Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mac OS 9

macos9.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 356 posts

Re: Mac OS 9

#231

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

eyesee wrote: post #218
azinman2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that but I’ve recently been programming an app in system 7, which isn’t totally dissimilar to 9 in UX, and I keep thinking “wow how did I ever use this.” Windows constantly occluding each other, no easy way to switch between them outside of the mouse, finder windows filled with grids that I have to scroll through, no easy way to just see the desktop, etc. Current macOS is miles ahead in usability.

It’s interesting: my recollection of that period was I rarely stored anything on the desktop. The file system was so much smaller and easier to handle that I stored things in folders and didn’t have trouble finding them again. Not until OS X did I pick up the desktop-as-staging-area habit because navigation was so painful.

Finder aided this by being spacial. If you moved a window, then closed it, it stayed there the next time you opened it. If you moved a folder or file icon around it similarly stayed where you put it when you next opened up the window.

Re: Mac OS 9

#232

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Joeri wrote: post #192
asveikau wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As amazing as OSX seemed when it was launched This reminds me: There was pretty interesting community of Linux users customizing X11 desktops in the late 90s and the very early 2000s... When the first screenshots and demos of OS X and Aqua came out, almost immediately, people tried to imitate that.

The frustrating part is that OS X was NeXTStep under the covers, and that had the late 90’s look down better than any OS. http://toastytech.com/guis/ns332.html I ran windowmaker on my linux systems around 2000 to get that same look, but I had serious NeXT envy.

Still upset that I don't live in the timeline where GNUStep/Windowmaker became the defacto DE for Linux.

Re: Mac OS 9

#233

Post by musicale »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #89
slowmotarget wrote: post #10

It's a great reminder of how well MacOS 9 UI and UX were designed, and how space efficient the whole OS was on screen. Even the window handle bars were subtly shadowed, the window shadows evolved when they were collapsed. Like Windows 95 at the time, Mac OS 9 was a beautiful work of interaction design.

Except for the lack of a proper fullscreen function...

> Except for the lack of a proper fullscreen function...

What do you mean by this?

How did screen savers and games work?

Re: Mac OS 9

#234

Post by musicale »

klodolph wrote: post #184
realgeniushere wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a funny cope. > Believe it or not, full screen apps are a Windows thing. Nope. It’s just that maximizing—single action to expand a window the whole screen minus the OS docks/taskbars—is present in every widely used OS except for Mac OS. > they haven’t let go of the idea that all apps need to use the whole screen at all times Not sure where you’re getting “at all times” from. Windows and Linux desktops all eas…

Prior to full-screen mode on macOS, you would option-click the window resize button to resize it to the full size of the screen. This still works. It just doesn’t snap.

Seems to work fine on Finder windows in Mac OS 9:

Single-click maximizes to the content size.

Option-click maximizes to full screen minus menu bar and desktop volume icons.

Apps like games and screen savers don't seem top have trouble covering up the entire desktop and menu bar.

I prefer it to the current macOS Finder where zooming covers up the menu bar and desktop volume icons, and where there doesn't seem to be an easy way to zoom to content.

Re: Mac OS 9

#235

Post by flenserboy »

Mogzol wrote: post #191
flenserboy wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few quick answers — >Why do folders all open in a new window? Spacial Finder (see https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/ ). It remembers window position, icon positions within the window, and the like. >Why can't I maximize a window by double-clicking the title bar? Why can I only resize windows with the little handle in the bottom corner? Nobody really thought about maximizing by double-clicking, as there…

Thanks for the replies, I guess a lot of it does boil down to "that's just the way things were". Although, like I mentioned, all those features do work on Windows 98, which released over a year before Mac OS 9, so I think the parent's comment of "no wonder Windows kicked their ass so hard" does have a point. Windows 98 feels far more "modern" than this, at least in my opinion. Also, in response to "Choose shut down,…

Remember that there are a lot of holdovers from the very early days of widespread GUI use — many, many of the things introduced on the earliest Macs are still present in Mac OS 9. This is not a new phenomenon.

Also, spelling error on my part: spatial Finder.

Re: Mac OS 9

#236

Post by azinman2 »

fzzzy wrote: post #229
azinman2 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then how do you easily navigate / launch apps? Dig thru your folder trees each time in Finder? Most apps I’m finding have folder structures with a bunch of aux files. It’s not so seemless as a dock or even a start menu. Back even then I used my desktop heavily too.

DragThing

But now we're just adding 3rd party software to change the fundamental UX. The GP was talking about how much better it was back then, but if you need 3rd party tools to make it work, then it really wasn't.

Re: Mac OS 9

#237

Post by flenserboy »

truetraveller wrote: post #182
philwelch wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you live without a simple maximize button? Classic Mac OS apps did not put the entire application UI in a single full screen window. Instead, it was typical for an application to contain multiple windows that could all be visible at once. > To add to this, the "top" menu bar is lame. This is related. In Windows, the entire UI of the app is contained in a single window, which you would typically maximize to f…

I understand all of that. And that is precisely my point. Isolate everything concerning an app to its own window, and allow that to be maximized. If an app has multiple windows, contain them within the main app window. Don't pollute the "global" window space with app-specific windows.

That makes it really hard to use two (or more) applications side-by-side effectively. I am grateful for individual windows I can move exactly to where I need them without worrying about the application as a whole. I think it boils down to how people think — application-centered thinking makes it easy to have multiple windows from different applications playing nicely with each other, workspace-centered thinking hates what appears to be the messiness of applications having windows here and there.

Re: Mac OS 9

#238

Post by Rebelgecko »

klodolph wrote: post #181
david422 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a fan of the new trend of zero window borders. I wish there was at least a way to make them customizable.

By “new trend” are you talking about how the borders got eliminated in Mac OS X in 2001? That trend is old enough to buy beer. Although for a while (starting with 10.3?), some windows had a chunky brushed-metal look.

IIRC it was around 2010 that Apple started getting rid of scroll bars by default

Re: Mac OS 9

#239

Post by flenserboy »

bacchusracine wrote: post #202
ace2358 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t grandma still use the old computer while we all use our new computers with new software that’s enriching our lives? I have countless instruments at my disposal in VST form, 3D software like blender, DAW to write music in, stable diffusion to help with the creative process.

>Can’t grandma still use the old computer while we all use our new computers with new software that’s enriching our lives? Sure! And so can Uncle Joe and Aunt Mable! But why should they have to? We used to have this thing called 'sane defaults' and configuration options, which allowed people to set things to their preferred level. Why is it now suddenly that everything is hardcoded to behave one way? Nothing is allow…

Consider how little testing most software apparently has before release. If that's not going to happen, why would they put the effort in to making it configurable?

Re: Mac OS 9

#240

Post by _8j50 »

mihaip wrote: post #165

I'm the creator of the site, thanks for the submission. This is an in-progress port of the SheepShaver emulator to WebAssembly/Emscripten, https://github.com/mihaip/infinite-mac/issues/34 is tracking the remaining work. If you're interested in running older Mac software in the browser, the BasiliskII-based sites at https://system7.app/ and https://macos8.app/ may be better bets. They will boot faster and have fewer c…

Doesn't load on my mobile firefox and it tries to hijack browsing history (have to fight with it hitting the back button to get back to HN).
Post reply on HN