Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

Post by ant6n » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:00 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #210

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #175

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.

Auto-hiding elements are one of the worst trends in "modern" UIs. I've had countless times where I had to waste a lot of effort trying to find controls that were hidden and only appeared if you hovered for long enough in the right place. It reminds me of this amusing comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24965293

Post by derefr » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:08 AM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #203

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scroolbars are useful for making large coarse leaps within a page in an instant, while scroll wheels are good for accurate positioning over short distances. But please. just stop making everything flat ffs. On the GUIs of old, you knew straight away what you could interact with, while now, everything is so flat or hidden away that everything blends together, I have no idea what I can click on and what's static unless…

> Scroolbars are useful for making large coarse leaps within a page in an instant, while scroll wheels are good for accurate positioning over short distances. That's funny. I use them in the exact opposite way. When I want exact positioning then I will use the scrollbar. When I want to scroll past pages and pages, I will just fling the scrollwheel.

Post by bmn__ » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:13 AM UTC

Teknoman117 wrote: post #174

jcelerier wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Post by inetknght » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:20 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #253

inetknght wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scroolbars are useful for making large coarse leaps within a page in an instant, while scroll wheels are good for accurate positioning over short distances. That's funny. I use them in the exact opposite way. When I want exact positioning then I will use the scrollbar. When I want to scroll past pages and pages, I will just fling the scrollwheel.

Sounds like you aren't scrolling in large-enough documents. Scrollbars are pretty useless for exact positioning in a 5000-page PDF; and scrollwheels won't get you very far, either, unless you're willing to scroll for literal minutes.

Post by inetknght » Sat, Jan 23, 2021, 12:23 AM UTC

p1mrx wrote: post #243

wolrah wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the best mice ever are the Logitech MX Revolution and MX Master series that have an electronic clutch on the wheel. It's clicky by default but if you whip it the clutch unlocks and you can traverse an entire EULA in 0.6 seconds. Some of their newer gaming mice have a half-ass version of this as well with a manual mechanical toggle.

The MX Master 3 takes this further by using an electropermanent magnet, which is technology I didn't know existed: https://blog.bolt.io/logitech-mx-master-3-vs-2s/