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Windows 11 Pro overview
Windows 11. The main part of this announcement was intended to introduce a significant user interface change, codenamed Sun Valley. As we know, a significant part of the UX changes are borrowed from the Windows 10X skin, and Windows 10X is not coming to the market. Now, as expected, the Windows 11 data leak begins.
Windows 11 Pro features
Windows 11 gets a completely new look. Microsoft clearly needs a good reason to back off its previous claims and further abandon Windows 10 by introducing a new operating system number. And the completely new design suits it well. The giant from Redmond has long been preparing a redesign for an update with the code name Sun Valley («Sun Valley») – it seems that Windows 11 was under this name. The Sun Valley project has been online for a long time – Microsoft revealed in regularly details the new user interface style, insiders shared previously unknown information, and popular designers in their circles drew realistic concepts based on all this information.
Startup and system items float above the bottom bar. Start is the calling card and face of all the latest versions of Windows. Not surprisingly, in Windows 11, the developers change it again, but not so much from a functional point of view as from a visual point of view – the Start window is above the bottom bar. We have to admit that this small change makes the system look much fresher. Based on information on the Internet, Microsoft does not radically change the «inside» of this menu – the innovations affect only the design of the window itself. The control panel floats and has exactly the same design as «Start». The action center is combined with the control buttons – something similar has been used for a long time in other operating systems. Almost all mentions of this new menu point to it being an island – controls are in a separate panel, notifications are in another, and certain items (like the player) are in another separate panel.
The right corners disappear, they are replaced by tabs. In reality, insiders and concept designers do not agree on this – some are convinced that Microsoft will not change its traditions and remain in the right corner, while others are convinced that in 2021 Microsoft will follow the fashion of fillets. The latter falls more into the «all new windows» definition – just having floating menus isn’t enough to consider the new look truly new. Tabs are expected to affect virtually everything in the system, from context menus and system panels to all application windows. True, even in this matter, the opinions of concept designers differ – some draw tabs on all possible interface elements, others connect them with right angles.
There is translucent background and blur everywhere. On the Internet, there is disagreement about the island style of the windows, the design of the corners and the levitation effect of the menu, but almost everyone agrees on the transparency of the windows. Most of the design leaks and renders show transparency and fading in all windows, be it at least the Start menu or Explorer. Moreover, these effects are present even in the configuration of the canceled Windows 10X operating system, which Microsoft developed with two screens and thin devices in parallel with the Sun Valley project. The so-called acrylic transparency means using new effects when hovering over elements, as well as increasing the distance between elements – the areas of the user interface with which the user interacts will certainly become larger and page titles will become thicker. .
A new font that has already been featured. Windows 11 will likely use the default responsive Segoe UI Variable font, which already appeared in Windows 10 Build 21376 for Insiders.