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Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

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Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#191

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

BoppreH wrote: post #75
bronlund wrote: post #32

I can't help thinking about how much we have lost. Just finding the scrollbar nowadays can be a challenge. Not to mention if you want to resize a pane - in some applications they seem to have taken extra steps to make it difficult to find the line to grab.

We also lost clearly identifiable buttons, loading bars (replaced with throbbers), status bars that tell you what you're hovering over and what the program is doing, stable UIs to develop muscle memory, etc. But we did gain some nice things! - Tabs. - Titlebar buttons and other space-saving measures. - Document editors remembering unsaved changes. - Forms that validate on focus lost, instead of submission. - Ctrl+P m…

"- Document editors remembering unsaved changes."

This can be really annoying when I don't want to save these changes

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#192

Post by hulitu »

Liftyee wrote: post #98
bronlund wrote: post #32

I can't help thinking about how much we have lost. Just finding the scrollbar nowadays can be a challenge. Not to mention if you want to resize a pane - in some applications they seem to have taken extra steps to make it difficult to find the line to grab.

I'm curious - how often do you use the scrollbar? For me, almost never (or only as an indication of progress through a document). I'm scrolling only with wheel or arrows or PgUp etc. Perhaps though this is learned behaviour from scrollbars being tiny. I'd rather have the extra screen space. The scrollbar is usually a nuisance when I accidentally touch it (touchscreen) and the page jumps away.

> I'm curious - how often do you use the scrollbar?

Almost every time. Scrolling with the mouse has bugs in Windows (focus on the active field) and fine grained scrolling is not possible with the mouse.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#194

Post by xerox13ster »

BoppreH wrote: post #75
bronlund wrote: post #32

I can't help thinking about how much we have lost. Just finding the scrollbar nowadays can be a challenge. Not to mention if you want to resize a pane - in some applications they seem to have taken extra steps to make it difficult to find the line to grab.

We also lost clearly identifiable buttons, loading bars (replaced with throbbers), status bars that tell you what you're hovering over and what the program is doing, stable UIs to develop muscle memory, etc. But we did gain some nice things! - Tabs. - Titlebar buttons and other space-saving measures. - Document editors remembering unsaved changes. - Forms that validate on focus lost, instead of submission. - Ctrl+P m…

> Titlebar buttons and other space-saving measures.

This has been net negative. Now everyone thinks it’s ok to shove every control up there and there’s nowhere to grab a window to move it that isn’t also a button. But the OS interprets button click and mouse drag as cancel the button click.

I wish people would stop doing this.

We HAVE HI DPI screens with large resolutions and even 640x480 had title bars!!!!!

What space could possibly need saving?

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#195

Post by xerox13ster »

BoppreH wrote: post #168
thesuitonym wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Titlebar buttons are actually bad. The titlebar exists (or existed) for a reason, so you'd have somewhere you could grab to manipulate the window. Now it's kind of a guessing game with every app on where you can grab without causing the app to do something you didn't want.

If that's a problem for you, you have much to gain with better window management shortcuts. On KDE I have the Windows key + left click set to drag a window from anywhere , and win + right click to resize depending on the quadrant the cursor is on. It's incredibly satisfying not having to hunt titlebar empty spaces or thin edges.

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 remained stable on the desktop for over 40 years

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#197

Post by BoppreH »

xerox13ster wrote: post #195
BoppreH wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's a problem for you, you have much to gain with better window management shortcuts. On KDE I have the Windows key + left click set to drag a window from anywhere , and win + right click to resize depending on the quadrant the cursor is on. It's incredibly satisfying not having to hunt titlebar empty spaces or thin edges.

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.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#198

Post by rawgabbit »

I was still in school when OS/2 came out. I read about it in the magazines never touching it myself. I was impressed with its aesthetics but never knew with the clout of IBM why it never took off. My guess is internal politics killed OS/2 more than Microsoft?

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#199

Post by ninjamar »

xerox13ster wrote: post #194
BoppreH wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also lost clearly identifiable buttons, loading bars (replaced with throbbers), status bars that tell you what you're hovering over and what the program is doing, stable UIs to develop muscle memory, etc. But we did gain some nice things! - Tabs. - Titlebar buttons and other space-saving measures. - Document editors remembering unsaved changes. - Forms that validate on focus lost, instead of submission. - Ctrl+P m…

> Titlebar buttons and other space-saving measures. This has been net negative. Now everyone thinks it’s ok to shove every control up there and there’s nowhere to grab a window to move it that isn’t also a button. But the OS interprets button click and mouse drag as cancel the button click. I wish people would stop doing this. We HAVE HI DPI screens with large resolutions and even 640x480 had title bars!!!!! What spa…

On a small macbook that I use for programming, every bit of my screen has been meticulously prepared by me to cram in a lot of functionality

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#200

Post by zhxiaoliang »

Seeing these brought back a flood of memories. Logging onto AOL through GeoWorks for the first time. Clicking that tiny lit apartment window in the Macintosh mouse tutorial and watching the curtain peel back to reveal a couple dancing inside. Mesmerized by the soft shade on OS/2 buttons like they were works of art (yes, I know that’s weird). Bringing my NeXTstation into the office when I was just a lowly game tester and getting that look from my boss.

Those really were magical days.

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