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Make Linux look like Windows 95

lunduke.substack.com

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Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#141

Post by II2II »

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #18

I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…

> It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than many of those on HN, I like newer designs, and vice versa holds as well.

I agree that most of the preference is personal. I am not so sure on the age thing. I am likely on the old end of the curve here, yet mostly prefer the flat appearance. That said, there are a few elements of those old designs that I prefer. There are a few areas where those old interfaces shone: being able to distinguish between UI elements, higher contrast, consistency, and exposing functionality. That is to say: buttons don't need to be raised and links don't need to be underlined, but it is useful to know when you are looking at a button and a link.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#142

Post by II2II »

DougWebb wrote: post #26
HDMI_Cable wrote: post #18

I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…

I originally used a ZX-81. Can't say I miss the UI.

I grew up with a Commodore 64, can't say that I miss the UI either. That said, I recently learnt that it was possible to cursor up to a prior command/statement to edit and re-execute it (in other words, the screen was the history buffer). That's an awesome feature. It is also an illustration of how older user interfaces had some redeeming and forgotten UI features.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#143

Post by smilespray »

gigglesupstairs wrote: post #118
epistasis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, you simply let users know what's a button by the visual decorations and differentiated edges? And you let them know the status of toggle buttons without forcing them to toggle multiple times and guess based on which colors what might mean what? Blasphemy! Next you'll be letting web pages readers know what is and is not a link by using a consistent underline scheme. Which would be a completely unacceptable level…

Remember when buttons, when pressed, looked pressed? I remember!

The UX & UI design department of Pepperidge farm members, too.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#144

Post by smilespray »

anthk wrote: post #133
rbanffy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I definitely don't miss how unstable it was We had NT4 with that same look and it was much better.

2000 was pretty much Windows 95 alike with the classic theme and the window colors to an ungradiented one, buch much more stable and compatible.

As a Mac user, Windows 2000 was the first good non-Apple OS to use as a daily driver. I then ran a PC and a Mac side by side for several years, until OS X finally got into the groove.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#145

Post by mrweasel »

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #18

I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…

> I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today).

Not doubt about it, the Windows 95 UI was never pretty, but I also don't believe that's why people like it... well, hate it less perhaps.

As someone how got started with Windows 95, looking back at my options over the past 25 years, functionally Windows 95 was less terrible than some of the current options. Sure, macOS is pretty (and I do prefer that UI), but the Windows 95 UI was simpler, it had to be.

Part of the issue, as I see it, is that we added more and more stuff to desktops as years has past us by, but how many of those features do I really use? There's absolutely nothing that I do my laptop today, that I couldn't do using a Windows 95 UI. On top of being much simpler, the Windows 95 UI is also consistent, much more so than any current alternatives.

Finally, Windows 95 has useful hints all over, allowing you to actually learn how to effectively use the UI. Microsoft had to add these hints, because when it was release no one knew who to use their new interface. It's very clear that talented UX people where involved, most likely the last project ever to care about good UX, everything is downhill from 95.

Bundle all that together, simplicity, ease of use and consistency, that's why people still care about the Windows 95 UI. It's not pretty, it was never pretty, but it is incredibly well designed, it has just taken some of us 20 year to come to that realization.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#146

Post by projektfu »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #32
HDMI_Cable wrote: post #18

I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…

I’m a greybeard, my first OS was either DOS or some OtherDOS, my first GUI environment was System 7 (Mac). The latter was mostly flat other than some dithered shading mostly on icons, significantly flatter than macOS is today. Even with MacOS 8 which gained more depth in its design I always found Windows’ hard bevels through 2k/ME overstated, and when I did use Windows I’d do my best to configure it to be as flat as…

System 7 added depth to things like title bars, and then there were extensions like Greg’s Buttons that went all in for apps that used the default controls. With system 7, finder icons went seriously 3D because it was finally allowed to have multiple icons for different color depths. The use of color or even grey was one place where System 4.2-6 had fallen behind Windows 3.0, even though the graphics hardware was more advanced.

https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1644-greg-s-buttons

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#147

Post by projektfu »

FpUser wrote: post #27
HDMI_Cable wrote: post #18

I'll be the first to say the unpopular take on HN: I don't think Windows 95 looks that good (compared to today). I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones. It seems to me that preference for UI styles is completely personal, probably being influenced by what OS we initially used. As someone (potentially a lot) younger than man…

>"I personally find more modern (like MacOS 10) styles to look the best, and flat designs to be just as usable as more skeumorphic ones." I am not familiar with MacOS styles. But from what I see on other platforms my problem with "modern flat" is not that it is in any way inferior by design. Problem is that the designers make for example clickable elements not any visually different than unclickable, make scroll bars…

Even worse, they’re now intentionally using it for dark patterns, making buttons grey and disabled looking when they’re active, using links instead of buttons, making things clickable that shouldn’t be (and bringing up surprising behavior). Note that there’s no visual language, all bets are off.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#148

Post by arendtio »

ComradePhil wrote: post #92
cookiengineer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try the arc-dark theme? It's quite popular among archlinux users, and I think it looks pretty polished. [1] I'm no design expert, so I got nothing to say in terms of UI/UX. But it's the theme I've grown most comfortable with to use over the years. I agree with your sentiment that most themes lack attention to detail, where everything looks just more cluttered than anything else (especially when taking a look…

It seems to have the same icky "material" design look forward which makes me puke in my mouth. I have been wanting to rant on this, so I will do it here. To anyone working in design, the "material" design is not it. Look at this: https://twitter.com/vectaio/status/1018697206776225794?s=21 And compare it to this: http://www.visguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/aws-shapes-... What is the purpose of an icon and which o…

I find it funny that you use AWS as the better example, because I find native cloud product ranges notoriously hard to understand. Everybody tries to find some weird name for things we had for a while. EC2, S3, Route 53... Why not simply call it Virtual Machines, File Storage and DNS. It would make it so much easier to start. Even the somewhat better icons don't help, if you have to learn what the fancy names stands for first.

Re: Make Linux look like Windows 95

#149

Post by Alan_Dillman »

akx wrote: post #116
userbinator wrote: post #13

This with WINE is what I think is the perfect combination of GUI and CLI... but as a long-time Windows user, several things stood out and made it look slightly off: the menu bar and padding around the icon labels is too tall the window borders are slightly too wide (compared to the default) scrollbar buttons shouldn't disable at end of travel sort direction indicator in header control (which first appeared in Win2k)…

Not to mention the fonts. That's no MS Sans Serif...

To be fair, its also no moon.
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