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Windows 11 Pro overview
Windows 11. The main part of this announcement was a major user interface change, codenamed Sun Valley. As we know, a significant part of the UX changes will be borrowed from the Windows 10X shell, and Windows 10X will not be released. Now, as expected, the Windows 11 information leak begins.
Features of Windows 11 Pro
Windows 11 gets a completely new design. Microsoft clearly needs a good reason to retract its previous claims and continue to abandon Windows 10 by introducing a new OS number. And a completely new design is excellent for this. The Redmond giant has been preparing for a long time to redesign the update codenamed Sun Valley (”Sun Valley”) – apparently Windows 11 was under this name. The Sun Valley project flashed on the network for a long time – Microsoft regularly revealed details about the new interface style, insiders shared previously unknown information, and popular designers drew realistic concepts based on all this.
Start and system items float above the bottom bar. Start is the calling card and face of every latest version of Windows. It is not surprising that in Windows 11 the developers will transform it again, but not so much functionally as visually – the Start window will float above the bottom bar. We have to admit that this small change makes the system look much fresher. Based on information from the network, Microsoft will not radically change the ”inside” of the menu – the innovations will only affect the design of the window itself. The control panel will also float, and its design will be exactly the same as that of ”Start”. The action center will be combined with the control buttons – something similar has been used in some other operating systems for a long time. Almost every mention of the new menu indicates that it will be island-like – with controls on a separate panel, notifications on another, and individual items (like a player) on another panel.
The right angles disappear and are replaced by fillets. In fact, insiders and concept designers disagree on this issue – some trust that Microsoft will not change its traditions and stick to the right angle, while others are convinced that in 2021 Microsoft will follow the fashion of filleting. The latter fits the definition of ”All-New Windows” better – floating menus isn’t enough to make a new design truly new. Cuts are expected to affect virtually everything in the system, from context menus and system panels to all application windows. True, the opinions of concept designers are divided even on this issue – some draw fillets in all possible surface elements, others combine them with right angles.
There will be a transparent background with blur everywhere. There are disagreements on the net about the island style of the window display, the design of the corners and the levitation effect of the menu, but almost everyone agrees on the transparency of the windows. The vast majority of leaks and design renders show transparency and blur in every window, be it at least the Start menu or the Explorer. Moreover, these effects are even included in the assembly of the canceled Windows 10X operating system, which Microsoft developed in parallel with the Sun Valley project for devices with two screens and weak gadgets. The so-called acrylic transparency means applying new effects when hovering over elements, as well as increasing the distance between elements – the areas of the interface with which the user interacts will certainly be larger, and the page titles will be thicker.
A new font that has already been released. Windows 11 will likely use the default responsive Segoe UI Variable font, which was already released in Windows 10 Build 21376 for Insiders.