Little Annoyances w/ WP8 are Driving Me Nuts

[tk-093]

It is 100% user convention. The back button expectation is legacy iPhone. The proper way to go back in a page in IE is select the page from the "recent pages" option in the control menu.

What? I use the back button on IE on my Windows 7 laptop all the time. It's wrong to expect it to work that way on a Windows Phone? Heck, it DOES work that way on a Windows Phone most of the time.

 

[tk-093]

Maybe you need to update or something? I do not get that issue at all.
1) Open IE and go to Yahoo.com
2) Click the top article (currently Obama).
3) Click the Start button [I even tried Start then Mail...]
4) Hold "Back", select IE with the Obama article. [I even tried just tapping "back" until I got back into IE]
5) tap "Back" again, and I go to Yahoo.com.

Works fine for me...??? Nokia 920, OS 8.0.9903.10

Same thing for me, it still remembers my previous pages using the back button.

 

[Al_2]

Same thing for me, it still remembers my previous pages using the back button.

From my experience it seems to be if you hit Start and then go back to IE by holding Back and selecting IE it keeps your 'back' history. But if you hit Start and then hit the IE tile on the Start screen it doesn't keep your back history.

 

[sluffmo]

That was the case back in WP7.0 and believe me it was worse that way round.

Sure it worked fine in the People app, the email app, etc. Basically any stock app.

Most devs didn't bother to stick to the rules though. You'd open up a youtube app or an RSS reader app or whatever, and hit the search button, and get booted into Bing. In another app, it'd work fine. There was no way to tell, and no way to enforce the rules. And back then, with no multitasking support...phew. I'm glad those days are gone.

There is an easy solution to this. They just disable the tap functionality of the button unless a developer uses it for their app. Then add in a 1-2 second (Maybe adjustable) hold functionality that takes you to Bing search (Like holding the windows button to get to voice). This way you won't get kicked out of whatever you are doing by barely touching the button, and if you did touch it then it would only do anything if the app supported it.

Same thing for me, it still remembers my previous pages using the back button.

Okay, I played with it. This happens when you hit the IE icon from the start/all apps screen and don't use the back button. It takes you to the page you were on, but your history is gone. I get that it might not be how MS wants me to go back to IE, but it's a lot quicker to hit an icon than to hold the back button and scroll through windows to find IE again.

That said, I've seen it happen other times as well, but I don't remember the cases well enough to write a reproduction scenario at the moment.

 

[sluffmo]

It is 100% user convention. The back button expectation is legacy iPhone. The proper way to go back in a page in IE is select the page from the "recent pages" option in the control menu.

I've been a QA manager for about ten years. As designed does not mean designed well. For the most part, any development group worth their salt understands the concept of decreased variation in functionality. If the back button goes back a page in one case then it should do the same in any case where you end up at the same place (Using back button to open IE or tapping the app icon). Functional variation is the enemy of quality control.

It's also really inefficient to expect someone to go to the recent section just to go back one page. That requires two more steps for no real reason. They need to standardize actions. I'd be perfectly happy with the back button returning you to a previous location/app every time, and them just adding back and forward software buttons. There is no reason not to have that capability in a browser. They could even just use a two finger swipe to do it if they don't want buttons.

Either way, in my opinion, back/forward history should be saved per tab in any situation.

Also, pointing to it being a current "convention" is not an excuse for an inadequate customer experience. Keeping to conventions that are bad just drives customers away for no good reason in cases like this, and the important thing about conventions is that you can change and improve them. Even if they are currently good that doesn't mean that you don't make an effort to continuously improve them when you can. I left iphone because Apple has taken on this philosophy.

 

[Narr]

I like the idea of swiping as you do on RT.

 

[Curtieson]

E-mail

• Why can't I make it show me folders when I open the app instead of just my main inbox, and why won't it show me the number of ALL unread e-mails in all synced folders instead of just the ones in the inbox?

I had to touch on this one, since I wonder if you know what you are asking for...

You have your INBOX pinned to your Start screen...and you are asking for the new message notification to show you a number NOT for your Inbox? You have them in different folders for a reason! Because you wanted them sorted.

If you want to be notified when you get a message that you have specifically asked to NOT be in your Inbox, then pin that folder to the start screen also.

If it panned out like you wanted, I can hear the millions of complaints already..."Why does my inbox say I have 200 new messages?? It is pulling that number from my spam folder? Why the heck would it do that! I want just my inbox!"

 

[tk-093]

Okay, I played with it. This happens when you hit the IE icon from the start/all apps screen and don't use the back button. It takes you to the page you were on, but your history is gone. I get that it might not be how MS wants me to go back to IE, but it's a lot quicker to hit an icon than to hold the back button and scroll through windows to find IE again.

If I had to put money on it, I'd call it a bug. IE should restore the session as it was no matter if you called it up from the "multitask" list or from the icon on the screen.

 

[AngryNil]

While browsing the back button works fine, but if I go back to the start screen and then open IE again I lose all page history and the back button takes me to the start screen instead of the previous page. And no forward button.

The Internet Explorer UI is the most braindead part of Windows Phone and to me demonstrates a complete disconnect from users. You can "favourite" these little code snippets to navigate forwards and backwards if you absolutely need to:

javascript:history.back()
javascript:history.forward()

Setting it to open the desktop version of sites barely ever works. This is especially annoying when I use google as the default search.

That's most likely the fault of the sites. Most should have a link to switch to the desktop version, or even a special URL to do so (favourite these). As for the default search, I believe that has to do with the search being passed through a mobile URL. Microsoft would have to change the search URL here - should ideally provide a mobile and desktop option.

