During the development of Windows 8, we needed a name for “that thing we’re creating.” Not being a particularly clever bunch when it comes to code names, we just called it “the modern experience,” to distinguish it from what we had in Windows 7, which was called “the classic experience.”
And then, as Microspeak demands, we started abbreviating like mad.
The new shell was called the “modern shell” or “MoSh” for short. By comparison, the old shell was called the “classic shell”, which some people started calling “ClaSh” for short. (That name didn’t stick.)
When we couldn’t come up with a name for a component of the modern experience, a common fallback was to stick the prefix “Mo” in front.
The new Start menu derived from some earlier explorations known as the “Go page” (since it’s the place you go when you want to do something). Its new code name was therefore “MoGo.”
The portion of the screen for snapped applications was called the “MoBar”, and the portion of the screen used for filled applications was called the “MoBody.”
The settings control panel? “MoSet.”
The ListView control? It started out with the more tedious name “modern collection control”, which got shortened to “MoCo.”
Even the new applications got the Mo-treatment. The new Web browser initially called itself “MoB”, but then decided that an even hipper name would be “MoBro.”
And the new photo manager? The people who worked on that didn’t want to get left out of the “Mo”-party, so they called themselves (wait for it) “MoPho.”
I hope somebody put their foot down out of frustration. “Enough already. This Mo thing is completely out of control.”
Windows 8 was announced fifteen years ago today, on June 1, 2011.
My mind went to the old DOS mo’slo utility when reading this.
“ClaSh” would have been a good fit with the taskbar. Just sayin’…
Modern collection control should be called “mococo”
What does TWinUI (the DLL that housed most of the modern UI, twinui.dll) and Glcnd (the early PDF reader) stand for?
Thanks to today’s article, I finally understand why that window band is called “ZBID_IMMERSIVE_MOGO”. (Mandatory mention: I still consider Windows 8/8.1 UI to be superior to Windows 10/11 ones, in terms of both design and implementation.)
> The ListView control? It started out with the more tedious name “modern collection control”, which got shortened to “MoCo.”
Funny. In Spanish, “moco” is the kind of rubbish that will come out from your nose when you’re with the flu. You know, it can be liquid or solid, but nothing to be proud of and then name something after it.
Great anecdote.
And later, the contemporary ui. Probably even less coherent than the modern one, but with 10x the resource usage.
One of these days “Claude write me a fully functioning os” will work and then it will be interesting to see where we go. My prompt: write me an os with a Windows 7 ui but can run current software.
Classic vs Modern was the initial lingo, but the latter shifted (multiple times) during Win8
* Modern – Start of Win8 development
* Tailored – //Build unveiling
* Immersive – later in Win8 development
* Metro – Win8 release
* Modern – shortly after release
That’s why software archaeology spelunking turns up things like `ImmersiveControlPanel`. The Metro renaming came too close to release, and this wasn’t a user facing name so the compatibility impact wasn’t justifiable.
I got to present at the //Build where Windows 8 was announced. IIRC, one of the weird marketing things is that although they wanted to call it “Metro”, they couldn’t secure the world-wide rights to use the name. Hence the incredibly late and super awkward re-brand for all the talks: “App store apps”
Instead of “how to use socket APIs for a Metro app” it had to be “how to use socket APIs for an app store app”.
I still have the tablet from that PDC (or was it Build by then?). I tried updating it to 8.1 and it bluescreened after the update, so it’s just been sitting in my desk for many years.