Windows Longhorn/Longhorn Days



Longhorn Days is a set of Macromedia Director demos created by Microsoft to demonstrate the capabilities intended for the Windows "Longhorn" operating system. The name Longhorn Days is from ReflectiaX, when he shared in 2009 screenshots of the demos.

Videos
Portions of the demos appeared in a promo video for PDC 2003, with "Get the Party Started" by P!nk playing in the background.

Stephen Chapman also made two videos based on these demos. These may be accessed here and here. These demos were also used to generate screenshots for patent filings.

Heesung Koo
Some demos are available at the website of Heesung Koo, product designer for the Windows team during "Longhorn" development.

The executable files showing how the Basket tile was intended to function were previously available here. The .exe files have been archived by the Wayback Machine. Koo's page detailing how the Basket tile was designed to work (with links to the .exe files) is available here. A demo, bin4.exe, could not be opened. ReflectiaX analyzed its contents and concluded, "I think the file upload of bin4.exe died before it was complete and the client wasn't set to resume failed uploads."

Other demos were also available here, but access to this page has since been forbidden. The .exe files were archived by the Wayback Machine. These demos are:


 * 1) bin8.exe - Longhorn Listmaker,
 * 2) burn1.exe - Burn to CD wizard,
 * 3) e2e photos.exe - My Pictures and Videos (the basic functionality of this is in Windows 10's Photos app, though not the user interface and the auto-rotate function),
 * 4) msxday.exe - My Music library,
 * 5) tree1.exe - Longhorn Listmaker navigation.

Koo also discussed user interface concepts for dealing with music files. The screenshots and captions are archived below.

ReflectiaX
Other demos, including unused ones, were made available by ReflectiaX and may be downloaded here.

Longhorn Music & Radio Overview by Heesung Koo
These images and their captions were taken from Heesung Koo's website, specifically on his "Longhorn Music & Radio Overview" page, except when otherwise noted.

Acquire

 * "Since music place is not a physical space we can promote many virtual views. One we promote here is "most recently added" grouped view where cds users have copied recently are populated."


 * "Whenever users insert a cd our default experience is to copy and play it at the same time. We will provide a cue via countdown mechanism where users are given a choice to select other options. If users let it go, we will begin copying once the countdown has expired."


 * "Users can see animating CD in most recently added in music library. When users click this album, they can see the detailed status about it."


 * "We want to leverage the preview pane to show progress off copying music to shell library. Here we will indicate Which song is being copied and what the overall copy Status is."
 * "The status shows which song is playing and copying and how much time it does remain to finish."

First experience

 * "As first experience, we promote most recently add and music library. Most recently added is based on usage pattern we find songs that recently added in users' library."
 * "We want to promote three tasks that we want to bubble up to users. These three tasks are not decided yet."
 * "If users don't have metadata for thier CD, how do we want to update thier metadata? do we want to do it forground? or background?"


 * "Issue: We consider what the best experience to update and get metadata for music. which experience will be forground or background?"
 * "Longhorn starts filling in the blanks for meta-data in your music collection automatically."
 * "Missing Album art starts filling in, and a list of recently added music is created dynamically"


 * "LH music will support auto preset based on users' usage patterns. Most recently added is one of these functions. After we filled up missing metadata, then users can see "most recently added album" from their music library."

Music library



 * "Expose five pinned pivot in music library which are all tracks, all albums, all artists, all playlists, and most recently added. There are more auto preset using usage pattern under more auto-search."
 * "open issue: has to decide an appropriate terminology for other pivot -own by stacy lewis"
 * "Expose two filters -albums and artist"
 * "open issue: where is group by? I assume that group by is with view by, so that user click the icon of view by, users can see both of them."
 * "Let user navigate into get songs. double click to open an album"


 * "Open issue 1: here is two different opinions that First, we need to have consistent users behavior with all albums and all artists. The reasons is that there is one more tiers, then we have to let user navigate into the second tier. We have to give consistent view like albums. All artists view is supposed to thubmail of artist picture, not expose sub tiers. Then what is this view can be? call by " all in one view" which we add another pivot."
 * "Open issue 2: On the other hands, Pivot has individual strength or benefit to present users to be albe to see and do easily and quickly. It doesn't have to keep consistenting behavior this case. Another consideration is we already have enough pivot that user has to understand and use. Do we have to add another pivot which call by "all in one view" which actually this view is that the same presentation of all artists."


 * "Now in LH build you can see that it shows all sub catagories under genre, year, size and duration. Even though the catagories are different here. In music UX team will decide what we think to be filter lists here."
 * "open issue: is it better to show sub catagories in drop down? or if this is MRU, then users choose one of filters, show the sub catagories under it."
 * "The default will be albums and artist, but the filter area will be MRU, so that it will be changed whatever you used recently."