On my iPhone I had a "Work" contact that had all my conference call #s with custom labels saying which employee/meeting they represented.

Create groups.

I keep getting these contacts with no picture for them even though there is only one contact without a picture.

You can select the picture.

I know you can just swipe from the top to see these icons, but just show them all the time or let me choose to do that.

Conscious, controversial design decision that I personally agree with (pretty rare). Status bars are the most ugly parts of mobile interfaces, and seriously, go observe "regular" user. They won't be constantly checking their WiFi or something, and the icons pop down when there's something notable (location being used, lost cellular connection).

Why can't these be disabled, or let you put in an amount of time that you have to touch the icon to activate it (Hold it for 1 second)?

Bad idea to be disabled, since 2/3 of them are crucial for navigation. The back and home buttons have long press functions, but I still agree with you. I'd like to see a "media mode" option so when you are watching videos or playing games, the buttons all go long-press (or have something lame like a confirmation popup).

 

[sluffmo]

Thanks to all of those who have suggested work around! I honestly do like the phone, but being from a QA world it just kills me that I even have to use an overly complex workaround when a simple design could have been used. Like being able to create custom phone # labels under one contact instead of having to create multiple contacts, and then put them in a group. Especially since these are for work, and I have twenty of those numbers.

But then, it's a Windows phone, and any Windows release is pretty sketchy until SP1. Early adoption is always a pain. :wink:

[/LIST]

I had to touch on this one, since I wonder if you know what you are asking for...

You have your INBOX pinned to your Start screen...and you are asking for the new message notification to show you a number NOT for your Inbox? You have them in different folders for a reason! Because you wanted them sorted.

If you want to be notified when you get a message that you have specifically asked to NOT be in your Inbox, then pin that folder to the start screen also.

If it panned out like you wanted, I can hear the millions of complaints already..."Why does my inbox say I have 200 new messages?? It is pulling that number from my spam folder? Why the heck would it do that! I want just my inbox!"

Are you sure that you know what I'm asking for?

1. Your e-mail account is pinned to your start screen. Not your inbox. Your inbox is just the folder it defaults to. Expand the taskbar and choose folders, and you can sync any other folders in that account.
2. I see no way to pin individual folders to my start screen from an e-mail account, and, even if I could, I have hundreds of folders across my work, school, and personal e-mail addresses. It would be pretty ridiculous to have to fill the whole screen with them.
3. You don't have to sync folders to your e-mail account. I have chosen to do so, and so I obviously want to know that there is unread mail in them. No one would run into your example unless they chose to sync their spam folder since no folders other than inbox are synced by default.

 

[blehblehbleh]

People/Contacts

• When you do a search for a business it will show it under "local", and you can select it to show the contact information. But you can't copy any of the information, or choose to create a new contact using the information. So, you have to manually enter all the information in contacts. I was able to do this on my iPhone from day 1.

Save it as a Favorite within Maps?

 

[sluffmo]

Save it as a Favorite within Maps?

I do this for business a lot. So, I want the phone #, address, website, etc in a contact, and not just the address location.

I also don't have the options to pin something from the "about" page under bing search. Just pin to the start screen or share. Even when I click on the address it takes me to bing maps instead of nokia maps, and I can't make it a favorite. So I have to manually type in the address in nokia maps to make it a favorite.

 

[blehblehbleh]

I do this for business a lot. So, I want the phone #, address, website, etc in a contact, and not just the address location.

I also don't have the options to pin something from the "about" page under bing search. Just pin to the start screen or share. Even when I click on the address it takes me to bing maps instead of nokia maps, and I can't make it a favorite. So I have to manually type in the address in nokia maps to make it a favorite.

Interesting. It's fairly uncommon for me to end up with a business with just the address when set as a favorite or as a result under "Local". I was suggesting to use the Favorites the same way you use it as a contact, unless there's a maximum number of Favorites the native maps app can handle. Otherwise, what you can do is when you pull up the business with the info you want, select Share --> Messaging/Email and copy and paste the information. Then when you make a new contact just paste in the info on each line. You can truncate the information by repeatedly copying and pasting the relevant parts and deleting thereafter.

 

[Curtieson]

Are you sure that you know what I'm asking for?

1. Your e-mail account is pinned to your start screen. Not your inbox. Your inbox is just the folder it defaults to. Expand the taskbar and choose folders, and you can sync any other folders in that account.
2. I see no way to pin individual folders to my start screen from an e-mail account, and, even if I could, I have hundreds of folders across my work, school, and personal e-mail addresses. It would be pretty ridiculous to have to fill the whole screen with them.
3. You don't have to sync folders to your e-mail account. I have chosen to do so, and so I obviously want to know that there is unread mail in them. No one would run into your example unless they chose to sync their spam folder since no folders other than inbox are synced by default.

1) It is just your Inbox though. Yes, you have access to the other folders through menu operations, but it will ALWAYS open just your Inbox.

2) Go into your mail, and open the folder that you want to view and Sync it. While it is syncing, click the "..." and there is a Pin to Start option. That will pin that specific folder to your start screen. I was wrong in that you can't link a Sub Folder with your Inbox...that is not possible.

3) Yes, I do not expect someone to Sync their SPAM folder... But I am just saying, people would get 1 new message and the Inbox would pop (1) and then they'd have to dig around in all their Sync'd folders to figure out where it was. In the end, it is a mobile GLANCE AND GO platform. If you want to be notified of a new message in a sub folder, you pin that to the start so you can still Glance and Go. You are trying to overly complicate a mobile system to accommodate your oddity needs.