Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

socket3.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 402 posts

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#61

Post by dTal »

krapp wrote: post #46
dTal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two metaphors are not as tightly coupled as you suggest. Even pre-computing, a "file" meant a collection of information and a "filing system" was a way of organizing it - that didn't neccesarily involve paper folders. In fact, card files, from which we ultimately derive our computer term, were more usually stored in boxes. I too prefer the term "directory". Apart from all UNIX tools using this terminology, it als…

>Apart from all UNIX tools using this terminology, it also more accurately reflects what it actually is - not a physical container for information, but a list of references to it - an association of names to addresses. Yes, but "directory" doesn't describe the way the UI appears to behave in a way that's more intuitive to the average non-technical end user than "folder." A "directory" could also describe a map or a p…

>"directory" doesn't describe the way the UI appears to behave

That rather begs the question though, doesn't it? To a nontechnical user, the ship has sailed - everyone calls them "folders", the icons are ubiquitously pictures of file folders, and it would be terribly confusing to try and change it now. That doesn't mean it was the right choice though. I could imagine a world where the icons were little phone books, and the concept of a hard link didn't require a half-hour explanation.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#62

Post by microtonal »

leadingthenet wrote: post #47
russellbeattie wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea... And a few versions ago Apple changed the maximize button to go full screen, which made it useless for the 95% of us who don't use one app at a time. Minimized windows also used to show up at the bottom of the screen when using "Expose", but then Apple changed the name to "Mission Control" and removed them. Just one more example of them slowly but surely driving its Mac customers away.

> which made it useless for the 95% of us who don't use one app at a time I'm actually willing to bet good money that it's the other way around and it's you who is in the minority.

It depends on the definition of 'at the same time', but I think that many people in a work environment at the very least use an e-mail client and a productivity application at the same time. Also throw in a calendar for good measure.

I think that Apple thought that many regular users would switch to full screen apps on the Mac, combined with Launchpad (it's just like an iPad/iPhone). But virtually all non-tech-savvy Mac users that I know do not use Launchpad, nor fullscreen apps.

I think the problem with Launchpad as with Spotlight search [1] is that they are not very discoverable on the Mac. Having search in an application menu (like recent Windows versions and some Linux desktops) is far more discoverable.

I guess people don't use fullscreen apps because they equate desktops/laptops to the 'WIMP' interface paradigm.

[1] If I received a penny every time I see even experienced Mac users launch applications by clicking on a Dock icon or by navigating to the Applications folder in Finder, rather than using Spotlight, I would be rich.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#63

Post by chrisper »

chkuendig wrote: post #10
michaelmrose wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you manage files in windows at all without drag and drop? Do you just never reorganize anything? Further what is the chance that anyone who can't drag and drop would be able to find the setting to turn off drag and drop?

Cut & Paste for when you really need to reorganize? But usually it would probably be enough to just list the most recent files somewhere and provide full text search for everything else.

Cut & Paste is (was?) dangerous btw. Windows could lose your files:

1. Cut a file.

2. Paste it somewhere.

3. Hit control Z.

4. Cry because your file is gone.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1...

But it seems I cannot reproduce that in the current build of Windows anymore. So I think they finally fixed it.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#64

Post by M_Bakhtiari »

smoyer wrote: post #48
russellbeattie wrote: post #26

It's hard to remember, but even though Windows 3.11 was extremely dominant at the time, it was by no means assured that Windows 95 would be the success that it was. The very first version missed wildly in some big ways (MSN was a folder integrated into the desktop, for example, and no TCP/IP support [*Edit: yes there was - I misremembered.]), but the core, underlying redesign of the GUI was so profoundly good it prop…

I'm predominately a Linux user and I switched away from Mac OSX specifically because of the underlying file system. I'll admit that it was annoying finding windows sometimes but the case-preserving, case-insensitive file system made no sense.

Why not just use it with a case-sensitive file system? Did it break some application you were relying on?

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#65

Post by jasim »

k__ wrote: post #42
vadimberman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it Windows user here. Honest curiosity: does anyone know why the minimize / maximize works on the Mac the way it does? I mean, what's the rationale to design it like this?

