications, executable modules emulate the style of Windows 8. You can, of course, laugh it off that for the sake of a new metaphor, Microsoft created a new OS, and Embarcadero a new style for classic applications. But the thesis that at this stage of the prevalence of Windows 8 Embarcadero company made the most effective decision from the point of view of applied Delphi programmers can be called more correct. Metropolis specialized technology is now available to quickly bring non-WinRT applications (i.e. traditional) to Windows 8.

This is based on the styling mechanism of FireMonkey and VCL. Even if the priority is not to create applications in the style of Windows 8, such opportunities are a sure way to learn Windows 8. You can install and click on it, you can get a phone with a similar interface, or you can train to create an Enterprise Line of Business Apps for Windows 8. The latter alternative is more in line with the spirit of programmers - active learning through development.

On a virtual machine, when installing Windows 8, I had problems with "drive A", I had to remember what this means.

Since we are talking about styling and not using the new API, applications created using Metropolis will run (in addition to Windows 8) on Windows 7, Windows Vista (what is this?), Windows XP. But it will be impossible to stylize a MacOS application under Windows 8, because both groups of adherents of these platforms will not be particularly happy to contemplate Windows 8 on a Mac.

Conclusion


We are standing in Volgograd after the workshop, next to me are two seasoned developers:
- Well, guys, how do you like Windiows 8? Does it feel like in the cockpit, but instead of instruments - live tiles?
- Yes, somewhere like that ... We just bought Windows 7 from the corporation, so we'll wait a bit.

Alt + F4


- Not a pin. I have my iPad / Android, which I will not exchange for any ergonomics for a “Windows” tablet.
- It’s logical. Android and iOS are surrealism, and Windows 8 is abstractionism / constructivism. It's just that you are from another folder on the hard drive of the world history of painting.

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