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A CSS framework to recreate Windows 7 GUI

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Re: A CSS framework to recreate Windows 7 GUI

#111

Post by occoder »

torgoguys wrote: post #72
pkrumins wrote: post #70

Windows 2000 was the peak of practical and usable GUI design. It all went downhill from there.

I too see Windows 2000 as Microsoft's peak for usability, at least for the GUI controls it supported. We seem to be in the minority though. You hear far more people praise XP or 7 as the best. I recently went back and installed 2000 to make sure I wasn't forgetting something bad for usability in the UI about 2000 that others remember. Nope. I then installed XP to be sure with today's eyes it wasn't really better than…

> I too see Windows 2000 as Microsoft's peak for usability, at least for the GUI controls it supported. We seem to be in the minority though. You hear far more people praise XP or 7 as the best.

Me three! Windows 2000 is the best not just for usability, but still looks the best. No, all those fluff in XP and 7 don't make them look good, it make them look busy and dirty.

We may be in the minority, but only because relatively few people had a chance to use 2000 before it was replaced by XP one short year later. In contrast, people remember XP and 7 fondly because they kept using them for years and years since the subsequent releases, Vista and 8, were universally hated and panned.

Re: A CSS framework to recreate Windows 7 GUI

#112

Post by forgotmypw17 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #46
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time Windows XP was available, I'd already learned my lesson. Stayed with 2000 until SP3 was available. :)

That was only an issue with the DOS-bootstrapped versions. The NT line was a lot more reliable for early adopters. Or at least it was until XP came along. Which is another good reason why Microsoft peaked with Windows 2000.

I think that there were several different peaks. In terms of UI, I'd say Chicago is the peak. In terms of internals, you're probably right, it was 2000. In terms of performance, I'd say it was probably Windows 7? Maybe it was just because I actually put together my own tower instead of pre-built?

Re: A CSS framework to recreate Windows 7 GUI

#113

Post by Kwpolska »

yuuta wrote: post #107
causality0 wrote: post #2

I'm beginning to have the feeling Windows 7 is the last Microsoft OS I'll ever feel good about installing.

Same here. For me, Windows 7 is consistent in design, efficient (in both performance and user experience) and pure. * Inconsistent design: Starting from Windows 8, Microsoft switched to the Metro design. In Windows 10 Microsoft changed to Fluent design. However, even the Windows components themselves are not fully switched. In Windows 10 today you can find so many legacy designs that had not been removed. Windows 7,…

> For instance, The Windows 10 start menu uses EdgeHTML inside (just press F7 and Caret Browsing dialog will show up).

This also happens in Calculator, and if you look at its source code [0], you’ll see it uses XAML views. I think Caret Browsing is a UWP feature, not necessarily an EdgeHTML thing.

[0]: https://github.com/microsoft/calculator/tree/master/src/Calc...

Re: A CSS framework to recreate Windows 7 GUI

#114

Post by Kwpolska »

mortenlarsen wrote: post #60
AussieWog93 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I held out on "upgrading" to 10 until support was dropped last year. 7 was a huge step forward, with better performance than Vista and all kinds of QOL improvements (Windows Search, DX11 being some big ones). 10 also has some amazing improvements (automatic driver installs via Windows Update being the first thing that springs to mind[1]), but they've unfortunately let ads and anti-features (Bing, Cortana, App "Sugges…

I had a funny issue with Windows 10 a few years ago. I tried to start cmd.exe and nothing happened. Tried a bunch of times more. Still nothing... I was connected to a WiFi network that allowed ping to the entire Internet but not TCP connections. Then I switched to a WiFi network that allowed TCP connections to the Internet and 20+ cmd.exe instances started all at once. I thought: "Wait, that can't be true", but it wa…

I’ve had the same happen in macOS, which would slow down to a crawl when my network didn’t work correctly (quietly dropping packets).