I have no idea... I'm came from ~18 of Windows & Linux usage and everyone always told me macOS is THE OS with the best usability. But I can't confirm this. Minimization of windows is shitty and maximization even more. When I maximize, often just the height is changed, when I go back to "normal" the height and the width is changed, so I always have to adjust the width manually. When I minimize a few windows, it's impo…

I use ShiftIt (https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt), and ctrl+alt+cmd+M maximizes the window just like you expect.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#66

Post by herbst »

analogic wrote: post #50
k__ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea... I'm came from ~18 of Windows & Linux usage and everyone always told me macOS is THE OS with the best usability. But I can't confirm this. Minimization of windows is shitty and maximization even more. When I maximize, often just the height is changed, when I go back to "normal" the height and the width is changed, so I always have to adjust the width manually. When I minimize a few windows, it's impo…

After using a mac for ~6 months now, I finally understand what happened to gnome3/unity, clearly designed by mac users. I mean it's perfectly usable once I got the basic gestures down and installed the app that let me independently set the track pad and mouse wheel scroll directions, but will go so far as to say that both xfce and MATE are objectively better at window management. Partly I think their hands were tied…

I wouldnt say Gnome is by or for mac users. In fact in many ways it is way more similiar to Metro than to OSX. Gnome 3 just broke the common Windows 95 workflow, however many others did before.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#67

Post by williamdclt »

chrisper wrote: post #55
leadingthenet wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which made it useless for the 95% of us who don't use one app at a time I'm actually willing to bet good money that it's the other way around and it's you who is in the minority.

You sure you are not confusing it with iOS? That's where you always have strictly only one app in fullscreen! (Yes, yes. It is a lame joke. But who uses only one Window at a time? What is the point of that? Though I remember when I used OS X you could swipe left (or right) to switch back to all other apps. So I think that was good enough.)

I use several windows at a time (around 5 in average), but they are all maximized. I just alt-tab and switch workspaces?

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#68

Post by gurkendoktor »

frou_dh wrote: post #57
vadimberman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it Windows user here. Honest curiosity: does anyone know why the minimize / maximize works on the Mac the way it does? I mean, what's the rationale to design it like this?

macOS has Hide & HideOthers in addition to Minimize. I go weeks at a time without using minimize because of those. IMO there's a whole generation of people who did their early computing on MS Windows (including myself) and so internalised that that is how GUIs are "supposed to work". When moving to something else later in life there's a feeling that it is "wrong", but it (e.g macOS)'s way of doing things is also corr…

And this hidden setting makes working with Hide/Hide Others much more intuitive:

http://osxdaily.com/2010/06/22/make-hidden-application-icons...

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#69

Post by analogic »

herbst wrote: post #66
analogic wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After using a mac for ~6 months now, I finally understand what happened to gnome3/unity, clearly designed by mac users. I mean it's perfectly usable once I got the basic gestures down and installed the app that let me independently set the track pad and mouse wheel scroll directions, but will go so far as to say that both xfce and MATE are objectively better at window management. Partly I think their hands were tied…

I wouldnt say Gnome is by or for mac users. In fact in many ways it is way more similiar to Metro than to OSX. Gnome 3 just broke the common Windows 95 workflow, however many others did before.

ya tbh i never tried using it for more than 10 minutes

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#70

Post by herbst »

majewsky wrote: post #59
unicornporn wrote: post #40

I think it's beautiful. And, compared to Windows 10, Windows 95 was at least somewhat consistent design wise. After 12 years of macOS I recently got a Windows 10 machine. There's plenty of Windows 10 bling on top of the OS, but you don't have to dig deep before you encounter the embarrassing remnants from very early versions of Windows. Running the latest version of 10 it still feels very unfinished which I hope Micr…

> Running the latest version of 10 it still feels very unfinished which I hope Microsoft intend to do something about. Might depend on what particular parts of the OS you come across. I use Win10 on my work notebook [1] and besides the long startup times [2], I haven't noticed anything "unfinished". In fact, Windows very subjectively feels more polished than macOS which I used before (until December). Then again, I d…

Pretty sure he is referring to the configuration structure. You get this fancy 8.1 sidebar configuration screens that may solve 80% of a average users tasks, but once you start digging you'll find configuration Windows in the style of W7, and if you dig even harder you'll even find stuff that looks straight out of 98.

I am a linux users myself, configuration inconsistency gives me nightmares.

Post reply on HN