The old New: Windows veteran explains that menu item
- Reference: 1626896827
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/07/21/windows_new/
- Source link:
Right-clicking in an empty space on the desktop or file explorer fires up a context menu in Windows. The menu has a number of actions including a 'New' menu item (or 'New item' in current Windows 11 Preview builds) that pops an empty file with the necessary extension in the desired location.
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Windows 11 New Item (click to enlarge)
For many, the method to create new documents is to open the application concerned (such as Word) and then save the file where it needs to be. Or take an existing file and then copy and open it.
"Sure," said Chen, senior program manager at Microsoft, "maybe that's what you do, but that's not what everybody does."
"Not everybody knows that the way to create a new BMP file is to open this program called Paint that is hidden in the Accessories folder of your Start menu," he added.
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He may be right but if Microsoft gets its way, that program called [4]Paint could well end up consigned to the moribund Microsoft store, and then where will we be?
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As such, the New menu is a convenience for users, permitting the file to be created where wanted without recourse to a pesky Save As option.
[7]Windows 11: What we like and don't like about Microsoft's operating system so far
[8]The framework that will not die: Microsoft gives Web Forms designer fresh lick of paint in Visual Studio 2022
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[11]LibreOffice 7.2 release candidate reveals effort to be Microsoft-compatible
Chen's comments came as Microsoft readies an overhaul of the right-click context menu in Windows 11 [12]which it said "has grown in an unregulated environment for 20 years, since Windows XP, when IContextMenu was introduced."
The plan is to group common commands, and give the poor thing a general tidy-up in keeping with the new shiny of Windows 11.
Right-click in empty space, however, and the "New" menu item lives on as "New Item."
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"For people with a document-centric view of the world," explained Chen, "programs aren't really things that you think about. What you really work on are documents."
Hence the item endures while the rest of Windows gets a visual overhaul.
Chen mused: "Who among us can say they never created a new class or project by copying an existing one, and then deleting everything inside?"
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Who indeed.
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[1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20210720-41/?p=105457
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/07/21/chen_new.jpg
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YPiY-r079uimzX6dTwMPBAAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2019/04/24/microsoft_paint_windows_10_1903/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YPiY-r079uimzX6dTwMPBAAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/19/microsoft_windows_11_hands_on/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/19/web_forms_designer_visual_studio/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/16/office_refresh/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/13/bork/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/15/libreoffice_72_release_candidate/
[12] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2021/07/19/extending-the-context-menu-and-share-dialog-in-windows-11/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YPiY-r079uimzX6dTwMPBAAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YPiY-r079uimzX6dTwMPBAAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Always an important consideration
Your experiences do not represent the sum total of everyone else's. There was an article here on El Reg the other day talking about right clicking the taskbar to get the task manager being second nature. I always use the Ctrl-Shift-Esc combo, others might use Ctrl-Alt-Del and then select the task manager option. Some people like to spend hours organizing their start menu groups, I have spent hours working to retrain myself to use the search function.
Re: Always an important consideration
I agree. Some people have been around computers a while and are therefore application-centric; some people came to computers through strictly-GUI interfaces and are therefore document-centric. Make an OS that caters to all.
I await the cat-calls from the "Olde Tymers" who will complain every time something is not done to their personal view :-P
Re: Always an important consideration
I am sure there will be cat calls. I've made a few myself over some of the odd UI choices MS have thrown through.
The thing is, my personal feeling is that Windows 7 struck the right balance from a usability perspective.
Windows 8 could have carried that on - indeed, the beta releases had a registry key that would restore the Windows 7 style start menu, but MS decided to try and force a touch-based UI onto a desktop device with a mouse and keyboard (I obviously include laptops in that). Underneath the madness, Windows 8 itself wasn't even a particularly bad OS
Moving things for the sake of moving them - or even moving them but giving no clear guidance or explanations as to why they're being moved just tends to frustrate people.