Re: A CSS framework to recreate Windows 7 GUI

#115

Post by Kwpolska »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #62
eeegnu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 7 had a very professional feel to me that subsequent versions lack. Probably has to do with attempting to create a unified tablet / phone / desktop experience.

Best example for me is in windows 10 professional, the blue screen shows you a sad smiley face. Someone designed this and thought it was a good idea to have this in a 'professional' distribution of an OS.

I wouldn’t consider a smiley face unprofessional. What makes a smiley face worse, or less “professional”, than a big red X?

Re: A CSS framework to recreate Windows 7 GUI

#116

Post by andrewmcwatters »

tomerv wrote: post #33
cududa wrote: post #8

I’m sorry but this is not the 7 GUI. These all look like straight linear gradients with no breakpoints in how harsh they appear in this library. To the creator I’d suggest using photoshop or Figma to relocate the design elements, then translate the breakpoints to CSS to make the components more realistic. Great start though!

I think you're overly-critical. The CSS immediately gives the look & feel of using Windows 7. Maybe the gradients are not completely spot-on, but the other 95% of elements are great.

None of the elements are accurate replications of the originals even after accounting for DPI scaling. I love the spirit of the project, but it feels like any other poor replica you’d find anywhere else.

There are spaces between tab button elements, the title bar buttons have excess space and incorrect borders, window buttons are the wrong size and use incorrectly scaled raster icons, the backdrop filter property isn’t applied correctly, the shadows on text boxes are incorrect, the tooltip padding is the wrong value and the wrong box size, buttons have the wrong borders, checkboxes have checks incorrectly applied, the author used raster icons for window buttons but not checkboxes for some reason. I could go on.

It reminds me of those yesteryear rips of future Windows themes on deviantART when those kids replicated the desktops of yet-to-be released versions of Windows but didn’t bother comparing the size or even the right colors of elements.

Re: A CSS framework to recreate Windows 7 GUI

#117

Post by yuuta »

Kwpolska wrote: post #113
yuuta wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. For me, Windows 7 is consistent in design, efficient (in both performance and user experience) and pure. * Inconsistent design: Starting from Windows 8, Microsoft switched to the Metro design. In Windows 10 Microsoft changed to Fluent design. However, even the Windows components themselves are not fully switched. In Windows 10 today you can find so many legacy designs that had not been removed. Windows 7,…

> For instance, The Windows 10 start menu uses EdgeHTML inside (just press F7 and Caret Browsing dialog will show up). This also happens in Calculator, and if you look at its source code [0], you’ll see it uses XAML views. I think Caret Browsing is a UWP feature, not necessarily an EdgeHTML thing. [0]: https://github.com/microsoft/calculator/tree/master/src/Calc...

I guess Caret Browsing is a EdgeHTML thing and in fact it should not show up in UWP applications. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: A CSS framework to recreate Windows 7 GUI

#119

Post by DrSiemer »

f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #5

Ha! What a delightful little project. Thanks for sharing. I can think of all kinds of fun stuff you could do with this. Reminds me of that fake windows update prank. We used to put it on people's screen and maximize it if they forgot to lock their pc. https://fakeupdate.net/

Kids today have it easy. To pull this prank on a highschool teacher (who had me sort out some CAD software, in exchange for skipping boring classes) I had to modify autoexec.bat and recreate a virus message in there, based on something I had seen in the black book of computer viruses.

The poor guy nearly had a heart attack when he turned the pc on and got confronted with it.

Re: A CSS framework to recreate Windows 7 GUI

#120

Post by hulitu »

Kwpolska wrote: post #115
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best example for me is in windows 10 professional, the blue screen shows you a sad smiley face. Someone designed this and thought it was a good idea to have this in a 'professional' distribution of an OS.

I wouldn’t consider a smiley face unprofessional. What makes a smiley face worse, or less “professional”, than a big red X?

Compared with windows 95/NT BSODs the 10 one looks very unprofessional.
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