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Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file

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Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file

#41

Post by Kwpolska »

janci wrote: post #24
shevy-java wrote: post #2

Can it really be called evolution? That sort of implies an improvement. Interestingly enough, the default GTK file chooser also sucks. I notice this nowadays because I broke something in my setup but I don't know what, and the default file chooser does not remember anything I do. Prior to that I found out that for opening files via the browser, I need to have e. g. xdg-desktop-portal-gtk running. Well, my browser nev…

I never understood why file open/save dialog is a separate thing. I want to use my file manager to open and save files!

You need a separate UI to handle things like entering the file name and filtering for appropriate files. Windows was designed so that the same file browser component is used in the Explorer and in open/save dialogs (but with Windows 7-era UI), but on Linux, which file manager should GTK use? GTK sometimes likes to pretend it’s separate from GNOME.

Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file

#42

Post by wander_homer »

fifticon wrote: post #19
inigyou wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at this point GNOME is a joke. I'm not sure KDE is always better but at least KDE is clearly trying. btw Wayland is also a project of the GNOME team and almost everyone is using the KDE extensions to it to make it suck less.

I'm not sure you can blame the GNOME people for not trying. Personally, I feel like they are actively trying to make it worse, ie they are not passive. Their approach to file system dialogs (open file/folder, save file), was what got me to finally realize, that I must necessarily prefer KDE, because I must necessarily prefer anything that is not GNOME. Now if I could only figure out how to stop KDE from opening file…

What's the problem with GNOME's approach to file system dialogs? I really like their portals approach. On GNOME you get a Nautilus based picker, on KDE a GNOME app gives you the KDE file picker and if a platform doesn't provide a file chooser portal you get the GTK internal fallback picker.

Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file

#43

Post by prmoustache »

reddalo wrote: post #3

I think Windows 9x was peak Windows. Everything is clear, you know what's a button and what's not. Information density is also high, which is a good thing on a computer screen. But the main thing is that Windows 9x felt responsive . The Windows widgets felt solid and performant, while "modern" UWP apps feel clunky and prone to breakage. And don't even get me started on Electron. Edit. See OP's previous article here,…

I'd replace 9x by windows 2000. It was the only decent windows. 9x were BSOD crashfest, 2000 was stable as NT but without the enshittification of XP (ugly default themes, stuff above calling internet services with zero value).

I think what you describe as responsive are 2 things:

1. absence of animations. I don't know about windows but on linux DE you can disable them, it feels snappier but more raw and I think most people still prefer the animations.

2. Visual and audio clues. Back in the days we were on spinning disks so anytime you'd click on somethimg you would hear the disk moaning in pain and see that disk led blinking. You knew that something was happening, even if it took a long time. When SSD were introduced, everything became instant and silent for a few years, it was pure bliss. Then over the last decade apps continued growing and growing in size and as fast as they were SSDs and NVME started not feeling that fast because so much stuff had to be loaded into memory. Nowadays many apps are still starting much faster than before but the biggest one still take a substantial time. Worse, we have lost all visual and audio clues that something is happening.

Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file

#44

Post by bananaflag »

jameshart wrote: post #21
reddalo wrote: post #3

I think Windows 9x was peak Windows. Everything is clear, you know what's a button and what's not. Information density is also high, which is a good thing on a computer screen. But the main thing is that Windows 9x felt responsive . The Windows widgets felt solid and performant, while "modern" UWP apps feel clunky and prone to breakage. And don't even get me started on Electron. Edit. See OP's previous article here,…

Windows 9x did not feel ‘performant’. This is a false memory people seem to have. Spinning rust hard drives were slow. It took ages to launch a program - loading screens typically had time to display a progress bar and a series of notes about what they were up to - ‘loading extensions’, ‘reticulating splines’, etc. Word would stall whenever it was autosaving. Carrying out an operation like spell checking or doing a f…

> This is a false memory people seem to have.

I have no idea where that false memory is coming from, I also remember being utterly frustrated by Windows 98 on 450 MHz with 64 MB RAM. The only systems ever which felt performant to me are modern minimalist Linux on modern hardware.

Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file

#46

Post by wffurr »

donatj wrote: post #10

I wish this was more of a full tour than a random sampler of Windows versions. For instance I feel like Windows Me introduced the online search but it's been like... 26 years... since I've used it. > Now there's a big gap. I don't have access to anything between Windows XP and Windows 10. So, Windows 10 (2015) is next I'm guess these are just what the author already had set up. They're not really difficult to find or…

[flagged]

Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file

#47

Post by bee_rider »

exitb wrote: post #37
jameshart wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 9x did not feel ‘performant’. This is a false memory people seem to have. Spinning rust hard drives were slow. It took ages to launch a program - loading screens typically had time to display a progress bar and a series of notes about what they were up to - ‘loading extensions’, ‘reticulating splines’, etc. Word would stall whenever it was autosaving. Carrying out an operation like spell checking or doing a f…

I have a running Windows 98 PC with P3 550MHz and SSD connected via IDE adapter. The drive is a bit out of place, but it’s legitimately the fastest booting, most responsive computer in my house. Its only speed issue is that it can really do just one thing. Any heavy task (including large file/network operations, apparently) will render the system almost unresponsive until it’s finished.

I wonder how the CPU in the SSD controller compares to the one in the PC.

Re: Windows UI evolution: Clicking an unassociated file

#49

Post by badsectoracula »

jameshart wrote: post #21
reddalo wrote: post #3

I think Windows 9x was peak Windows. Everything is clear, you know what's a button and what's not. Information density is also high, which is a good thing on a computer screen. But the main thing is that Windows 9x felt responsive . The Windows widgets felt solid and performant, while "modern" UWP apps feel clunky and prone to breakage. And don't even get me started on Electron. Edit. See OP's previous article here,…

Windows 9x did not feel ‘performant’. This is a false memory people seem to have. Spinning rust hard drives were slow. It took ages to launch a program - loading screens typically had time to display a progress bar and a series of notes about what they were up to - ‘loading extensions’, ‘reticulating splines’, etc. Word would stall whenever it was autosaving. Carrying out an operation like spell checking or doing a f…

For a long time i had a small Pentium III PC (released in 2000, though the hardware inside wasn't the best you could get at the time as it was meant to be compact instead of performant - it was in an almost pizzabox sized case) running Windows 98 for retro games and software (though mainly games). At some point i installed Visual Studio 6 to it too - and IME it launched instantly[0].

In general everything ran fast... except stuff that had to do a lot of disk access, obviously (i.e. installers and such). But i never though that the system didn't feel responsive.

Also many modern programs have splash screens too. E.g. have you tried to launch Gimp or Krita recently? Or Eclipse? "Heavy" applications never stopped having those.

Of course computers are much faster now, nobody is saying otherwise. What people are saying is that it often doesn't feel so. If my Pentium III can open Visual Studio 6 faster than my 3700X can open Calculator, then yes, things do feel more performant on the Pentium III running Windows 98 even if the modern machine is much faster.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h79Bt7h5ceo

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