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Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

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Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#311

Post by jandrese »

hypervis0r wrote: post #276
jandrese wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet for the same compatibility reasons most people stuck with .jpg and .htm, at least in the Windows world. Even now it's very unusual to see a .jpeg extension on a filename. The metadata that Macs kept in the resource fork go way beyond file type and creator too. It included things like the file's Icon, creation/modification information (so it would survive a trip over the Internet!), loads of stuff for applications…

You don't see .jpeg because people are used to .jpg. There's nothing incompatible with long names that we care about. Also, that Windows feature you mention is called ADS - alternate data stream.

Yes, but you also never see extensions like:

.jpeg.photoshop.ro.creat127339292....

The filename extension is the bare minimum of metadata for a file and not easy to extend.

Even then Unix systems will skip even that minimal metadata and force you to messily search for magic numbers at the start of the file and make a guess.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#312

Post by dragonwriter »

favorited wrote: post #310
sodapopcan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have the opposite experience WRT Finder vs Explorer. I use a Mac as my primary machine, but have a PC for games. Trying to use a file browser without Miller columns[0] drives me crazy. I love being able to drag a file up one level in the tree without cutting and navigating to the destination to paste, or having 2 windows open to almost the exact same location. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_columns

> I love being able to drag a file up one level in the tree without cutting and navigating to the destination to paste, or having 2 windows open to almost the exact same location.

While Miller columns certainly support that, so does the tree view in the left panel in the default Windows explorer layout.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#313

Post by runciblespoon »

blattimwind wrote: post #120
sodapopcan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ove…

@blattimwind: "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"

I hadn't realized that KDE was copied from Windows 95. I'm surprised no one here has mentioned NeXTSTEP. Here's a demo by Steve Jobs from 1992: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#314

Post by JoelTheSuperior »

runciblespoon wrote: post #313
blattimwind wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ove…

@blattimwind: "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" I hadn't realized that KDE was copied from Windows 95. I'm surprised no one here has mentioned NeXTSTEP. Here's a demo by Steve Jobs from 1992: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk

Looking at this NeXTSTEP seems ridiculously ahead of its time.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#315

Post by favorited »

dragonwriter wrote: post #312
favorited wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite experience WRT Finder vs Explorer. I use a Mac as my primary machine, but have a PC for games. Trying to use a file browser without Miller columns[0] drives me crazy. I love being able to drag a file up one level in the tree without cutting and navigating to the destination to paste, or having 2 windows open to almost the exact same location. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_columns

> I love being able to drag a file up one level in the tree without cutting and navigating to the destination to paste, or having 2 windows open to almost the exact same location. While Miller columns certainly support that, so does the tree view in the left panel in the default Windows explorer layout.

Honestly I didn't think of tree view before seeing this (and neither did the friends I asked who are more regular Windows users than I am). I'm gonna give it a shot.

I've been using bitCommander, which is a Windows file manager that supports (among other things) Miller columns.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#316

Post by dragonwriter »

favorited wrote: post #315
dragonwriter wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love being able to drag a file up one level in the tree without cutting and navigating to the destination to paste, or having 2 windows open to almost the exact same location. While Miller columns certainly support that, so does the tree view in the left panel in the default Windows explorer layout.

Honestly I didn't think of tree view before seeing this (and neither did the friends I asked who are more regular Windows users than I am). I'm gonna give it a shot. I've been using bitCommander, which is a Windows file manager that supports (among other things) Miller columns.

Compared to the tree view, Miller columns use more horizontal space, but have less vertical overflow. Which is superior probably depends a lot on your usage patterns, but both will support “drag to (grand, etc.) parent of current folder” fairly simply.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#317

Post by to3m »

dredmorbius wrote: post #286
nine_k wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of tedious manual work required to resize and arrange several windows on MacOS (6+ to latest OSX) bothered me all the time I had a misfortune to have to use it. It does not even have something like edge snapping. My WM of choice is now Xfwm, which allows to rearrange windows easily without gaps, make windows fill available space (vertical and horizontal separately ), or tile them by dragging to corners. On…

As of at least 10.13 (High Sierra), there does appear to be a very modest edge-resistance when placing windows next to each other. Either that or I've gotten very much better at doing this.

Same in 10.12.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#318

Post by GeekyBear »

astrocat wrote: post #301
GeekyBear wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that Windows never really embraced universal drag and drop and the Mac did. Macs used drag and drop for file management between windows representing separate locations on disk. Windows users tended to select files and choose cut or copy then navigate to the second location and paste. The same held true for moving content between documents in an application or moving content between applications. Mac…

That's a great distinction I hadn't thought of before, and it definitely makes sense - if you're focusing on drag-and-drop, you want as many windows visible somewhere on the screen as possible to maximize possible destinations. Personally, I find drag-and-drop handy sometimes but it's very constraining. You have to go through non-standard motions to complete any more that is more than trivial, always holding down the…

I've seen users cut files from one location and forget what they are doing before they manage to find the destination they intended to move those files to.

Then they are shocked later when they paste those files into some random location and can't figure out where they went.

Dragging and dropping does not have that issue. Users find it much easier to learn.

Open the source window. Open the destination window. Drag.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#319

Post by mustacheemperor »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #270
krylon wrote: post #9

The fact that the basic elements of Windows 95's GUI have survived for so long shows, I think, how well designed it was. For its time it was a great design that was intuitive to understand, relatively lightweight and did not get in my way. About the only changes I think improved things notably were the search field in the Start menu and Aero Snap.

The replacement of actual Search with this Cortana-based attempt at a "smart" search or Q&A interaction is absolutely agonizing to experience as a user and just a completely boggling decision to me in general. Why on earth did a search feature that will return something different from what you typed in, with the exact thing you typed in the secondary results, ever make it out of testing for public release? I have fai…

Addendum: I was just browsing the Dell website and the URL bar of Edge displayed a Cortana logo and blue text "Can I interest you in a coupon?"

So, it's also an ad delivery machine.

Re: Designing Windows 95’s User Interface

#320

Post by js2 »

JoelTheSuperior wrote: post #314
runciblespoon wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@blattimwind: "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" I hadn't realized that KDE was copied from Windows 95. I'm surprised no one here has mentioned NeXTSTEP. Here's a demo by Steve Jobs from 1992: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk

Looking at this NeXTSTEP seems ridiculously ahead of its time.

I forgot how good Steve Jobs was at demoing.
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