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Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

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Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#111

Post by ndespres »

krapp wrote: post #18
netsharc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "folder" already annoys me. It's a (filesystem) directory...

> The term "folder" already annoys me. It's a (filesystem) directory... You don't like the metaphor of a folder, but you'll accept the metaphor of what goes into a folder?

The places where the metaphor gets stretched can be frustrating, especially in Windows. You can put Folders on the Desktop, but there's also a "Computer" icon on the desktop which allows you to browse into other folders.. including the desktop?

Then there's your Personal folders.. which are in fact collections of other folders themselves, but appear transparently to be folders- but somewhere on the file system they are actually different folders. But without the benefit of breadcrumbs to help you keep your place in the structure, where did that file actually go?

Don't get me started on shoehorning OneDrive (or was it OneDrive for Business?) into the mix.. where'd I save that file again?

That's why my desktop is so cluttered!

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#112

Post by ndespres »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #4

"not understanding how folders could exist inside of other folders" -- My mom is 70 years old now, and I easily get frustrated whenever she's stuck with seemingly simple tasks with her computer. I usually scold her and yell at her, "This is so obvious, how come you don't know?" -- I always regret doing that afterwards. After I'm calm, I ask her why, trying to understand it from her perspective. Every time I do this,…

I used to get frustrated explaining what I thought were simple computer tasks to my mother, but as I've gotten slightly older I am getting just as stuck as she was with some basic computer tasks! I totally get it now.

She also reminds me that she used to work at Digital (DEC), on the cutting edge of tech, in the 80's, but left her job to raise me- so I'm the reason she's so far behind, technically!

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#113

Post by TheCoreh »

vilius wrote: post #73

In early UI we can see a Wastebasket, which ended up being changed to the Recycle Bin. As a user I would say that Recycle Bin is a misleading name because it has nothing to do with recycling a file / folder. However it has a more positive sounding than the weird Wastebasket. Meanwhile classic Mac OS already had a Trash. Simple, clear and short. I wonder why Windows could not simply name it Trash? Could it be that the…

> As a user I would say that Recycle Bin is a misleading name because it has nothing to do with recycling a file / folder.

On the contrary, I'd say recycling is a much more fitting name for what happens when a file is deleted: The existing disk space is reclaimed to be reused for something else.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#114

Post by ryanianian »

rvanmil wrote: post #82
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…

You’re using macOS wrong ;) I remember Windows 95 as a complete disaster of crashes, data loss, failing installations, incompatible applications, missing drivers and countless other problems which were only fixed with the release of Windows 98 (maybe even SE), which was much much better. I have memories of people sticking with DOS and 3.x, only having 95 as a nondefault boot option in case they wanted to watch the Bu…

Most of the above are talking about the UI which is arguably separate from the underlying OS. You can like a UI even if it's a UI to a system that crashes a lot :)

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#115

Post by rahoulb »

sodapopcan wrote: post #90
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…

The one thing I don't understand that Mac has never adopted is being able to use open and save dialogues as mini file explorers (move stuff around and rename, specifically). Having to switch to Finder to move or rename a file that has the same name as the file I'm trying to save is ridiculous. Of course I never need to do this anymore since I only work on text files under revision control, but it still seems odd to m…

OSX Finder is horrible. Classic MacOS Finder was far better - but still had open/save dialogs.

RiscOS had it right - the Open dialog didn't exist - you would open the folder and double-click the file. And the Save dialog didn't exist - the document would reduce to an icon which you would then place into the correct folder. (You can sort of do this on the various versions of macOS by dragging the icon from the title bar but it's inconsistent)

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#116

Post by m0dest »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #93
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?

> How do you manage files in windows at all without drag and drop? Do you just never reorganize anything? Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V. Are you a Mac user? Apple disabled Cut in Finder ages ago, basically for aesthetic reasons. It's a constant irritation with my Mac that I have to manually change the folder view just to move a file up one level; on Windows you can do it in less than a second with Ctrl-X, Backspace, Ctrl-V.

Apple did not "disable" Cut.

1. Copy the source file with Cmd-C

2. Browse to the destination

3. Move with Cmd-Opt-V

It's a UI design decision to avoid Cut in the filesystem. Cut would behave differently from Cut in every other app -- namely, the file is not deleted immediately after Cut. It seems better to avoid calling this "Cut" than to have it behave inconsistently from other apps.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#117

Post by mmphosis »

vadimberman wrote: post #36
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 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?

Different ways of working, mostly stuck in our own ways of doing things.

I rarely, if ever, use Minimize on the Mac. Minimize comes from Windows (and other windowing systems) where the window minimizes to an icon or button on the task bar.

"Maximize" also comes from Windows (and other windowing systems.) As others have noted, in newer macos (which I don't use,) I think it oddly makes the window go full screen. Full screen is a recent macos feature -- I once asked about making my Application go full screen and Apple developer support said that going full screen did not follow their Human Interface guidelines. Something seems to have changed at Apple since I asked about that decades ago.

There was no Maximize on the Mac, it is called "Zoom." The idea is that the window has two sizes and you zoom between the two sizes: One size is the size the user has resized the window to (often with much difficulty) and the other size is an ideal compact size ("optimally fit content") without hiding anything and hopefully where scroll bars do not appear -- it is a UI feature that is/was rarely, if ever, done very well by applications other than the Finder.

By the way, Command-Tab to switch tasks was once an add-on from Microsoft for Mac OS. Go Microsoft! (Mac fanboy here :)

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#118

Post by fredsted »

vadimberman wrote: post #36
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 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?

Depending on how you've configured your Dock, Minimize is pretty simple. Either the window just moves to the Dock, or it minimizes into the application icon (then you can right-click on the Dock icon to view a list of the windows that are minimized, or click to open the last minimized window)

Maximize on Mac was NOT designed for the window to fill the whole screen, but rather to resize the window to optimally display its contents. E.g. maximizing a Preview window with a PDF document changes the width of the window to the PDF page width. (Good tip for getting along with your Mac: stop trying to maximize everything.)

In a recent macOS version, Apple changed the green "maximize" button to full-screen, which is very different from maximize. Now double-clicking on most window chromes will execute the old maximize behavior.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#119

Post by epicide »

_mrmnmly wrote: post #60
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…

Know what you're talking about. Since I've switched back to Linux I can't imagine working without workspaces - each one dedicated for specific task/app - and every time staying with specific order so e.g. 1 workspace: Browser, 2nd: Code editor, 3rd: Terminal, 4th: File explorers etc. I used to it so much that I automatically use shortcuts to access it immediately - switching between minimized windows using alt + tab…

You can accomplish (mostly) the same thing with Spaces on Mac. Granted, I don't believe you can really script any of it. All manual, but it still works pretty well for me.

Some days I still really miss dwm, but having Photoshop, Ableton, and several other things Just Work™ makes it worth it.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#120

Post by blattimwind »

sodapopcan wrote: post #90
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…

The one thing I don't understand that Mac has never adopted is being able to use open and save dialogues as mini file explorers (move stuff around and rename, specifically). Having to switch to Finder to move or rename a file that has the same name as the file I'm trying to save is ridiculous. Of course I never need to do this anymore since I only work on text files under revision control, but it still seems odd to m…

To be fair, Windows' file open/save dialogues are so far ahead of everything else that the competition seems like unusable garbage to me. I'm glad KDE/Qt chose to emulate these very closely on Linux. Wouldn't want a desktop where my only choice is Gnome's take at this.

(On the flip side, Windows' select-a-directory dialogue of the same vintage is such an utter piece of garbage that I can't imagine there being any overlap of designers between the two dialogues.)

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