 * "The default will be albums and artist, but the filter area will be MRU, so that it will be changed whatever you used recently."
 * "open issue: is it better to show sub catagories in drop down? like LH Build has the function now. If the lists are so long, is it an appropriate choice to present to user? or if this is MRU, then users choose one of filters, show the sub catagories under it."

Preview pane



 * "Open issues: how do we want to expose contextual tasks with related to more tasks and general tasks with related to more tasks. Do we want to put togehter all more tasks that it doesn't matter what the tasks are involved in such as contextual or general. Terminology has to defined, if we will seperate two different tasks."
 * "This design presents that more activities will show all other tasks both of contextual and general tasks."




 * "Open issues: how do we want to expose contextual tasks with related to more tasks and general tasks with related to more tasks. Do we want to put togehter all more tasks that it doesn't matter what the tasks are involved in such as contextual or general. Terminology has to defined, if we will seperate two different tasks."
 * "It presents that we might be seperate "more activities" to present more contextual tasks and other tasks using different location and term. Terminology has to be defined in this case differently."

Music library / first experience



 * "The player is docked to the bar by default allowing for easy access to music while doing other things."


 * "When users start to play music, it will display album art and album title. Also the title line will animate horizontally to show between song title and album title."


 * "In LH media player is optimized for playback experience with the ability navigate through music collections in a light way. Here users can change my play list to others such as auto playlist, albums, or etc."


 * "Users can easily and quickly replace music through flyout from docked player in sidebar."

Find songs/albums like this / Soundslike



 * "This allows users to select an album and click on a task "show me all music that sounds like this:, and we will return user with a rich view of all albums in his computer that are similar to the album selected."
 * "Size and proximity to the selected album indicated how similar the albums are relative to each other."




 * "There is an easy to use slide bar that users can use to adjust the total time. This can be a useful function when user is on the go and wants to quickly transfer music to a device like mp3 that have storage constraints."




 * "Users also can save this view as a playlist."




 * "You can browse here richly by clicking on any albums and again LH will return users with similar albums by the selected album."




 * "User can also scope to all media content similar/related to the selected album."




 * "Here we are pulling from contents available from variety of services such as WM.com, where users will be returned with everything from albums they don't have to music videos available by the artist."

Design explorations
Concept 1









Concept 2: ''What would be the essential tasks in the tool bar? preview a song/album, add to now playing, burn to a CD, save as a playlist or smart playlist? do we need a preview pane?''













Music playlist M4



 * "When users click a task " Create a playlist," it will launch another window."




 * "This design focuses on as simple as possible to create a playlist. Pivot and fiter will be closed as default. Also breadcrumb is more closed in music library. This is a different frame design with main one."
 * "expose preview song-it will preview a song that a specific area of the song 10 sec."




 * "Basket is oriented vertically."
 * "Pivot and filter will be closed as default."
 * "User can select items and click add to list, drag and drop."
 * "User can select items and copy/paste,or drag/ drop from another folder"
 * "If user has already selected items before clicking create a playlist, the selected items will be populated in the basket."
 * "Items animate into the basket. Also selected items will change text color to indicate user which one they selected."
 * "In the basket, users can see how many songs in the basket and duration also."
 * "It has "move up and down" and "delete."
 * "expose preview song-it will preview a song that a specific area of the song 10 sec."




 * "Users can click an album art to select all tracks in the album."
 * "Users can preview the selected song with the task "preview a song.""
 * "User can select items and copy/paste,or drag/ drop from another folder."
 * "What happen when users double click?"
 * 1) "add music to basket?"
 * 2) "start to playing music in transport player?"
 * 3) "start to preview music in transport player?"




 * "After users select items in the basket, you can see we support a default title for this playlist."
 * "Also selected items will fade out text color to indicate user which one they selected."
 * "Users can see the number of songs and duration."




 * "Open pivot and filter."
 * Also selected items will fade out the text color to indicate user which one they selected."




 * "User can change other pivot."
 * "Also selected items will fade out the text color to indicate user which one they selected."
 * "User change pivot "All in one" to "Most frequently played."




 * "User change the pivot "Most frequently played."
 * User can select items and click add to list, drag and drop."
 * User can select items and copy/paste,or drag/ drop from another folder."




 * "Users can select items will fade out the text color to indicate user which one they selected."
 * "User can select items and click add to list, drag and drop."
 * "User can select items and copy/paste,or drag/ drop from another folder."




 * "Users can select items will fade out the text color to indicate user which one they selected."
 * "User can select items and click add to list, drag and drop."
 * "User can select items and copy/paste,or drag/ drop from another folder."
 * "Users can see the number of songs and duration."




 * "Also selected items will fade out text color to indicate user which one they selected."
 * "Users can see the number of songs and duration."




 * "Also selected items will fade out text color to indicate user which one they selected."
 * "Users can see the number of songs and duration."
 * "Users can move up and down as well as delete the song."




