Timeline for Do people really want to look at multiple windows at once?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 6, 2013 at 20:42 | comment | added | Jens | This gets an astounding number of upvotes for an answer without any references =) | |
| Jan 6, 2013 at 4:56 | comment | added | Kit Grose | I'm seeing a lot of comments here covering no more than "this is how I use my computer" without any reasoning. While I agree that it's more familiar to have overlapping windows nowadays but I'm not happy to say it's necessarily better. The example given a lot above is chat, which is one of the best uses of snapped mode. The example of transcription is intended by MS to be replaced with the Share charm. | |
| Jan 3, 2013 at 22:41 | comment | added | doug65536 | Why you need multiple monitors: Alt-tab is cumbersome. Alt-esc is cumbersome. Figuring out which taskbar button is which window is cumbersome. Alt-Tab, Alt-Tab-Tab, Alt-Tab, Alt-Tab-Tab-Tab...... cumbersome. That's why you need to see two windows that are both maximized. So you don't need to hunt down a window once you "lose" it because you accidentally brought something else to the front. The scrambled order of windows. Apps that don't set their window styles properly. App windows that don't have a proper keyboard interface. | |
| Jan 3, 2013 at 20:24 | comment | added | corsiKa | @Stuart I agree with your viewpoint, but have to disagree with your analogy. Playing a devil's advocate role here: if I could alt-tab between books as easily as I can between windows on my PC, I wouldn't care if they were stacked. In fact, when working with Magic the Gathering cards, they are often stacked in the same manner while searching for the cards I want. Utilizing sideways cards as 'bookmarks' is the only way to really do it, as spreading them out into a billion piles takes too much room and gets too confusing. So I agree with your view on the monitors, but challenge your analogy. | |
| Jan 3, 2013 at 12:08 | comment | added | Svish | I wouldn't necessarily use the term multi-tasking for this either. As a programmer I'm very often using multiple windows at the same time, but I'm working on a single task. Reason for the multiple windows is because this single task requires parallel usage of multiple tools at the same time. And if I have to do full screen switches between them I quickly lose my train of thought. By having them next to each other it's easier to have them "all in my head at once" so to speak. | |
| Jan 3, 2013 at 10:58 | comment | added | jheriko | I would imagine the best example is the humble data entry clerk who needs to type things into some terrible bespoke UI from an e-mail or word document and only has a single monitor... I'd guess there are many more of these than web developers. | |
| Jan 3, 2013 at 6:23 | comment | added | Dainius | If you can not confirm your sentence it is good idea to add that this is your opinion. I saw very different behavior, when people switching to one bigger monitor instead of 2 and use maximized window for developing or reading. For monitoring I use few computers, but that have nothing to do with multitasking. | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 23:55 | comment | added | Alexios | Not everyone uses their computers as TVs with delusions of grandeur. Much of my work involves having at least four windows open simultaneously: a web browser, a PDF reader/Word reader/Excel spreadsheet, a chat window, and a terminal shell. These are all used at the same time, often on two monitors: talk to the client, check documentation, edit a web page or config file, check results on the browser, repeat. Having just one of these windows open at any time would make my work horrendously slow and very annoying (at least one piece of information would be occluded at any given time). | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 20:00 | comment | added | mikebabcock | Aside from your use of the term "Multitasking" (which I associate with how the OS controls apps, not my use of them) I agree wholeheartedly. I almost never have only one window visible at a time. Often I have two or three terminal windows and a couple GUI windows open at once. | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 16:32 | comment | added | Stuart Wakefield | Imagine you were doing research and instead of spreading a number of books across your floor all open at the correct page you had them open stacked on top of each other and switched books when you needed to... Now tell me how frustrated you feel. | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 16:28 | comment | added | AndSoYouCode | @burna I use 2 screens and usually have ~4 windows visible at the same time. | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 16:23 | comment | added | burna | Are these apps visible all the time? on the same screen? (Wow, i'm a stone-age pc user) I think the focus of the OP is the visibility of multiply windows at the SAME time. | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 16:10 | comment | added | Shane Hsu | @Andy I think the question is better if asked this way "Do people want/like to look...." not need to. I don't like to look at multiple window, if things can magically be in one, I would prefer that. But since I do some coding, I know, it's not the case. People need to, not because they want to. | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 15:47 | comment | added | AndSoYouCode | ...and your music player, maybe the mail client and a terminal window is useful sometimes. Maybe your 3 different IM applications. | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 15:47 | comment | added | Shauna | @KitGrose - Why should a user need two monitors just to have, say, a chat window and a browser open (and at least slightly visible) at the same time? | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 15:47 | comment | added | user | @KitGrose Doesn't need much to go beyond two windows. Have two conversation windows open with two different people, and something else. Hardly an unreasonable scenario. | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 15:20 | comment | added | Izkata | +1, and @KitGrose, Browser + Chat + Game is standard among myself and friends | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 11:28 | comment | added | Kit Grose | Interesting examples; those two uses are natively supported by Windows 8 (provided you only need 2 windows) through the use of a second monitor and snapped mode respectively. I use a lot of windows, but for most users it's probably enough. | |
| Jan 2, 2013 at 10:15 | history | answered | Andy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |