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calc.exe is now open source; there's surprising depth in its ancient code
Microsoft's embrace and adoption of open source software has continued with the surprising decision to publish the code for Windows Calculator and release it on GitHub under the permissive MIT license.
The repository shows Calculator's surprisingly long history. Although it is in some regards one of the most modern Windows applications—it's an early adopter of Fluent Design and has been used to showcase a number of design elements—core parts of the codebase date all the way back to 1995.
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Microsoft Open Sources its Windows Calculator
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To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift.
-- Shelley
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Friday March 08 2019, @10:38PM (6 children)
I think this is something that the Linux desktop/apps/toolkits could learn from to provide a look-and-feel driven by UI/ergonomics design research. Microsoft seems to get (or have gotten) at least this much right and consistent by specifying implementable UI requirements/guidelines against clearly elaborated design principles.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 08 2019, @11:49PM (3 children)
Uh...until maybe 2012 I might have agreed with you but, um, where were you since before the launch of Windows 8?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by krishnoid on Saturday March 09 2019, @12:11AM (2 children)
And 10, Windows phone, Windows Server 2012 ... they look like they invested a lot of effort behind that awful interface to standardize it as consistently as they did over their whole product line. I frankly don't know if it was based on sound design principles, but if I had to guess, it was all marketing-driven. It also seems to dump accessibility in the trash. Some corporate/engineering-insider information would definitely be useful here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by coolgopher on Saturday March 09 2019, @03:51AM (1 child)
Actually, the Windows Phone UI is decent. It was just too bad they thought it was a good idea to put the same UI on the desktop where it Really Doesn't Belong(tm).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 09 2019, @02:37PM
Windows Phone had the best UI when it launched, but they shot themselves in both feet, then the kneecaps for good measure with so many shitty decisions, and only made it worse with each consecutive release. I absolutely loved WP7, even though there were no apps worth using in it's store, it was still great for phone-use - calling, texting, social media. WP8 destroyed all that with subtle changes, and it only got worse from there. Now I'm unhappily using lineageOS and will probably go to a old-school flip-phone/feature phone when this one bites the dust (probably from the non-replacable battery dying as screens seem to be more resilient and protectors/cases cheap and low-profile enough nowadays that it's no longer a choice of caution or comfort).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 09 2019, @07:51AM (1 child)
It's cute and good to have "UI guidelines" but it's silly to pretend there is only one desktop environment. Pick the best applications, nevermind the way they look...
GUN/Linux is not a monolithic entity or a walled garden. With freedom comes diversity.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday March 11 2019, @01:09PM
...and diversity is strength. Regardless of if the infection is a virus, a zero-day, or just stupid developers, it infects a much smaller portion of the population.
...until everyone jumped on that systemd garbage anyway...