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Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

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Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#221

Post by embedding-shape »

jonhohle wrote: post #179
exe34 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> safe triangles in nested menus I did not know about this, but I did notice my own menu-rage every time a submenu disappears!

I was trying to use Orca Slicer (which itself is intractable) and it had a combo button whose menu was disconnected from the button. The menu would disappear as soon as the cursor left the button boundary, but because it was disconnected, there was no way to get to the menu without leaving the button boundary, traveling a void, and then getting to the menu. I’m unsure what incantation allowed me to finally choose the…

Most fun is when the menu opens both on button hover and on button press, but if the menu already opened, clicking the button closes it instead, so the first 2-3 you use it, you end up opening the panel and closing it immediately.

Not sure how stuff like this gets deployed in the first place, guess we're just a few people left who test things we develop before we push them to the public, I'd rather believe that than that people just don't care anymore...

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#223

Post by hermitcrab »

skydhash wrote: post #148
FergusArgyll wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean this in a dismissive way but based on your profile I'd say you're > 25. I'm curious about the perspective of someone who didn't grow up with the those os's

I’m > 25, but I didn’t use those OS. I started with Windows XP, then did a bit of playing around with Gnome 2 on Linux Mint. You wouldn’t call them pretty, But you never had to guess about an icon or if an interaction was possible. It was pure get things done (barring crashes and slow hdds). Today’s OS are aesthetically pleasing, especially with the right combination of windows, but using them is a frustrating experi…

>Today’s OS are aesthetically pleasing

I don't know about. All the different apps and OS windows are so inconsistent with each other. There is not much sense of an overall aesthetic. Just a mishmash of vaguely similar styles.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#224

Post by justsid »

zozbot234 wrote: post #132
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #69

I really wish Windows 11 had a Windows 2000 mode. I want a grey, boxy UI, but I also want al the modern technologies Windows has introduced since—DirectStorage, D3D12, fast SSDs, device-independent pixels and vector UIs, all written directly against a Windows API that is modernised, safe, and easy to use. No React, no ads in my weather app; the only browser on my computer will be the browser itself.

> I really wish Windows 11 had a Windows 2000 mode. I want a grey, boxy UI, but I also want al the modern technologies Windows has introduced since—DirectStorage, D3D12, fast SSDs, device-independent pixels and vector UIs, all written directly against a Windows API that is modernised, safe, and easy to use. No React I know that you said "no React" but you might want to try ReactOS. Of course if you don't need Windows…

ReactOS does not have the features that the parent specifically asked for (and that you quoted). It’s also far from being usable as a production OS.

What the parent wants doesn’t exist, it’s interesting to see people give suggestions for alternatives. It’s clear that their priority are these underlying features and they wish it had a boxy grey UI, not that the boxy grey UI is the only requirement and everything else is optional.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#225

Post by pdntspa »

adrianwaj wrote: post #43
xnorswap wrote: post #30

This leaves me kind of sad, that we've had such little innovation in desktop / window-managers for 30 years. Certainly it doesn't feel any easier to manage multiple windows than when we had a quarter of the screen space.

I am starting to think the top half of the screen should be the desktop, the bottom half should be the start menu but already activated and full of programs. No conventional bottom panel-bar with a start button. A right-most column should exist that fills up with a list of opened windows. [1] When I first saw Win95 with a cleared desktop, I immediately thought - where has everything gone? Why is this empty? Decades l…

You would really dedicate half the screen to something we use like 5% of the time?

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#226

Post by graemep »

dspillett wrote: post #170
kps wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘Took out usability features to make them "look nicer"’ is exactly how Steve Jobs gave us the double-click, undiscoverable and timing-sensitive.

Double-click came out of Xerox's research park. Apply might have been the first to put that into a popular desktop PC solution, but it wasn't their design any more than the rest of the system they copied. There are arguments that a second button was a much better idea, but that would still not be immediately discoverable and even with many buttons in modern solutions we _still_ have double-clicking.

Everything I have read about this suggests it was Apple. e.g. https://www.folklore.org/Busy_Being_Born.html

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#227

Post by graemep »

Anonyneko wrote: post #187
kps wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘Took out usability features to make them "look nicer"’ is exactly how Steve Jobs gave us the double-click, undiscoverable and timing-sensitive.

And something my older relatives have trouble with to this day, no matter how much I adjust their double-click timing settings...

I have most things set .to single click to activate.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#228

Post by 1970-01-01 »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #69

I really wish Windows 11 had a Windows 2000 mode. I want a grey, boxy UI, but I also want al the modern technologies Windows has introduced since—DirectStorage, D3D12, fast SSDs, device-independent pixels and vector UIs, all written directly against a Windows API that is modernised, safe, and easy to use. No React, no ads in my weather app; the only browser on my computer will be the browser itself.

Go with Win 10 LTSC or use Win Server as a daily. Both are crap-less and can be fully debloated in minutes.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#229

Post by mixmastamyk »

BoppreH wrote: post #197
xerox13ster wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do you see that title bar buttons are bad explicitly because you have to hunt for title bar edges? That you were more or less forced to adopt these KDE shortcuts so that you could work around the fact that they had cannibalized the title bar for a purpose it was not designed for. You were forced to change your workflow and everybody else is having to be forced to adapt because they changed a metaphor that has rem…

> You were forced to change your workflow and everybody else is having to be forced to adapt because they changed a metaphor that has remained stable on the desktop for over 40 years All of the "positive" items I listed come with drawbacks. I didn't realize I might be in the minority for this one, since I genuinely prefer the new workflow.

The old ways supported both keyboard and mouse workflows, on purpose. There was no reason to collapse the titlebar except for the unfortunate time when 16:9 monitors were forced on us and vertical space became precious. A time thankfully that is over.

Today I have one 3:2 and one portrait monitor so compacted titlebars are particularly poor design.

Thankfully KDE for the most part does not indulge in that, and let’s you fix window borders, but they have other failures such as hard coded button order in dialogs.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#230

Post by washingupliquid »

abanana wrote: post #99
pjc50 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Operating systems of that era were designed based on UX research to help people use the unfamiliar operating system. Subsequent ones were designed by UI designers, and opinionated senior managers, who already knew how to use them, and took out usability features to make them "look nicer". This sort of worked when the opinionated manager was Steve Jobs. Most managers are not Steve Jobs. > in some applications they see…

> Operating systems of that era were designed based on UX research Too many developers nowadays don't know this. On any HN discussion of UIs, I've been noticing a growing number of younger devs insisting that usability is entirely subjective (their words, not mine). It's not just that they don't know about cleverly thought-out things such as safe triangles in nested menus or all the affordances/signifiers espoused by…

> Too many developers nowadays don't know this.

Guess they've never been on the phone with an elderly relative in tears because she can't figure out basic tasks on an iPad anymore after years of learning how.

That's when you realize you, as a highly-skilled technical person, can't either, because they've moved, hidden, or otherwise obfuscated them.

Yesterday I learned there are two icons in the Files app called "..."

Yes, two.

Incidentally I was looking for how to delete a file, which is now deliberately missing from the object's context menu, and intentionally hidden under one of these.

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