(mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9 • Hacker News Board

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#141

Post by usui » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:20 AM UTC

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #133

Duckton wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give some examples on why you think Windows XP is better than macOS and also how macOS is crap?

- Finder - Applications not actually being terminated when clicking on the close icon - lagging / unreliable context menu opening with middle-index-finger on apps in dock bar - the concept of installing something by moving it from an icon on the left to an icon on the right - or when you can't start apps due to connectivity issues - app removal is totally opaque and sometimes requires to download a custom uninstallat…

Huh? These just sound like grievances that a user used to Windows will have when moving from Windows to macOS, but at that point it's about what you're used to, not what is inherently bad about the design.

Explorer is much worse (drives? Still can't really understand Windows file systems to this day). Sending an app to Applications/wastebin for install/uninstall is (arguable) more visually intuitive for a layperson than an install/uninstall script that most people just click "Next" without reading any of the instructions. The concept of applications having multiple windows is an OS-level thing to get used to.

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#142

Post by UncleSlacky » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

linguae wrote: post #34

As a big fan of the Platinum theme used in Mac OS 8 and 9, I absolutely love this!!! This is a fantastic demo of what modern applications would look like had they been designed under the Apple Human Interface Guidelines of the Mac OS 9 era. If these weren't mockups and were actual redesigns of Spotify, Zoom, and Slack, I'd download them as soon as possible.

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#143

Post by 2-718-281-828 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

Duckton wrote: post #137

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Finder - Applications not actually being terminated when clicking on the close icon - lagging / unreliable context menu opening with middle-index-finger on apps in dock bar - the concept of installing something by moving it from an icon on the left to an icon on the right - or when you can't start apps due to connectivity issues - app removal is totally opaque and sometimes requires to download a custom uninstallat…

I find finder more productive than explorer. I love the fact that clicking the close icon of a window doesn’t terminate the application Haven’t experienced this, not sure what you are referring to. Also something I like. The fact that an installation is just moving an executable, is to me, superior to an entire process with regedit and what not. As I said somewhere below, it might just come down to what one is used t…

> I love the fact that clicking the close icon of a window doesn’t terminate the application

what is the difference then between closing and minimizing?

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#144

Post by jayd16 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

__void wrote: post #130

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #116

Mac OS UI is a great example for why one shouldn't "improve" software just for the sake for changing something. UI design peaked at Windows XP style. the design portraied here falls for my opinion in that category. As a user of xfce (on Linux Mint) which is basically Windows XP with different icons I am super happy. Apple actually came up with only a single valuable UI element and that is the three finger swipe to sw…

Well, windows XP was the peak of gui... only when set to classic mode (like windows millennium)! the plastic edges and colors of XP offered nothing extra to 9x-class interfaces; the absolute peak of interfaces was mac system 9

I don't know. I kind of prefer Windows XP as the many-windowed-application style died out by then. Now the only major example I can think of is Gimp.

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#145

Post by cprecioso » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:27 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #111

jen20 wrote: post #56

I definitely can’t help but wish a version of Slack that actually gave a passing concern for integration into a system UI exists. The “look we can do custom CSS everywhere and not look like ANY of our target platforms” garbage has the bane of my work day since it became popular.

Check out https://shrugs.app , but development appears to have stalled according to the blog.

I can see an update release on their Twitter[1] as of Dec 8th, doesn't look much stalled IMO

1: https://twitter.com/AppShrugs/status/1468576646856851460

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#146

Post by zinekeller » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:27 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #129

porcoda wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing and bad reputation are not mutually exclusive. Electron is an impressive engineering accomplishment, but it also has some dimensions that not everyone likes. Electron is great if you're a developer who wants to write apps in javascript+HTML+CSS and put developer preferences over preferences of users. Not everyone agrees that the decisions behind Electron and using it are good decisions.

> Electron is great if you're a developer who wants to write apps in javascript+HTML+CSS and put developer preferences over preferences of users I’m so tired of this. Sure, the case for Electron is that it allows leveraging web-targeting code and skills, which makes more devs able to work on desktop software give the current prevalence of web skills and makes their job easier given the prevalence of web-targeting cod…

> I’m so tired of this.

... and so do I, as someone supporting a company, looking at why users complain that their shiny new M1 laptops' batteries still sucks. I can tolerate Electron if it's battery-efficient, but everytime we analysed which apps are battery-hungry? Electron apps always tops the list. Not to mention genuine UI concerns like why are some developers insisting on a thin grey font that's genuinely unreadable? And even if it has a decent UI, navigation outside of a mouse-keyboard duo is never there. We have to file multiple bugs on behalf of disabled users because most web devs don't care about accessibility.

