Attention: Neil Banfield Neil, here is where I stand on Start 11. As I retested two more times, I feel firm in this response.
1) It does a great job of honoring icons, so this is a go.
2) The largest tile is too small for me. This is a show stopper. I must see and appreciate what I am working with.
3) The grid format supports only I think four rows of what I consider small icons. You call them large icons like Microsoft. The rest of them are not scrollable. While they appear in your "All Programs" category, this is absolutely not in the spirit of the Windows 10 start menu and is not the interface I want. I already have a roll your own that is better. This is a show stopper.
4) In ideal circumstance, as windows 10 and 11 start menus support changing background color, this would be ideal as the beauty of partially transparent icons would really show. But as there has been one beta, and no other changes seem to be coming here, I'm not optimistic
Having worked with many companies, my observation is that they rarely change direction based on user feedback (sad). So you can imagine that unless there are significant changes, I will not be using Start11, and yes, that disappoints me. So unfortunately, I will not be doing any further work with Start 11 without serious design changes. Now, it is not giving up to soon. I will judge by your response or lack of one. If you are like Microsoft, I will not hear from you at all.
Norm
If you want to make icons bigger you can use the scaling feature of Start11. On the start menu page in settings pick change visual settings and then click the settings button for Make menu font bigger or smaller. This will scale up the menu including icons. There is a known bug in 0.5 where if you run at >100% dpi scaling then this scale factor is applied too much, a sign out / in after changing it should make it apply correctly.
The grid supports more than 4 rows. On the start menu page click change what the menu should show. Adjust the allocate room for at least xx icons slider to bigger. This is the number of icons when not in grid mode, so ignore the number when in grid mode, just bigger = more rows.
On the background colour, if you pick the modern style on the start menu page in settings you should find the menu uses the background colour set in your OS. You can change this manually in Start11 settings if you wish (or even set a background image) and likewise change transparency levels (within limits as too transparent isn't allowed for readability reasons)
We are not like Microsoft, for a start we are a little smaller We do take feedback on board whilst developing applications.
There are further menu styles coming which I imagine might be more to your liking as the current ones are based on the Windows 7 design. They will not show in the 0.55 beta update as that is primarily a bug fix update for 0.5 but after that we are moving onto more 'new' things.
I adjusted font and also at least xx icons to max. I have more than you can show, and still no scrollbar. I am at 6 rows but continue to have more icons than you allow. No matter what I do, there is no scrollbar. This is a show stopper.
We are down to 3 issues.
1) 6 rows with scaling still no scrollbar. Not acceptable
2) Theme that honors system background color does change but the transparency is still too solid and I have the slider at max amount of transparency which is still something with too much solid in it. Max is 62% solid. Seems like too much and looks bad. This is also not acceptable
3) Still want an extra-large icon size. I rate this as highly desirable. I could get by without it but would like it very much
Thanks for the help. Can I hope for more?
The Windows 7 style is designed to never show a scrollbar as it was designed to be like the Windows 7 menu. No matter how many rows you add it will never show a scrollbar.
As I have mentioned before there are further styles coming which I think will be more to your liking.
On the transparency front, you have to be careful about having too much or text becomes very hard to read which is why it was capped at those numbers. This may be less of a problem with acrylic blur vs the older styles of blur so we will be seeing if this can be adjusted further in the future.
On icon size, the scaling feature bumps up the icon size too. But I expect we will offer more icon size control in the future.
Well, bottom line is I cannot see all my icons unless I go to all programs. Regarding the windows 7 statement, that;s ok so long as I can see all my icons. That's why it is a show stopper. None of the scaling factors I can apply allow me to see all icons.
Here are all the viewable icons. I have 64 more. I do not see Stardock making changes to make this. Am I wrong? I am ready to say that Stardock simply does not want to do this. And your statement "don't give up yet" has proved to be a giant waste of my time. Sorry we could not do business. Can I donate my license to somebody? It won't be doing me any good given your firm stand on windows 7 start menu and scroll bars. By the way, different designs call for different solutions and being a small company makes you no more flexible than microsoft. With that one criterion on windows 7 start menu and no scrollbar, you have eliminated me as a customer. Guess I will see whether I should stick with groupy as well.
First off, there is no possible way stardock ignores their customers to the extent microsoft does. I posted rants on the insider program until I was blue in the face for spewing issues I had with their start menu. In fact I am almost willing to bet the people here at stardock were listening and reading those rants more then the actual developers at microsoft and it shows in how they implemented start 11.
