Ask Paul: January 22 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s a delightfully brief Ask Paul to kick off the weekend a bit early while we ponder this nation’s overdue return to decency.
Improving Windows
darkgrayknight asks:

What would you want updated in Windows for consistency?

Windows today reminds me a bit of Windows Mobile 6.5, where the top-level UIs are or at least seem to be mostly consistent, but you don’t have to go too far to find inconsistencies. There are several different types of pop-up menus, each with different styles, and multiple generations of applications, control panels, and other interfaces that all have their own dated look and feel. Those are the things that need to be made consistent, and they need to be made consistent with the dominant visual style used by top-level Windows interfaces. There shouldn’t be an UIs in Windows that don’t respect the user’s Dark mode configuration.

Also, what features would be great to have in Windows?

I don’t think Windows needs any major new features, but I would like to see more customization capabilities and, even more important, a more complete settings sync functionality with granular, cloud-based management of those settings. You can look at Stardock products like Curtains, Fences, Groupy, and others, plus other utilities such as TaskbarX (formerly FalconX) for the types of customization options I’d like to see.
Microsoft mobile productivity
darkgrayknight also asks:

On the mobile front, is there any possibility for Microsoft to bring some more productivity to the Android app space? I really would like something more like the People hub brought into Android, at least for my Microsoft accounts.

I don’t see why not, but I suspect most of that type of work will go into the Microsoft Launcher rather than be made available on a piecemeal basis.
Why not Delphi?
bschnatt asks:

I've been using the Community Edition of Delphi to build an app (the first in a really long time), and I'm loving it. Unless I'm mistaken, you're using Visual Studio / C#. Why not Delphi? I know you like/liked it. I'm having a blast with it.

I do have fond memories of Delphi, and of the Object Pascal language, but no desire to spend time with it now. Delphi isn’t really a mainstream solution anymore, but even when it was, it always suffered from being a generation behind because Borland (at the time) couldn’t add new features---for UI components, or whatever---until they were first implemented by Microsoft.
Food
bschnatt also asks:

So, we know you dislike (or are ambivalent about) ice cream. What foods do you like that everyone else hates (if any)? Have you ever eaten anything that smelled so bad, it drove people from the room? ;)

Yeah. Everyone probably has their own thresholds when it comes to food, whether it’s something I consider innocuous---like raw oysters or clams, or sushi---or something a bit more extreme like brains. I will eat almost anything, and often order things that most wo...

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