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FVWM-95 (2001)

fvwm95.sourceforge.net

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Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#21

Post by ajross »

jeroenhd wrote: post #17
ajross wrote: post #6

This was a kludgey hack that never managed to land upstream, yet utterly dominated (for a brief moment) the headspace of the early linux desktop. It's funny how quickly things were moving at the time. In the mid 90's, GUI design elements were still in their infancy. Even basic stuff like "what do windows do?" was in flux. Traditional X window managers hadn't settled on anything like a regular usage model: twm was sti…

The close button has always been there, you double clicked the top left menu button. That worked all the way until Microsoft started redoing window decorations in desktop mode with Windows 8.1, and even for a short period after. This was also copied into other X window control styles. Even today, a Motif replicates the Windows 1.0-3.11 top-left menu+close button.

And that answer is precisely why (1) Windows 95 was such a revelation to the market and (2) nerds like us remain oblivious to that[1] even three decades on.

Yeah, yeah, I know CUA allows for a window close. No one knew. I worked IT at the time (as did lots of us here in our youth I'm sure) and was constantly teaching and re-teaching this trick to the poor people trapped with their CUA environments.

But suddenly with Windows 95 you could see how it worked.

[1] Even if we knew in our bones, c.f. this very discussion about the popularity of a cloned hack on Linux, that it was the Right Thing.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#22

Post by kergonath »

ajross wrote: post #16
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then Windows 95 landed like a bomb: there was a CLOSE button in the corner of the window finally! And there was a start menu and a little status bar! And that's what we all decided we wanted, really badly. So it got cloned and picked up pervasively. Basically everyone not already part of one of the X11 camps was running this. Huh? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but Mac windows had close buttons even as far back as S…

Mac UI as generally understood didn't involve moving windows around yet, not really[1]. "Window management" at the time was limited to the paradigm you'd see on the mac plus screen where you'd have one app window and some dialog boxes. Yes, you had a button to close it, but the paradigm didn't match the needs of the big workstation screens on which X11 evolved. [1] These were the dark days of the mac. It was falling…

> Mac UI as generally understood didn't involve moving windows around yet, not really[1]. "Window management" at the time was limited to the paradigm you'd see on the mac plus screen where you'd have one app window and some dialog boxes.

When Windows 95 was released, the top of the line was the PowerMac 81000 and the remaining Quadras, and 1024x768 was common. Overlapping windows and multitasking were not particularly unheard of… The Mac Plus had not been sold for half a decade. System 7 was released 5 years before, and 7.5 at about the same time. I mean, sure Windows 95 was successful, but let’s not rewrite history.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#23

Post by BastienSANTE »

Insane homepage pull vro

It's incredible how much charm there was in these interfaces, specifically in the bitmap fonts. Were GUI applications more or less graphically diverse than now ?

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#24

Post by ajross »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #19
ajross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac UI as generally understood didn't involve moving windows around yet, not really[1]. "Window management" at the time was limited to the paradigm you'd see on the mac plus screen where you'd have one app window and some dialog boxes. Yes, you had a button to close it, but the paradigm didn't match the needs of the big workstation screens on which X11 evolved. [1] These were the dark days of the mac. It was falling…

On the Mac Plus and other Macs in a similar chassis, yes, there wasn't much room to move windows around, but it was still possible. Apple also released several larger Mac displays (around 16 by my count) prior to 1995, including two 21" models (in 1989 and 1991, respectively). Workstation-like window management absolutely happened on Macs in the late 80s and early 90s.

(I remain amazed at how people even today will argue like this trying to avoid talking nice about MS. You're misconstruing the point, seemingly deliberately.)

Sure, on $15k ($30k in 2025 dollars) Mac II's. See also the answer elsewhere about NeXTSTEP being a player in this space.

No one was doing it in the consumer space, no consumer knew about that stuff, Linux consumers on their 14" 800x600 monitors sure hadn't see it. And to repeat yet again, Microsoft Windows 95 landed like a bomb in this community and changed everything. And it happened very fast.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#26

Post by actionfromafar »

ajross wrote: post #21
jeroenhd wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The close button has always been there, you double clicked the top left menu button. That worked all the way until Microsoft started redoing window decorations in desktop mode with Windows 8.1, and even for a short period after. This was also copied into other X window control styles. Even today, a Motif replicates the Windows 1.0-3.11 top-left menu+close button.

And that answer is precisely why (1) Windows 95 was such a revelation to the market and (2) nerds like us remain oblivious to that[1] even three decades on. Yeah, yeah, I know CUA allows for a window close. No one knew. I worked IT at the time (as did lots of us here in our youth I'm sure) and was constantly teaching and re-teaching this trick to the poor people trapped with their CUA environments. But suddenly with…

Yet we are back to hamburger menus.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#27

Post by Nullmoment »

BastienSANTE wrote: post #23

Insane homepage pull vro It's incredible how much charm there was in these interfaces, specifically in the bitmap fonts. Were GUI applications more or less graphically diverse than now ?

Bit of a mix, but less diverse depending on the platform. Apples Skeuomorphic Era, was likely the height of "anything goes" in the mainstream.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#28

Post by deafpolygon »

I love lightweight desktops, like this one. I just wish we could have a lightweight browser. Seems like you spin up a chrome browser and all that saving goes out the window

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#29

Post by efdee »

jeroenhd wrote: post #17
ajross wrote: post #6

This was a kludgey hack that never managed to land upstream, yet utterly dominated (for a brief moment) the headspace of the early linux desktop. It's funny how quickly things were moving at the time. In the mid 90's, GUI design elements were still in their infancy. Even basic stuff like "what do windows do?" was in flux. Traditional X window managers hadn't settled on anything like a regular usage model: twm was sti…

The close button has always been there, you double clicked the top left menu button. That worked all the way until Microsoft started redoing window decorations in desktop mode with Windows 8.1, and even for a short period after. This was also copied into other X window control styles. Even today, a Motif replicates the Windows 1.0-3.11 top-left menu+close button.

It actually still works to this day. Doubleclick the top left menu button (the one with the app icon) and your window closes.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#30

Post by LocalH »

It's pretty visually accurate, fonts notwithstanding. It even reproduces the slight gap between maximize and close that existed all the way back to the earliest Win95 builds with the "new" window style
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