Seccond and to the issue at hand.. Personally, I have not run into the many icon problem since I gravitate more towards folders or in instances of me wanting many programs accessible I prefer fences; however I do see the problem here. I respect that norm is simply asking for a scroll bar and that does come across as an easy fix. Maybe it is. To me personally the idea of 60+ icons on a start menu feels hectic but that may be only my opinion. My personal opinion to this issue is bringing back catigories in some fashion. On the microsoft forums I have seen users bring up two interesting ideas on this. idea 1. At the top make clickable tabs, in example a music tab, a video tab, ect (user customizable) and the icons would adjust accordying to the tab open. This would clean up Norms issue in my opinion. on to idea 2, as Microsoft updates kept doing less and less with user feedback it got simpler. idea 2. Allow icons to be merged together and folders be created within the start menu itself. This would at least help with start menu organization.. Maybe a stardock has an ace in the hole and has an idea 3, however I do think the idea of catagories is really what is needed here.
Lastly, start11 is still on the very first itteration. It is a bit soon to lose faith in the company before they even release a seccond release. I think I gave microsoft 5 releases before I knew they werent going to do anything with their start menu and their start menu needs the most help.
Does Start 11 allow me to control the "Combine taskbar buttons" behavior that windows 10 used to have? It looks like windows 11 forces to "Always, hide labels".
I think you have misunderstood me.
Start11 is in beta, The current beta offers the Windows 7 style (and modern which is similar) and a grid mode. This by design has no scrollbar because it was designed to work like the Windows 7 menu which did not scroll.
Future updates of Start11 will introduce new styles which will offer scrolling etc. I expect you will be happy with those styles.
Well, I will start by remaining confident. Thank you for your advocacy.
Personally, I like the tabs idea. I think I have already run out of room for scaling to allow for extra large icons, but I could increase the scaling if easy tab was organized. I suspect the Start10/11 context menu could be a little bit of a challenge with tabs. Thanks again
The topic here does in fact point to one of the biggest issues from windows 11 and what I believe will become a generational challenge. Microsoft thinks the fix is their silly recomendations that is attached to their start menu, but user feedback seems pretty negative on that. With Microsoft really trying to push their store and with android app compatability around the corner my guess is this issue will get more wide spread. I do hope the developers here see this issue for what it is although the fix may take some time to fully get down. Personally I maintain that the reason this issue developed was because Microsoft decided to get rid of categories from windows 10 in an effort to simplify the start menu. So the challenge is figuring out how to fix that.
I hope they can do something about this issue
Seems like you have an issue with Start 11 beta. :/If I look on the website, it says the prerequisite is that it runs Windows 11. That's it.
No demo, so I paid the $5 for the beta because Start10 was so good. Seems odd you wouldn't mention on the website that it wouldn't install or run on ARM on an M1 Mac with Parallels. Probably should add to those "requirements" on that page. The program seems to run but then if I go to the link to add in my license key, I get this and it never runs
We are currently looking into supporting ARM with Start11 as we know there is some demand. Mostly in fact from M1 macs as ARM based non apple devices that can run Windows are pretty rare. That said I have one (Surface Pro X) sat on my desk right now.
With regards to the message, I should mention it is incorrect as typical with Microsoft.
It doesn't cause security or performance issues on Windows, it simply does not work as ARM versions of Windows are not 100% compatible with intel apps. Also the product isn't Start10 so well done Microsoft on that one too
We may have to go yell at Microsoft on that one as I suspect they may well end up blocking any possible future ARM version due to poor detection logic too.
The website doesn't mention processors as 99% of the market runs Intel/AMD cpus. It gets messy when you start to say not ARM as customers may confuse it with AMD. General rule is if the app doesn't mention ARM then it might run via emulation but if it extends the shell it will not.
Should anyone purchase in error I think sales will offer refunds. It is a rare occurrence.
Note that scaling the font has very unpredictable results. Things go above top of screen and further to the right. Scaling should also have option for icon size alone, I don't think font should be scaled at all.
Honestly, that kinda feels like a cop-out. You could easily say it's compatible with "Windows 10/11 on Intel and AMD systems". This would let ARM users know that the app isn't compatible, but wouldn't confuse the other 99% of users.
Between the Surface Pro X, the HP Elite Folio, a bunch of Samsung devices, plus Acer, Lenovo, and more... it's a growing market, and that's not even including our Mac friends.
Retracted statement
Attention: Neil Banfield
They say that all good things take time. I know I have been a critic of Start 11, but I have to say that version 1.11 meets every one of my needs now. Please send my thanks to the team for including the "Absurd" icon size in the Windows 11 format. I can now see my apps without captions and vision is no longer an issue. if there are any places you'd like compliments sent in public places, I would ne happy to do so. Just let me know.
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