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(mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

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Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#121
post #76
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing to me how much more usable those UIs are. Not to mention how much more performant they’d be than modern Electron garbage. But forget about Mac OS 9, we don’t even have native OS X or Windows interfaces anymore. Doesn’t help that Apple dropped the ball on following their own UI guidelines.

browsers are the new operating systems

Pity that it all boils down to ChromeOS.

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#122

Mac OS UI is a great example for why one shouldn't "improve" software just for the sake for changing something. UI design peaked at Windows XP style. the design portraied here falls for my opinion in that category. As a user of xfce (on Linux Mint) which is basically Windows XP with different icons I am super happy. Apple actually came up with only a single valuable UI element and that is the three finger swipe to sw…

Can you give some examples on why you think Windows XP is better than macOS and also how macOS is crap?

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#124
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing to me how much more usable those UIs are. Not to mention how much more performant they’d be than modern Electron garbage. But forget about Mac OS 9, we don’t even have native OS X or Windows interfaces anymore. Doesn’t help that Apple dropped the ball on following their own UI guidelines.

I think Electron is quite amazing. It does not deserve this bad reputation that it for some reason has on HN.

No, shoehorning a hypertext document viewer and a bunch of macros into being an application has never been a good idea. Imagine building an app in Word with macros written in its version of visual basic and then being serious about it and distributing it as your official and only desktop experience. That's how I feel about all this electron crap.

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#125

Mac OS UI is a great example for why one shouldn't "improve" software just for the sake for changing something. UI design peaked at Windows XP style. the design portraied here falls for my opinion in that category. As a user of xfce (on Linux Mint) which is basically Windows XP with different icons I am super happy. Apple actually came up with only a single valuable UI element and that is the three finger swipe to sw…

I loved Windows XP (I think most of us did) but I find the Windows NT/2000 -> Windows 7 design to be the most intuitive. I still install Start10 on every server and workstation I use and revert to the Windows 7 style. I suspect I'll do it for as long as Start10 supports their software (fortunately they already patched Windows 11, too).

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#126

Mac OS UI is a great example for why one shouldn't "improve" software just for the sake for changing something. UI design peaked at Windows XP style. the design portraied here falls for my opinion in that category. As a user of xfce (on Linux Mint) which is basically Windows XP with different icons I am super happy. Apple actually came up with only a single valuable UI element and that is the three finger swipe to sw…

I strongly disagree. Windows XP plasticky design was pretty unappealing.

Windows 2000 and Windows Vista on the other hand... Much better in my opinion. Also Mac OS Aqua design was great when it was skeuomorphic.

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#127
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing to me how much more usable those UIs are. Not to mention how much more performant they’d be than modern Electron garbage. But forget about Mac OS 9, we don’t even have native OS X or Windows interfaces anymore. Doesn’t help that Apple dropped the ball on following their own UI guidelines.

I think Electron is quite amazing. It does not deserve this bad reputation that it for some reason has on HN.

Example: On Fedora, I'd install the Arc Theme + some fancy icon pack. The majority of the applications uses the operating system's theming system, which makes all applications look the same. The same buttons, same spacing, same font sizes/types, same colours, same systems shell/window decorations, scroll bars etc. It all behaves and feels native. Most of them also uses the same keyboard shortcut system and accessibility features. Point is, the whole experience is very consistent. They use a tiny amount of disk space and a tiny memory footprint while running.

Problem is, the moment I install any electron/web-based app (Slack, VS Code, Gitkraken, Spotify, Steam etc), they look out of place. They do not conform to the rest of the system. They ignore basic guidelines, spacing is all different, different themes, no native window dressing/menu's, most don't use the tray/notification system correctly etc. Basically they stick out like a fat wart.

Nevermind the resource usage and general laggy UI from these application. Yes, they lag and are slow on all OS's and yes we can notice it. Web tech is cool for what it is within the scope of a webbrowser, but outside of that it is a steaming pile of ...

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#128

Mac OS UI is a great example for why one shouldn't "improve" software just for the sake for changing something. UI design peaked at Windows XP style. the design portraied here falls for my opinion in that category. As a user of xfce (on Linux Mint) which is basically Windows XP with different icons I am super happy. Apple actually came up with only a single valuable UI element and that is the three finger swipe to sw…

Can you give some examples on why you think Windows XP is better than macOS and also how macOS is crap?

Command vs. ALT/CTRL bindings are vastly superior in Windows. The MacOS method of using the Command button is different for the sake of being different, not for any actual productive reason.

I had the first Macbook Retina and used it for years at a company where it made sense to do so; when I handed it in and left for my own startup life, I was open to either OS (couldn't use Linux as the daily driver since I my industry uses a lot of Windows-only programs), and Windows was just far more productive to use on a regular basis. The only thing I miss is Final Cut Pro, and Sublime Text to some degree (VS Code has been an adequate replacement).

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Electron is quite amazing. It does not deserve this bad reputation that it for some reason has on HN.

Amazing and bad reputation are not mutually exclusive. Electron is an impressive engineering accomplishment, but it also has some dimensions that not everyone likes. Electron is great if you're a developer who wants to write apps in javascript+HTML+CSS and put developer preferences over preferences of users. Not everyone agrees that the decisions behind Electron and using it are good decisions.

> Electron is great if you're a developer who wants to write apps in javascript+HTML+CSS and put developer preferences over preferences of users

I’m so tired of this. Sure, the case for Electron is that it allows leveraging web-targeting code and skills, which makes more devs able to work on desktop software give the current prevalence of web skills and makes their job easier given the prevalence of web-targeting code that can be reused. But this is in no way user hostile: it means the cost to develop software with any given function is lower in developer hours (and, for commercial entities paying for development, actual $$), which means it is more likely to get done than otherwise, and that it is more likely to be a sustainable proposition to maintain on an ongoing basis. Given that users generally have a preference to have software with the functionality they desire developed and maintained, this is conducive, rather than hostile, to user preferences.

It’s hostile to the preferences of developers who have emotional attachment to particular nonweb (or just emotional hostility to web) technology, who are left in the dust, in terms of meeting users actual needs, by those adopting Electron. Or, less emotionally, it is hostile to preferences of developers who have a substantial investment of time and effort into building marketable nonweb skills in desktop app development, and are finding those skills marginalized in the marketplace by adoption of Electron.

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#130

Mac OS UI is a great example for why one shouldn't "improve" software just for the sake for changing something. UI design peaked at Windows XP style. the design portraied here falls for my opinion in that category. As a user of xfce (on Linux Mint) which is basically Windows XP with different icons I am super happy. Apple actually came up with only a single valuable UI element and that is the three finger swipe to sw…

Well, windows XP was the peak of gui... only when set to classic mode (like windows millennium)! the plastic edges and colors of XP offered nothing extra to 9x-class interfaces;

the absolute peak of interfaces was mac system 9

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