first vista observations

Since I've installed the beta of Vista I've noticed a lot of ways it could be improved, some things are more like bugs that need to be worked out, but others need to be brought to attention---
: you should be able to drag a file to a folder name thats present in the breadcrumb bar. instead of copying, changing the folder, and pasting (or using the navigation pane if its open) i want to be able to easily drag to folders using the breadcrumb navigation. this would include both the names displayed on the bar (the parent folders) and those that are on the dropdowns. so for instance, if i drag a file over the arrow on the breadcrumb bar, it should drop down, letting me drop it on a folder in the list.
: windows explorer needs to remember the width that the user gave to the different layout panes. i find myself having to to resize the navigation pane's width and the different sizes i set to the favorites and tree sections every time i restart explorer.
: the reading pane is not part of the folder view options but the general windows explorer layout options, so it doesn't have a setting per folder. i sort of would like it if i could have it appear for folders i've set it to open for in the past; so certain folders that are image or document libraries would have a reading pane and it would automatically disappear for other folders. i'm thinking the reading pane should be collapsable, in order to be nicer to use, like the folder tree is collapsable within the navigation pane. it would also be nice if the favorite places section were collapsable like the folder section.
: the tray icon for the sidebar, if its there, really needs to change from a picture of a desktop with a sidebar (which is a mirror copy of what you see on the screen) to some other type of representation. it would also be nice that clicking on the tray icon opened and closed the sidebar, instead of bringing up a menu and requiring you to double click--and if the sidebar isn't on top, then instead of closing the sidebar, clicking on the tray icon would merely bring the sidebar to the top. this would allow quicker and easier access to the sidebar when you're using other programs, and if you don't want it to take up space by having it set to be always on top.
: one thing i didn't like about the sidebar even in the first incarnation, when it was different, was that it simply looked awkward and ugly as another bar sitting on top of the tasbar. the fade to black style however is very nice and elegant. thie old sidebar had an auto-hide feature, as i understand, and some people didn't like it because the area where the cursor would lead the sidebar to show up was next to scroll bars. the solution i mentioned regarding changing how the tray icon works would do something like auto-hide but it still isn't that good of a way to do it. i wouldn't mind if you could set there to be a narrow band on the right hand side, where if you clicked it, it would expand the sidebar (overlaying it on top of the other windows instead of taking up space).
:one thing i didn't like about the sidebar even in the first incarnation, when it was different, was that it simply looked awkward and ugly as another bar sitting on top of the tasbar. the fade to black style however is very nice and elegant. thie old sidebar had an auto-hide feature, as i understand, and some people didn't like it because the area where the cursor would lead the sidebar to show up was next to scroll bars. the solution i mentioned regarding changing how the tray icon works would do something like auto-hide but it still isn't that good of a way to do it. i wouldn't mind if you could set there to be a narrow band on the right hand side, where if you clicked it, it would expand the sidebar (overlaying it on top of the other windows instead of taking up space).
the ideal Notes gadget would work like a OneNote SideNote, though
: opening a music file while WMP is opened but minimized shouldn't force WMP to come out of a minimized state. i know you can drag the file to the taskbar minimization and it wont force WMP to restore to a window, but it doesnt make sense that you should have to take that step.
: i'm wondering why vista isn't getting thumbnails for me for my mpeg files or my html or mhtml files, though; and while 'show file icon on thumbnails' apparently doesn't apply to image thumbnails. maybe this has to do something with the fact that the 'associate file type or protocol' control panel is spotty and unfinished. theres no icon for type 1 fonts and the way icons appear in the fonts folder is strange (and strangely i cant seem to use paste in the fonts folder)
: i still don't understand why a clipboard viewer has been removed. is the default way to figure out whats in your clipboard to paste it (a clipbook Sidebar gadget maybe, please?).... btw, why did they remove the ability to drag from a document to explorer to create a 'scrap' file on your computer? i realize probably not many people used this feature, but im not sure why it was disabled. a security hazard?
: there are a bunch of bugs i've noticed, like the rotate text in the context menu for pictures not appearing, the hover preview in photo gallery stopping to work after a while, etc, but i expect these are known about and will be fixed, i'm more interested in making sure that ui problems are smoothed out.

