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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

#301

Post by BoorishBears »

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/

That explains the explosion of scroll wheel complaints with the 3 over the 1 and 2.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#302

Post by userbinator »

deckard1 wrote: post #212
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.

> As a user, if an app doesn't have a native UI, I disregard it I disagree rather strongly with this. You should use the UI elements that make sense. It doesn't make sense for Maya or Blender or Photoshop to constrain themselves to whatever Microsoft picked out for them to use. The palette of native widgets and native UX methods is woeful across all systems. It's constrained to the set of generic elements which are a…

Photoshop definitely uses native UI:

http://wp.xin.at/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/photoshop-cs6-fu...

That said, I'm not entirely sure Photoshop makes a strong point for making custom UI controls, since besides the primary interaction of pointing and clicking on an image, everything else is either dialogs, menus, and toolbars --- all of which are available in the native UI.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#304

Post by zinekeller »

neogodless wrote: post #248
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…

> I'm much less reliant/tethered to everything on my computer. I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I also agree it doesn't argue against the author. That is to say "why not both?" I remember using NT on a domain with active directory profiles in the 90s, and while my memory is quite foggy, I believe some settings were carried between computers on my profile. In the world of today, I can lock my taskbar…

> I remember using NT on a domain with active directory profiles in the 90s, and while my memory is quite foggy, I believe some settings were carried between computers on my profile.

Not just some, most of it (some sensible settings such as hardware configuration are of course excluded, but if you somehow always want to have a 640x480 resolution then you're on your own). Even correctly-coded applications that can differentiate bewteen the Local (%LocalAppData%) and Roaming (%AppData%) application data do take advantage of it.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#305

Post by helmholtz »

saagarjha wrote: post #297
helmholtz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to change my desktop background approximately once per afternoon. It was a disease. Modifying Gnome themes. Downloading custom launchers for Android. Tweaking the colors representing my calendars. All with good intentions, mind you. "This green mountain background will calm me down in the morning" etc. At some point, I realised that if I just take a deep breath, slow down, and accept that I can modify myself t…

You can adapt and move on. There's no need for everyone else to go with that, though.

Fair enough. Just the perspective of someone who was deep into all this stuff. I suppose I've become one of those born-again ascetics who become zen minimalists in their second birth and leave their .vimrc untouched.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#306

Post by hulitu »

sp332 wrote: post #223
dingaling wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really irks me are the autohiding scrollbars, especially when working over a VNC connection and I have to wait for them to fade-in over a 3000km link Give me scrollbars and keep them visible please.

Windows: Disable "Automatically hide scrollbars in Windows". Mac: General Preferences has an option "Show scroll bars" which you can set to "Always".

> Windows: Disable "Automatically hide scrollbars in Windows".

Does not work in all programs.

> Mac: General Preferences has an option "Show scroll bars" which you can set to "Always".

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#307

Post by rkagerer »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #193
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.

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…

Scrollwheels are also fantastic for giving you RSI.

PgUp and PgDn are still my preferred mechanism for vertical panning. Once upon a time they even reliably moved you up or down a whole "screen" of content.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#308

Post by perryizgr8 »

I just want my pc to look like windows 2000. Don't really care about night mode and other nonsense. Win2000 is when UI/UX design peaked. And you had full control! I could change each UI element's font/color separately. Absolutely legendary. And it was fast and fluid af.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#309

Post by tinus_hn »

userbinator wrote: post #271
tinus_hn wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact you can doesn’t mean apps do. They probably fixed it now, but this is what Microsofts own explorer looked like in 2018 with Dark Mode: https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/microsoft-adds-a-dark-theme-to... You can guess about the support in third party apps.

For comparison, Windows 98 dark theme: https://i.imgur.com/jVM9dUA.png

Windows 98, when most apps still used normal widgets.

As an example these days the Windows OS includes Microsoft apps that are built using the QT toolkit (OneDrive). That’s the example developers follow.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#310

Post by jefftk »

rkagerer wrote: post #307
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…

Scrollwheels are also fantastic for giving you RSI. PgUp and PgDn are still my preferred mechanism for vertical panning. Once upon a time they even reliably moved you up or down a whole "screen" of content.

I've switched to a set of foot pedals, one for scrolling up and one for scrolling down, and it's great to be able to move around without doing anything at all with my hands.
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