Since yesterday, a leak on the concept of “NEON” Microsoft shows the evolution envisaged in Windows 10, replacing the current Metro. A design language that would evolve strongly, would be great for small effects and would be designed to be usable on the HoloLens.
Metro is the current visual language used by Microsoft. It appeared originally on the portable media player Zune, and provided support for Windows Phone 7, which was then wiped clean the slate of the past. Very clean (even too much for some), it was the pride of the hierarchy of fonts, playing almost exclusively on their indentation and size. Radical choices that the further away from that produced by Apple and Google with iOS and Android.
Metro is then found in Windows 8 and now in Windows 10, even if this language has largely evolved, particularly with the latter system. What is now called MDL (Metro Design Language) has had to respond to new requirements, because it was not a matter of proposing the base UWP (applications for the Windows Store) without providing clear guidance on the ” look and feel. But to meet the requirements of both the smartphones, and PC sometimes leads to make too many compromises.
NEON, the second version of the Metro Design Language
But with the presentation of the Creators Update last fall, some ui elements emerged as having a different style from what is currently in Windows 10. This was particularly the case of the functions related to the contacts pinned to the bottom right of the taskbar (and that is not even in the pre-release versions). Many thought then that Microsoft was working on an evolution of the MDL.
Shortly after, rumors emerged on a ” MDL2 “, of which the name of internal code would be ” NEON “. However, MSPowerUser obtained which is presented as concepts of NEON. One discovers there, presented as a large flat, without a border or title bar. Plus, no line comes to break the visual field, the different sections being separated by different background colors. As in the MDL context, the buttons have no outline, and their symbols are directly placed in the interface.
Credits : MSPowerUser
get more out of the graphics acceleration
Visually, the difference is important, but the structure remains very close to the MDL and the current one. A bit like if Microsoft is satisfied with the arrangement of the elements, now wanted to give the ensemble a more playful look. We thus find funds full and other with a slight transparency (frosted glass), light effects that want to be discrete, other for transitions, etc
According to MSPowerUser, who was able to also see several videos of demonstration, the whole is particularly fluid. The effects are present but don’t overload the interface, and everything is designed to be used with HoloLens. A logical evolution if Microsoft continues on its course in the same language for the whole of the media Windows 10.
The work is well underway, but without a guarantee for the moment
according To our own information, all these concepts are real, but this is actually preparatory work. Microsoft has in the past worked on many similar projects, but very few have been implemented. Only this time, a renewal of MDL is well planned, and even if nothing ensures that the result is that (it tells us that the feedbacks of the testers Insider to be critical), it should be this time clearly visible. After all, all of the applications UWP available by default to a graphics accelerator, and it would indeed be time that they enjoy more.
The question of no doubt many readers is : when ? A few elements will appear without doubt in the Creators Update, that is now waiting for April. It is, however, after that NEON should appear, for the update Redstone 3 (the Creators Update is the 2). There is no available date for this major development, but some believe that it would be during the fall 2017. The first elements of NEON would be expected shortly after Redstone 2 in the pre-release exclusive to members of the program Windows Insider, so that developers in particular can make their returns.
Vincent Hermann
Writer/journalist specializing in the software and in particular operating systems. Never travels without his sword.
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