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Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

hisham.hm

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Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#171

Post by jcelerier »

ravi-delia wrote: post #169
jcelerier wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Theming was HUGE in Linux back in 2005-2010, consistency was paramount, adherence to toolkit was extremely important just like Apple claimed. it still is, just look at how neat things in https://reddit.com/r/unixporn/ look

But none of that was configured in one place, with every other program taking its lead from that central configuration. Instead, effort must be made to work through every program individually, customizing its color scheme.

> But none of that was configured in one place, with every other program taking its lead from that central configuration

that's definitely not my experience with KDE, I just have to set a theme on the system settings and 99% of apps take it (e.g. with this theme in my case: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/b49l7k/kde_sweet_...).

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#172

Post by allenu »

I loved theming my desktop as a teenager, but now it's definitely not something high on my list of requirements.

I think theming is one of those things that have been dropped because the cost vs. benefit just wasn't there. Theming isn't free. You have to invest resources into adding UI to support customizing it and any new UI you add should follow the themes. When the OS is upgraded and UI is tweaked slightly, you have to consider how to handle existing themes. It all adds extra complexity to your project that you may not want to carry forward long-term.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#173

Post by smhenderson »

recursive wrote: post #60
johannes1234321 wrote: post #17

You renner the times where in a browser one picked colors and font for background, text and links and many sites followed those choices? Now one has to spent time to tweak the Userstyle By finding the right CSS classes and things to change ...

Still has settings in firefox. Right on the first page of options too.

And for fonts there's a check box to override site choices so even if the majority no longer support this Firefox will help you override that.

I don't usually mess with colors but I do like to set consistent fonts. It makes some sites look a bit off here and there but it helps me more than not overall.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#174

Post by Teknoman117 »

jcelerier wrote: post #171
ravi-delia wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But none of that was configured in one place, with every other program taking its lead from that central configuration. Instead, effort must be made to work through every program individually, customizing its color scheme.

> But none of that was configured in one place, with every other program taking its lead from that central configuration that's definitely not my experience with KDE, I just have to set a theme on the system settings and 99% of apps take it (e.g. with this theme in my case: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/b49l7k/kde_sweet_... ).

For any apps written using Qt, sure.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#175

Post by Mountain_Skies »

Good Lord, just give me control over the appearance of scrollbars again. Was there some international UI/UX meeting where they declared a holy war on scrollbars? Seems like everyone is trying to make them disappear like they're an embarrassing and unwelcome distant relative they're passive aggressively trying to make go away.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#176

Post by allenu »

Finnucane wrote: post #10

I remember before OS X on the Mac, one of the fun things to do was trade sound effects for system actions, like the Enterprise door swoosh for window actions, and so on. Then Apple took the fun away, because Jobs didn't like fun.

I remember having a lot of fun on Macs in the '90s. We used them in my high school typing class, and I loved the monkey "squeak" sound whenever an error dialog would appear. That was also the time you'd often see the Star Trek After Dark screensaver set up on them.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#177

Post by Teknoman117 »

bsdubernerd wrote: post #98
forgetfulness wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theming was HUGE in Linux back in 2005-2010, consistency was paramount, adherence to toolkit was extremely important just like Apple claimed. For Apple it was about delivering a consistent branded experience, for the GNOME and KDE communities it was about being able to consistently customize the experience. In Windows? Always a free-for-all of such heavy customization on the side of the third-party applications that…

I agree that theming was much more consistent a decade ago in linux-land. GTK2 + QT with GTK2-style would get you an almost seamless experience. The "dark or light" theme we have today is an absolute joke by comparison. Many Gtk-engines were also much faster in terms of pure rendering speed. Another issue as mentioned is that per-control CSS skinning breaks easily with custom themes. Instead of using system colors de…

I still use gtk2 style for Qt to this day, as it's still supported in Qt 5. I run i3 as my window manager, and most of my applications are either Qt or still using GTK2 (like pcmanfm).

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#178

Post by core-questions »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #143
jonpurdy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Technical PM, I fought against a former boss when they wanted to forego native controls because they wanted their app to be branded, because without a custom look they felt that their app would not be unique and memorable. If an app can't survive on its usefulness alone, it probably shouldn't exist. As a user, if an app doesn't have a native UI, I disregard it unless I need it for a specific and mandatory use.

I believe Winamp became so popular because it had such a unique UI, that was also incredibly customizable. Compare that to Windows media player at the time... On the flip side I want me email client, my desktop authoring tools and admin tools to all look and act the same.

> I believe Winamp became so popular because it had such a unique UI

Well, yes and no. Remember, Windows Media player used to be this:

https://www.windows-media-player.com/wp-content/uploads/2019...

and without system-installed codecs, which were hard to come by for something like MP3 files, it was basically useless; you could play MIDI files through your shitty OPL-3 FM synth and that's about it.

Winamp came with a remarkable set of capabilities: - A bunch of useful codecs out of the box - An extensible plugin system, with input, output, general, and visualization plugins - Skinnable UI

The secret sauce was the extensibility, really. You could kill hours just tweaking your Winamp, installing crazy audio effect plugins, and so forth. It was really a new breed of application for most users who were used to really business-like apps.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#179

Post by Ericson2314 »

godot wrote: post #142

Here's one counterpoint, that doesn't necessarily argue against the author (I love Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 theming btw!) -- diminishing ownership of the computer experience over the years gave me one great benefit, that is I'm much less reliant/tethered to everything on my computer. Sure, it's not an effect of themes, for sure. It's everything from, code for all my personal projects are in a git repo somewhere onl…

Using Nix gave me all the benefits of reproducibility and sane package management. Almost everything else differentiating then from now is just software as a service trying to suck the information from my existence and make me a fungible consumer.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#180

Post by tambourine_man »

anthk wrote: post #130
tambourine_man wrote: post #126

The epitome of theming was on with Kaleidoscope. You could not only change colors, but the complete shape of every widget. And there were a few very tasteful themes, among the ocean of crazyness one would expect. This Twitter handle shows what was possible on early OS X: https://twitter.com/osxthemes Web Archive's page: https://web.archive.org/web/20050216050114/http://www.kaleid...

Compared to any Linux desktops and WM's that was nothing.

Links please.
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