 * "After users delete the song, they can see the order will update."
 * "Users can see the number of songs and duration."




 * "Users can rename the playlist instead of a default title."




 * "After users rename the playlist and save it, we will send users where the new playlist is."
 * "Users can see the content of the new playlist easily."
 * "Users can do other activities with the new playlist in this place."

Device



 * "Home media devices become great PC peripherals with Longhorn."
 * "Plug in any digital audio device."




 * "Synch music we could (location: bar part, preview like copying CD)-assume enough storage for whole collection"

"New Playlist(s) New CD(s) New Preset(s) Currently playing+queue on PC Album art+ rich metadata"




 * "Show interaction on Device (Q: Is the device UI the same as Window eHome?)"
 * "Playing the song you were listening to on your PC (queue)"
 * "Picking another song to play"




 * "While you are synching up your music to your device, you can see the indication on the sidebar. When users click it, the flyout will show the contents that are synching up now."




 * "When users go out to part to listen music through thier device. However, they find that some songs are unable to play, so that they want to connect their computer to get these songs again."




 * "unable to play some songs."




 * "They connect their computer to get these songs again."




 * "Show how Audiotron devices use same music collection and filters/playlists. show their UI with the Longhorn music collection"

Virtual folders



 * "Users click all songs pivot LH will return user with flat list of all of their songs with ability to sort the collection easily."




 * "We also want to promote usage patterns such as most frequently played."




 * "All artist view is optimized around using groupings to contain all albums users have on the artist."
 * "When users click the group title, it will be selected all albums under artist."




 * "If users want to select all songs then they can select either album title or album artist. Also they can drag and drop albums or songs in the player."
 * "Users can select the group header to select all albums and add these albums to currently playing play list."




 * "Users can also choose to use the search field to essentially query on their music collection."
 * "Here I typed 'n'. I conveniently get an artist view of 'n'. (below images of all artists 4, 5)"




 * "Users can also choose to use the search field to essentially query on their music collection."
 * "Here I typed 'ni'. I conveniently get an artist view of N. (below images of all artists 4, 5)"




 * "Users can also choose to use the search field to essentially query on their music collection."
 * "Here I typed Nina for Nina Hagen. I conveniently get an artist view of Nina."

Overview design




"You can see current design explorations: \\opaque\secure\heesungk\send mail\JPG - I will upload all design explorations on MSX design site by next week. If you don't have an access for \\opaque\secure, You should wait until I upload MSX site. I am sorry for inconvenient."

Basket on the sidebar

 * Note: Not all images have been archived, and only thumbnails have been archived. Captions for the unarchived thumbnails are available at the Wayback Machine page.


 * "This design focuses on a consistence of sidebar behavior."


 * "The flyout will show the contents of collections with tasks that user can do with contents."


 * "User can select items and drag and drop to the basket."


 * "When users select an item, the flyout will close. So users have to target on the title of basket# that they want to put the item in. Items animate into the basket."


 * "What happen after executing the task?"
 * 1) "the collection would be gone?"
 * 2) "do we give the prompt that users want to save the basket?"
 * 3) "do we autosave the basket like history that users can do other things with it again?"
 * 4) "do we want to allow the basket to be able to undock?"




 * "The basket is on the sidebar. It is different design approach rather than a consistent behavior on the sidebar. The reason is that the flyout is not staying to open while users collect items. it would be annoying users collect. Also users would a difficult time to make a target of basket# or name correctly to put things in the basket. This design demonstrates the basket and tasks expose on the sidebar instead of flyout."


 * "The flyout will show "baskets" that users still hold, not execute those yet. These baskets are called "live basket." see spec"


 * "Definition: temporary basket: holding area for users to collect items on which they wish to perform a common task."

"live basket: a temporary basket that the user is interacting with (i.e. a basket that contains items, or is awaiting items)"

"current basket: the basket whose items and title are being displayed"


 * "Basket is not the final name for the feature. It is an internal name."




 * "To make the basket more visible and discoveralbe to users, the basket interact with a user's behavior within the shell. For example, when a user select an item, the basket would show the item faded or inactive in the basket. If a user clicks "drag and drop here." The item is animating to the basket."


 * "User can select items and copy/paste,or drag/ drop from another folder"


 * "Items animate into the basket."


 * "Also selected items will change text color to indicate user which one they selected."

Implementation
Build 4015 has a playlist maker, which Melcher of BetaArchive observed is similar to the images in Heesung Koo's discussion about Music playlist M4.

BetaArchive forum

 * Unseen Windows Longhorn UI Screen Shots
 * More Longhorn UX thingy stuff.
 * Longhorn Director demos
 * Longhorn Days retrospective: UX vision vs. reality

Non-BetaArchive

 * Longhorn Days retrospective