In a sense, I wouldn't complain about Electron if these three problems (battery life, genuinely user-hostile UI, poor accessibility) didn't exist (or are few and far between that it became an annoyance instead of being monsters), but here we are. Again, I don't want to waste dev time on inconsequential things like most UI toolkits are insisting. I've worked on apps with Qt and it genuinely sucks, and web development has been genuinely a better development platform (still sucked, but much less), but developing an application predicates on that application not being user-hostile, and Electron (and to be honest, web in general) doesn't encourage the developers to think about these issues.

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#147

Post by Duckton » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #143

Duckton wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find finder more productive than explorer. I love the fact that clicking the close icon of a window doesn’t terminate the application Haven’t experienced this, not sure what you are referring to. Also something I like. The fact that an installation is just moving an executable, is to me, superior to an entire process with regedit and what not. As I said somewhere below, it might just come down to what one is used t…

> I love the fact that clicking the close icon of a window doesn’t terminate the application what is the difference then between closing and minimizing?

I minimise when I want to get the content, fx a VS code workspace, out of the way to retrieve it later.

Close is when I am done with that particular window/workspace.

Command+Q is when I’m done working in VS code entirely.

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#148

Post by pdpi » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #133

Duckton wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give some examples on why you think Windows XP is better than macOS and also how macOS is crap?

- Finder - Applications not actually being terminated when clicking on the close icon - lagging / unreliable context menu opening with middle-index-finger on apps in dock bar - the concept of installing something by moving it from an icon on the left to an icon on the right - or when you can't start apps due to connectivity issues - app removal is totally opaque and sometimes requires to download a custom uninstallat…

Windows conflates windows and applications, macOS doesn’t. It’s a mental model thing, I personally like the Mac version better — closing the last window doesn’t have a special case behaviour, and it plays nicer with things like Spotify or Discord that you want running continuously and don’t want to close the whole application inadvertently.

Not sure what you mean about lagging context menu?

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#149

Post by skocznymroczny » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #116

Mac OS UI is a great example for why one shouldn't "improve" software just for the sake for changing something. UI design peaked at Windows XP style. the design portraied here falls for my opinion in that category. As a user of xfce (on Linux Mint) which is basically Windows XP with different icons I am super happy. Apple actually came up with only a single valuable UI element and that is the three finger swipe to sw…

I disagree. Currently I have a company provided Macbook Pro (butterfly keyboard) and a Thinkpad. I very much prefer to work on the Macbook. Software issues aside - Macbook is less preloaded with company snake oil crapware, also gives easy access to Unixy commandline tools. Hardware - I much prefer the Macbook. It's completely quiet 99% of the time, whereas the Thinkpad has it's fans blazing as soon as I open Chrome. The build quality feels much better on the Macbook and I love how sleek and thin it is. Meanwhile Thinkpad feels like a brick.

Re: (mac)ostalgia – how Spotify, Slack, Chrome, Figma could look on Mac OS 9

#150

Post by edgyquant » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:30 AM UTC

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #116

Mac OS UI is a great example for why one shouldn't "improve" software just for the sake for changing something. UI design peaked at Windows XP style. the design portraied here falls for my opinion in that category. As a user of xfce (on Linux Mint) which is basically Windows XP with different icons I am super happy. Apple actually came up with only a single valuable UI element and that is the three finger swipe to sw…

I have never seen anyone argue Mac OS was anything but beautiful but I guess there’s a first for everything. These threads pop up constantly and I always jump in to ask people claiming they find the blocky beige of late 90s OSS more aesthetically pleasing to explain how it is they believe this to be true.

There are lots of complaints about modern OSs one can make but none of the major three are anything close to ugly and are all easy on the eyes. So I ask you to explain why you believe UI design peaked in the 90s, when just using these OSs was unintuitive to anyone but a tech enthusiast, other than you are looking through rose colored glasses.

I started on Win95 and remember how I couldn’t wait to switch to XP and where there were actual colors and it didn’t feel so empty. I then wanted to switch to vista so bad that when my PC wouldn’t handle it I download SUSE Community Edition (a Linux) because Vista copied a lot of its fancy new UI (like previews and 3D icons) from Gnome (at least it seemed that way to me, may not be true or it could be they just happened to be tested on Gnome first.)

I get rose colored glasses for sure but romanticizing about a UI that only looked as plain as it did due to technical limitations just seems weird to me.

Then again I suppose their were people who thought black and white cartoons were objectively prettier than technicolor. People have a way of convincing themselves what they initially got used to is the best way and any change is a regression.