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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

#321

Post by bcrl »

cycloptic wrote: post #276
bcrl wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlightenment was awesome in the early 2000s, even having a translucent terminal feature. Then the Gnome project started giving the giant middle finger to their users and began removing all the features to use for customization. I remember the day when a Gnome update decided to change key bindings unannounced. Xchat flipped from Unix X11 key bindings to Windows bindings. The argument was that they were going after "A…

Just saying, if you're happy with a *box window manager that hasn't changed much in the last 15 years, you were probably not ever the target audience of gnome. I also don't see why those type of projects would need much funding, compared to ones that are actively seeking to expand their userbase beyond developers. (and I would agree that gnome is not perfect and is not the only contender in this category)

It's the loss of features that drove me away from Gnome. First configuration options were hidden, then removed. Window borders became larger, and bloated transitions slowed everything down. Menus were removed and replaced with incomprehensible drawings with no meaning. Keyboard shortcuts made non-obvious. Not at all an improvement over the state of the platform 20 years ago in my opinion when things were much more lightweight and interfaces were more discoverable. A lot has been lost for desktops in the push for an interface that "works" on tablets.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#322

Post by jd3 »

andrekandre wrote: post #267
asiando wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me, theming was possible in Tiger times too, but I don’t remember the name of the application.

themepark?

SIMBL, ShapeShifter, ThemePark, artFileTool (ArtFile.bin, SArtFile.bin, Extras.rsrc, and Extras2.rsrc), and, more recently, ThemeEngine (/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemAppearance.bundle/Contents/Resources/*.car) are all of the OS X/macOS customization tools I remember using over the years.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#323

Post by marwis »

cgrealy wrote: post #168
marwis wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most native desktop development in Windows is nowadays based on WPF and as parent mentioned WPF broke the consistency with the rest of Win32. WPF does it's own vector-based drawing that completely ignores legacy Win32 API except for some basics such as control colors. Even its standard Windows theme is a poor imitation of actual Windows style - you can easily spot WPF apps with default theme because they stick out li…

Is WPF actually that popular though? Honest question... last time I did any WPF dev was 2008 and I haven’t really seen it used much since. MS certainly aren’t hyping it much (although that could just be the decline of the desktop app in general). My impression was that it wasn’t worth it for small apps and not performant enough for things like CAD, etc.

It's highly popular for enterprise line of business and industrial apps you'll never hear about. Some of it is moving to web but web is not really competitive in terms of performance and integration (lots of legacy COM/ActiveX or closed source native libraries to integrate with). The only realistic alternative is using WinForms (more dead than WPF) or Qt but then you have to hire C++ programmers.

It's certainly perfomant enough (much faster than web) for complex apps like CAD - the actual editor/renderer won't be WPF of course but some custom OpenGL/Direct3D code.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#324

Post by fouric »

sildur wrote: post #233
fouric wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. > We all are mostly average users. If by "we" you mean the population of HN - that is blatantly false. The average HN user is far more technically sophisticated than the average computer/phone user. >> The average user does not do this. This is completely true, and not "paternalistic" in the least - it's a statement of fact. > There is not really any difference…

> If by "we" you mean the population of HN - that is blatantly false. The average HN user is far more technically sophisticated than the average computer/phone user. Elitism, again. > This is completely true, and not "paternalistic" in the least - it's a statement of fact. Backed by nothing. > Absolutely false. My father, as do most of the fathers I know, are profoundly disinterested in customization and learning mor…

> Elitism, again.

This is not elitism - this is a statement of fact. You should know the definitions of words before you use them:

"The belief that certain persons or members of certain groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their superiority, as in intelligence, social standing, or wealth." and "Behavior arising from or indicative of such a belief."

...neither of which describes the statement that I made.

(in case it's not clear - even if my statement were false, it would still not be elitism)

> Backed by nothing.

It's pretty clear that HN users are way more tech-savvy than the average user - don't try to deny it. If you absolutely insist on evidence - take five random posts from the front page of HN, show the original content to a random sampling of people you meet at the library or at a coffeeshop (your family members and friends could be biased technically), ask them to make comments, and then compare to the HN comments on the post.

Only the very tiniest fraction of users are going to write anything like [1][2][3] - those are developers, and their knowledge, skills, and behaviors are dramatically different than the average user.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25883791 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25881911 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25885196

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#325

Post by rkagerer »

jefftk wrote: post #310
rkagerer wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's cool! I use a footpedal as a supplemental click. Also have a second mouse (one on each hand) so I spread around the wear.

I modified my pedal so it just takes a very slight twitch of my toe to use it.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#326

Post by saagarjha »

helmholtz wrote: post #305
saagarjha wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it's worth being able to work like that, to be fair. I just don't think you should always work like that. My personal computer is "tricked out", for example, but I also know how to use the tools without my custom configs set up.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#327

Post by saagarjha »

derefr wrote: post #314
saagarjha wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried momentum scrolling?

Momentum scrolling has a capped velocity†. Your velocity with momentum scrolling approximates a sigmoid. And the cap is far too low to actually get somewhere, if where you want to be is “somewhere in the last few chapters of a book” and you’re currently at the beginning. Scroll bars , on the other hand are perfect for that kind of jump — where you don’t know what you’re looking for, but you know mostly where it is, a…

Hmm, I'm not sure. On macOS at least if it is capped it's capped at something very high because I don't think I've ever had an issue getting through something long.

Re: Remembering Windows 3.1 themes and user empowerment

#328

Post by tokai »

gambiting wrote: post #247
tokai wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shocking to me that anyone would chance the background on a work pc.

What do you mean? Chance in what way? I like cars so my wallpapers are usually like some nice photos of sports cars or my own car in interesting locations. It's perfectly inoffensive. And I mean even some landscapes, geeky wallpapers with cheesy matrix letters etc....literally anything other than the stock windows wallpaper would be an improvement.

my comment makes as much sense as yours.
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