Yes, the new sidebar does not allow you to change the size of your specified gadgets. I like to make some smaller and others, like the slide show of pictures, for instance, bigger. I also HATE that I cannot use auto hide. And what happend to all the old gadgets? -- Jessica
"Brian Shapiro" wrote:

Since I've installed the beta of Vista I've noticed a lot of ways it could be improved, some things are more like bugs that need to be worked out, but others need to be brought to attention---
: you should be able to drag a file to a folder name thats present in the breadcrumb bar. instead of copying, changing the folder, and pasting (or using the navigation pane if its open) i want to be able to easily drag to folders using the breadcrumb navigation. this would include both the names displayed on the bar (the parent folders) and those that are on the dropdowns. so for instance, if i drag a file over the arrow on the breadcrumb bar, it should drop down, letting me drop it on a folder in the list.
: windows explorer needs to remember the width that the user gave to the different layout panes. i find myself having to to resize the navigation pane's width and the different sizes i set to the favorites and tree sections every time i restart explorer.
: the reading pane is not part of the folder view options but the general windows explorer layout options, so it doesn't have a setting per folder. i sort of would like it if i could have it appear for folders i've set it to open for in the past; so certain folders that are image or document libraries would have a reading pane and it would automatically disappear for other folders. i'm thinking the reading pane should be collapsable, in order to be nicer to use, like the folder tree is collapsable within the navigation pane. it would also be nice if the favorite places section were collapsable like the folder section.
: the tray icon for the sidebar, if its there, really needs to change from a picture of a desktop with a sidebar (which is a mirror copy of what you see on the screen) to some other type of representation. it would also be nice that clicking on the tray icon opened and closed the sidebar, instead of bringing up a menu and requiring you to double click--and if the sidebar isn't on top, then instead of closing the sidebar, clicking on the tray icon would merely bring the sidebar to the top. this would allow quicker and easier access to the sidebar when you're using other programs, and if you don't want it to take up space by having it set to be always on top.
: one thing i didn't like about the sidebar even in the first incarnation, when it was different, was that it simply looked awkward and ugly as another bar sitting on top of the tasbar. the fade to black style however is very nice and elegant. thie old sidebar had an auto-hide feature, as i understand, and some people didn't like it because the area where the cursor would lead the sidebar to show up was next to scroll bars. the solution i mentioned regarding changing how the tray icon works would do something like auto-hide but it still isn't that good of a way to do it. i wouldn't mind if you could set there to be a narrow band on the right hand side, where if you clicked it, it would expand the sidebar (overlaying it on top of the other windows instead of taking up space).
:one thing i didn't like about the sidebar even in the first incarnation, when it was different, was that it simply looked awkward and ugly as another bar sitting on top of the tasbar. the fade to black style however is very nice and elegant. thie old sidebar had an auto-hide feature, as i understand, and some people didn't like it because the area where the cursor would lead the sidebar to show up was next to scroll bars. the solution i mentioned regarding changing how the tray icon works would do something like auto-hide but it still isn't that good of a way to do it. i wouldn't mind if you could set there to be a narrow band on the right hand side, where if you clicked it, it would expand the sidebar (overlaying it on top of the other windows instead of taking up space).
the ideal Notes gadget would work like a OneNote SideNote, though
: opening a music file while WMP is opened but minimized shouldn't force WMP to come out of a minimized state. i know you can drag the file to the taskbar minimization and it wont force WMP to restore to a window, but it doesnt make sense that you should have to take that step.
: i'm wondering why vista isn't getting thumbnails for me for my mpeg files or my html or mhtml files, though; and while 'show file icon on thumbnails' apparently doesn't apply to image thumbnails. maybe this has to do something with the fact that the 'associate file type or protocol' control panel is spotty and unfinished. theres no icon for type 1 fonts and the way icons appear in the fonts folder is strange (and strangely i cant seem to use paste in the fonts folder)
: i still don't understand why a clipboard viewer has been removed. is the default way to figure out whats in your clipboard to paste it (a clipbook Sidebar gadget maybe, please?).... btw, why did they remove the ability to drag from a document to explorer to create a 'scrap' file on your computer? i realize probably not many people used this feature, but im not sure why it was disabled. a security hazard?
: there are a bunch of bugs i've noticed, like the rotate text in the context menu for pictures not appearing, the hover preview in photo gallery stopping to work after a while, etc, but i expect these are known about and will be fixed, i'm more interested in making sure that ui problems are smoothed out.