Classic Shell: Forum

I really loved the look of Royale in XP but now that I am a Windows 7 fanboy I must have my full sized taskbar. I threw these graphics together for some Royale Inspired start buttons using the Windows 7 flag.

Here are the dark ones:

..and here are the green ones.

Cool. They are high-quality buttons! Can you make the logo-only button but with the left edge straight, please?

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I am a Windows enthusiast and did Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

Do I understand you correctly with these?

Looking at how many posts you have made to this forum and the fact that you do the quality testing for Classic Shell I'd imagine you could whip up buttons like these in a minute and thirty seconds! However I appreciate the compliment. I love this product. I run a local computer repair/service shop and Classic Start has helped numb the pain of Win8. Thank you for your contribution.

I meant exactly that button. Thanks. Yes I can whip that up quickly but I have many other tasks to do.

Glad that you like Classic Shell. It was made because the Windows user experience was no longer GREAT after Windows XP. Still, one app is not enough to fix all the things that went wrong with Windows after XP.

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Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and did Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

I apologize that this is off topic: By the sounds of it you might be an XP purist. For years I would disable the Themes service in XP (to give it the Win2k look), and set my XP start menu to single column. When Windows Vista came out I hated the breadcrumbs bar, at first.

Nowadays I love the look of Aero, the two column Windows 7 start menu w/ search box in focus is a godsend, and I've even come to appreciate the breadcrumbs bar. How do you feel about those features? I think Win8 is a UX nightmare, but I think overall Win7 was a win. Thoughts?

I am a UX/usability purist. I focus on using what offers me the most productive, fast, usable, full-featured, rich, customizable and enjoyable experience. I see some unique features of XP which still make me want to use it and then I see Windows 7 innovations (or rather Vista innovations which made it into Windows 7). I do still use Windows XP but I am trying to unify the experiences using Classic Shell and other third party apps so I can be satisfied with a single product. I have no plans of completely leaving Windows XP any time soon, but I do use Windows 7 as well.

I love the search in the Start Menu, I wrote an article about it: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1588 but I can't stand how Vista/7 made the All Programs functionality of the Start Menu worse. I am not a fan of the new Windows 7 Taskbar but 7+ Taskbar Tweaker fixes that. I am not happy how file association functionality has progressively been crippled in newer Windows versions. I liked Luna, I liked Classic too but I like Aero more. But then Vista/7 have these unacceptable regressions in major parts of the OS such as Windows Explorer or the way servicing/updates are handled. The breadcrumbs is fine but then regressions such as the ones that happened in Vista or in Windows 7 are not OK. Sure, the internals of Windows have improved - graphics, networking, security, memory management, I/O but that hasn't translated into a better user experience.

Windows XP is kind of hard to defeat overall, it is a legendary OS but Classic Shell and a dozen other third party apps, make Vista/Windows 7 almost worthwhile. Windows 8 is another giant sadness that may be hard for Microsoft to ever recover from unless they take Ivo's or my help in fixing Windows. Then again Microsoft doesn't seem to care about having a great user experience as long as their bottom line is profitable. They were "successful" despite creating a mediocre product such as Windows 7, in between the two failures - Vista and Windows 8.

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and did Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.