Almost everything I use now is either in the terminal or a browser/electron app. I do miss native gui elements that were respectful of your screen real estate.
Screenshots from Windows 95
31–40 of 85 posts
Re: Screenshots from Windows 95
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Windows 2000 might be the actual peak. It took the good parts of Windows 95 and 98 and combined them into something quite excellent. All downhill ever since.
I agree with the choice of Windows 2000. The reaction to Windows XP was that it was too videogamish with its choice of colors and bezels. Then it lasted for so many years past Vista and in part Windows 8 that it became the reference Windows interface. Then the flat UIs mimicking the web and also the 80s with simple elements (we couldn't do complicated widgets back then, not enough pixels.)
I avoided the XP Luna theme as best I could when it was new, but now I look back at it and realize it was pretty good.
At least I could tell where the scrollbar was.
Re: Screenshots from Windows 95
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with the choice of Windows 2000. The reaction to Windows XP was that it was too videogamish with its choice of colors and bezels. Then it lasted for so many years past Vista and in part Windows 8 that it became the reference Windows interface. Then the flat UIs mimicking the web and also the 80s with simple elements (we couldn't do complicated widgets back then, not enough pixels.)
Win XP with classic look was pretty decent and useable. There was an option in system settings to disable all theming, 3D stuff, animations etc. just the basic look of that time and a lot more snappy UX.
Do you have a picture of what that looked like? I'm curious. When I search for it, I can only find pictures of normal Windows XP and older versions of Windows. I can only imagine it looking like Windows 95 again.
Re: Screenshots from Windows 95
#34There's always a degree of subjectivity and personal taste, but I do consider this to be the peak of OS UIs. I have an "ironic" machine at home that is an old retina iMac, with Linux installed and themed with Chicago95. My attempt at a machine with a nice hardware, nice OS and nice UI :)
Windows 2000 might be the actual peak. It took the good parts of Windows 95 and 98 and combined them into something quite excellent. All downhill ever since.
Got an old Dell running Windows 2000. Its remarkable how responsive the UI is. I open an Explorer window, it paints instantly. The Start Menu pops up completely drawn in a fraction of a second.
Windows 11 on a monster machine is sluggish by comparison -- I can feel it drawing each window I open.
Re: Screenshots from Windows 95
#35Almost everything I use now is either in the terminal or a browser/electron app. I do miss native gui elements that were respectful of your screen real estate.
There’s still dedication to that among macOS developers. It’s like an artisan trade at this point, but it’s still out there.
Tons of useful, native macOS tools are available through SetApp (which is nicely curated) or other channels.
Re: Screenshots from Windows 95
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you. Buttons were immediately identifiable as such, menus had keyboard shortcuts visible everywhere, all items always looked the same across all apps, and everything was really snappy. We've really gone backwards since.
Aqua (in early versions of OS X) did a fantastic job of combining all this clear usability with a lot of fun visual flair. Even the old Qt/GTK themes which emulated that look were pretty good. It really is incredible how flat and boring modern macOS is.
At some point "skeuomorph" design went out of fashion, and everything had to be flat and simple. I think it all started with the Microsoft Zune (an MP3 player), which influenced Windows Phone, which influenced Windows 8. Then came iOS 7, and finally Android 5. I actually don't know when Mac OS went "flat". I only know ever since that time it is regularly unclear what a "button" is, as it doesn't look like a button.
Re: Screenshots from Windows 95
#37Small side note: I think for GUI screenshots (especially of older software) you should add this CSS:
img {
image-rendering: pixelated;
}
Re: Screenshots from Windows 95
#38The biggest downside of Windows GUIs was that it all was tiny non-resizable dialogs and non-copyable text labels. Did they fix this? I don't use Windows anymore.
Re: Screenshots from Windows 95
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Windows 2000 might be the actual peak. It took the good parts of Windows 95 and 98 and combined them into something quite excellent. All downhill ever since.
Also took the good parts from Windows NT. I loved using Windows 2000. I remember being really mad when XP came out and it added all the colourful and curvy GUI elements - felt really dumbed down.
> Also took the good parts from Windows NT.
It is Windows NT 5.0
Re: Screenshots from Windows 95
#40There's always a degree of subjectivity and personal taste, but I do consider this to be the peak of OS UIs. I have an "ironic" machine at home that is an old retina iMac, with Linux installed and themed with Chicago95. My attempt at a machine with a nice hardware, nice OS and nice UI :)
Windows 2000 might be the actual peak. It took the good parts of Windows 95 and 98 and combined them into something quite excellent. All downhill ever since.
USB support even.