And remember - we here in the El Reg forums are NOT your typical user by a long stretch. I have had to deal with users who are still so computer illiterate that the slightest of changes can cause them days or weeks of pain to relearn their day to day tasks.
The UI changes from Windows 2000 -> XP - Vista -> 7 were fairly modest. Things tended for the most part to be where people expected them in the language they knew. 8 was a travesty and 8.1 barely made it any better. 10 started to bring things back to a normal that people recognised, but again there was this disconnection with e.g. some things in control panel, some in settings and some even in both! You could resize elements of the UI (I accidentally resized part of the taskbar icons once accidentally with a touchpad and swipe gestures).
Part of the problem seems to be that MS are trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to make one OS for all but fucking it up.
It shouldn't be hard, either:
Home edition - no domain join, gamebars and other shite that have no place in an enterprise and forced updates (I know that will win me no prizes but I think enough of us have had to deal with the horrors of activation-hacked versions of XP or just never-updated versions of later versions to justify this).
Professional/Workstation/Enterprise (call it what you will) version - can join a domain, has none of the tat, has no telemetry, has control over deploying patches.
Leave the really handy small applications alone like Notepad and Paint and add a decent snipping tool back in because lord knows those things are really really useful when you just need to grab something quickly, note something quickly or are generating e.g. install documents.
MS seem to have really lost sight of the fact that whilst yes, it's expensive and time consuming to do bulk upgrades every 3, 5, 7 years or whatever a place chooses, it's just as important to have a stable system that people understand, can find things, and aren't battling a constant change and that under-pressure support staff aren't having to relearn every 12-18 months!
Something they actually do with LTSC, but oh wait...yeah it isn't a day-to-day general purpose OS apparently.
TL/DR - stop moving stuff for the sake of moving it and/or at least explain why it's being moved :-)
Re: Always an important consideration
> I always use the Ctrl-Shift-Esc combo,
Same with me and I remember thinking the exact same thing when I read that article.
OS/2 did it the best... open up the Templates folder, copy item to location - and instant new document.
Hmm.... how is that simpler than just creating a blank document where you want it to be?
The action of dropping a template file (e.g. a bitmap) creates an empty bitmap image you can open and edit.
It's a simple preference. Do you prefer to create your file and name it or do you prefer to create you file before naming it? Neither really matters in the grand scheme of things,
Edit: You know thinking about this, this is really what sets users and programmers apart. It's the difference between I know what I'm going to do as apposed to what I think I'm going to try and do.
IT Manager here. I use the New menu frequently. Especially to create a text file in a directory or having navigated to a synced sharepoint site to create a new .doc or .xls.
This comment merely supports the theory that the only people who know how to find stuff in Sharepoint are the IT dept.
It is a very useful place to hide documents you need to write but don't want anybody to ever be able to read, though. "Oh yeah, I did document that process, it's in Sharepoint" is sometimes the only work you actually need to do.
I find myself using right click, new more and more as Word etc make it more and more clicks to do ‘save as’ to a folder… Why Alt-F-A can’t just open a proper file dialog is beyond me :-(
Old old timer here
I don't think I was aware of the context menu as such - the only time I rightt-click on the desktop is when I want to open the display settings/personalise items. I was genuinely unaware of the "New" option. I am marginally impressed that it offers me OpenDocument instead of MSOffice formats, though.
Re: Old old timer here
"I am marginally impressed that it offers me OpenDocument instead of MSOffice formats, though."
Your Open/Libre Office installation has registered the Opendocument into the New menu; Micros~1 Office installation registeres several of its document types in the same menu.
"Who among us can say they never created a new class or project by copying an existing one, and then deleting everything inside?"
Typically if I notice myself doing this it probably means the project (or class) has too much boiler-plate and should be fixed.
I recall a version of windows, when I create a new bitmap from that menu, it simply created a broken bmp that couldn't be opened in paint. I avoided it ever since. I suppose if Microsoft were pretending to be "modern" they would have more formats to select from too.