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Websites that look like desktop GUIs

simone.computer

181–188 of 188 posts

Re: Websites that look like desktop GUIs

#181

I tried to make my personal website[1] look like an old PalmPilot --- but the look didn't completely translate, especially on the desktop. Alas. [1] https://gowder.io

You have a very impressive CV. What's your production function?

monotonically increasing in consumption of coffee

Re: Websites that look like desktop GUIs

#183
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub Desktop is actually pretty awesome. What I don't get is why MongoDB Compass is so slow. It's almost like they have artificial timeouts everywhere.

I was explaining to someone how to generate an SSH key, they way I would normally do when explaining git to someone not exposed. They instead used the GitHub app and their GitHub password. I didn't see any interaction with an SSH key. I am not sure how I feel about that. Something seems not right about it.

Recently I helped someone get set up with VS Code and Git, and it subverted all of my preparations by simply popping up an OAuth window to authenticate.

Re: Websites that look like desktop GUIs

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was explaining to someone how to generate an SSH key, they way I would normally do when explaining git to someone not exposed. They instead used the GitHub app and their GitHub password. I didn't see any interaction with an SSH key. I am not sure how I feel about that. Something seems not right about it.

You can use http basic since forever with git....

This isn't HTTP Basic Auth, though: these days git with the right Credential Managers (and Git for Windows comes with a good one built in) support OAuth Access Tokens obtained with full OAuth login flows including 2FA authentication. It's theoretically no worse than SSH PKI, and in terms of practicality is often better because it is easier and more convenient. (For the users, it is clearly more complex that "install openssh" to implement if you are trying to build a git host that supports OAuth Access Token auth.)

Re: Websites that look like desktop GUIs

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are interesting resources, thank you. One sentence stuck out to me in [2]: > Early pseudo-3D GUIs and Steve-Jobs-esque skeuomorphism often produced heavy, clunky interfaces. I think that this is an aesthetic assessment, not one that speaks to usability. And while older interfaces were aesthetically clunky, newer interfaces are functionally clunky - often hiding functionality (hamburger menu) and wasting content…

As an aside, I recently found out that Microsoft's version of the hamburger menu, the 9 dots in a square, is called a "waffle".

Microsoft tends to use the waffle menu for switching between apps, and many of those apps will have a hamburger menu at various screen sizes. Some of those apps will also have ellipsis menus in various places, and that leads to my favorite of the silly food names for menu icons as these are often called qebab menus, especially the vertical ellipsis which is rare in text but common for menu icons so some people don't even realize they are meant to be ellipses, but they definitely look like a skewer of qebabs.

(ETA: Also yes, it is sort of weird that Microsoft feels a need for three levels of menus: waffle, hamburger, qebab. Though in practice it seems better than the Android apps I've seen with 2+ Hamburger menus. Which one is which? Which one does what? The hierarchy of waffle, hamburger, qebab offers some context.)

Re: Websites that look like desktop GUIs

#187
post #121

Desktop GUIs that look like websites :p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_(software_framework)#...

GitHub Desktop is actually pretty awesome. What I don't get is why MongoDB Compass is so slow. It's almost like they have artificial timeouts everywhere.

It does take a long time to start and that is apparently Electron :-(

Are you seeing issues somewhere else?

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