Re: Explorer "Delete" toolbar icon
"Catherine" <Catherine@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote ...
>I see that the delete icon has been removed from the toolbar for windows
> explorer. Several questions:
> 1. how can I get it back?
> 2. why was it removed? (what user requirements were gathered?)
> 3. a string of questions was asked (see "Toolbar Icons") regarding this
> same question, but none of them were answered by a Microsoft MVP person
> (or
> similar). Why is that?
These are good questions, I look forward to seeing some answers.
My 2 cents ... the Toolbar in the Vista Explorer is not configurable. This
was soon discovered by developers who wanted to add buttons for their own
applications. You can add a 3rd party application "command bar" to Explorer;
but you cannot modify the Windows-supplied Toolbar.
As to why, I have no idea. I suspect (and it's only a guess) the Shell team
were trying for a simpler, more orthogonal user experience; where there are
fewer controls, and a tendency towards only one way to achieve anything. If
you want to manipulate an object, such as a file, you select and right-click
the object itself, then choose your action from the context-menu. Whereas
toolbar commands in Vista are more for manipulating the whole environment
(Organise, Views), rather than individual objects in that environment. But
then, they went and messed it up by adding Open, Email, etc to the toolbar
when a file is selected. Why Open for a file, but not Delete? I dunno. Maybe
user pressure during the beta, diluted the original, clean design ...
pragmatics often over-rule theoretical purity in Microsoft design (not
always a good thing, either).
Personally I think the new Explorer is messy, and needs a big usability
overhaul. But even so, it is reasonably usable, today - better than
Nautilus, in Gnome!
As to MVPs replying ... be aware that MVPs are just ordinary folks, hanging
out in their spare time. They have absolutely no formal obligation to
Microsoft, or anyone else, to answer any questions at all. And in no way are
they official voices for Microsoft (I speak as an MVP myself - although not
in the Vista product specialty). They have full-time jobs of their own, and
they don't get paid for answering questions in newsgroups. And
microsoft.public.windows.vista.general is a particularly busy group, so it's
hard to keep up. The more interesting question is: why are there so few
Microsoft employees, and especially Program Managers, taking part in
discussions to explain design decisions?
Anyway, you can use the Communities mechanism to make suggestions to
Microsoft, as described here:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/li.../3/locales/help/help_en-US.htm#GiveMSFeedback
"Suggestions for Microsoft" is enabled in
microsoft.public.windows.vista.general, if you use the web interface:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.mspx
While it might be nice if the internal Microsoft folks were more forthcoming
with info on design decisions, there are at least a few blogs with dirty
laundry revealed. For the Shell, there's:
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsexperience/default.aspx
and
http://shellrevealed.com/
If you dig deep enough you might find some background info there. There are
also a couple of shell-oriented forums, which might give better answers.
Hope it helps,
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au