"[Activity Centers] won't be a focus for Millennium, but are part of Microsoft's
longer-range consumer OS plans," a Microsoft corporate spokeswoman said in late September. "It's too
early to say how they'll be implemented, but I can say that you won't see them
in Millennium, nor will you see a brand-new [user interface]."
It's an interesting comment. Maybe someone should tell the Consumer Windows team, because
at least a few Activity Centers will make it into Millennium. Let's take a look at
Activity Centers and the technology that's used to create them.
The melding of HTML and Win32
Microsoft decided at least three years ago that it would eventually meld
the traditional Windows user interface (which we'll call Win32 for
simplicity) with the user interface seen on the Web, a combination of HTML,
Dynamic HTML, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Dubbed Forms+ internally,
this new user interface will be integrated slowly into Windows. In fact, the
first step began back in 1996 with the advent of HTML Help and the Desktop Update feature from IE 4.0 and Windows 98. Over subsequent release of Windows, new HTML
features have been--and will be--added, blurring the distinction between
local applications and distributed, Web-based applications. It's a brave new
world.
Enter Activity Centers
Activity Centers--originally expected in Millennium but now due in it's NT-based
follow-up, dubbed Whistler, are the next logical step. Activity Centers
are simply HTML-based applications, running locally on a Windows computer.
To enable this technology, a new version of Internet Explorer (version 5.5+) is required.
This new version of IE includes more hooks into the OS so that
HTML user interfaces can be combined with the programming logic that
is typically seen in true Windows applications. This enables Activity Centers
to interact with Win32 API calls (the low-level programming libraries used
by C/C++ programmers) like normal applications.
Activity Centers in Millennium
Millennium will include at two Activity Center-style applications:
Help and Support (Previously "Help Center") and System Recovery. (A third
Activity Center, System Update, was switched back to a standard Win32 application
between Beta 2 and Beta 3). These Wizard-like applications
are clearly Web pages, but because they are based on the new IE 5.5
subsystem, they are able to interact with the system in ways that were
previously not possible. Some of the original Activity Centers, such as Media Center and
Photo Center, will not be included in Millennium simply because of time: Microsoft
wants to get Millennium into the hands of users quickly, and full-fledged
Activity Centers such as these may be a bit too confusing to users when the
rest of the user interface still resembles Windows 98.
The future: Whistler and the FORMS+ user interface
In Whistler, the Consumer Windows follow-up to Millennium now due in late
2001 (if then), Microsoft will attempt to switch over to a full Forms+ user
interface. This means that most, if not all, of the system utilities and
applications included in Whistler will be based on the Activity Center user
interface (Forms+) and not pure Win32. This user interface will be simpler
and scaled down significantly from the complicated UI we're use to today
in Windows 98, Millennium/Windows Me, and Windows 2000. And though one could argue that
this simplication is simply a by-product of using early generation HTML, its
equally true that consumers need something obvious and simple, not
convoluted. Today's modern computer operating systems have advanced to the
point where new users require too much training to get started. Whistler
should eliminate
