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

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

#221

Post by kergonath »

Aeolun wrote: post #78
kalleboo wrote: post #23

I miss when application software was allowed to have multiple windows.

I kind of like having one window per application. I already have 15 different applications open at the same time, I don’t need them to have 4 windows each.

I am a bit ambivalent on this. Most of the small windows in the mock-ups would actually be palettes, not true windows. It also works much better in an application-centric OS such as MacOS compared to window-centric ones like Windows or most Linux DEs.

Sure, the proliferation of floating palettes in the 2000s was a bit much, but on the other hand monolithic single-window apps for everything is terrible. Slack, for example, would be much better if we could different windows for calls, chats, and the channel list. As it stands now, we have either one window with conflicting functions, or a lot of repeated information taking up quite a lot of space. Ultimately, this is the result of cramming everything into one window because some OSes confuse windows for applications. It is grating to see this design pattern on macOS, which really does not work that way.

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

#222

Post by kergonath »

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?

> what is the difference then between closing and minimizing?

Closing is putting away, as in “I don’t think I’ll need it in the near future”, and minimising is putting aside as in “I’ll probably come back to this in 5 minutes”. The minimised window is not cluttering the screen but still accessible from the dock and list of open windows in its application. This is not related to the problem you claimed to have with an application being still open without having a single window.

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

#223

Post by kergonath »

icelancer wrote: post #128
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?

Command vs. ALT/CTRL bindings are vastly superior in Windows. The MacOS method of using the Command button is different for the sake of being different, not for any actual productive reason. I had the first Macbook Retina and used it for years at a company where it made sense to do so; when I handed it in and left for my own startup life, I was open to either OS (couldn't use Linux as the daily driver since I my indu…

> Command vs. ALT/CTRL bindings are vastly superior in Windows. The MacOS method of using the Command button is different for the sake of being different, not for any actual productive reason.

Command is much more accessible as part of a shortcut than control. Also, alt is much more useful as a composition key than as a pseudo-control key. And seriously, who in their right mind believes that things like alt-F4 are a good idea? The way Windows shortcuts work is particularly idiosyncratic and makes sense only as an historical oddity from way back when DOS had to coexist with Windows.

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

#224

Post by andrekandre »

kaba0 wrote: post #119
SllX wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and there was also no expectation whatsoever of "touch friendly" controls so everything was a lot more tightly-spaced than today Well if Apple’s Execs are to be believed, touch-screen Macs aren’t in the pipeline, which is aces with me because that’s what my iPad is for. So given that the preeminent pointing devices on a Macintosh are still the mouse and trackpad, I could do with them tightening up the spacing again…

But ios apps are runnable on macs, aren’t they? And on that front apple does want some unification.

a lot of them arent available on the appstore (anymore anyways), and the few i tried were.... not that great (like iphone apps with non-resizable windows)...

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

#225

Post by elxr »

jeroenhd wrote: post #161
waspight wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Electron is quite amazing. It does not deserve this bad reputation that it for some reason has on HN.

Electron is amazing for developers; less so for the end users. You get faster iteration and more features at the cost of humongous system resource usage. Running several Electron applications, each with their own slightly-outdated Chrome engine, is terrible for battery life and available system resources, but you do get fully-featured applications in no time. If your users run 32GiB of RAM and at least 8 cores, then…

Yup, as a developer, being able to build a UI once and have it work pretty much identically on Linux, Windows, and MacOS is a huge time saver.

But whenever I actually use an electron app; the startup times and half-baked keyboard support (I know this is the dev's fault, not electron's, but it is much more common on electron apps) always remind me that this isn't the best way to make desktop apps.

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

#226

Post by Nextgrid »

cprecioso wrote: post #145
Nextgrid wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Apologies, I was just going by the official blog. Glad they’re still going.

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

#227

Post by pulsarmx »

jonpurdy wrote: post #9
jonpalmisc wrote: post #2

Wow, this is incredible. Can’t imagine how much work this took. Seeing this makes me think about how many modern applications could learn a few things from the old Mac OS 8/9 Human Interface Guidelines. [0] [0] http://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/doc...

It’s amazing to me how much more usable those UIs are. Not to mention how much more performant they’d be than modern Electron garbage. But forget about Mac OS 9, we don’t even have native OS X or Windows interfaces anymore. Doesn’t help that Apple dropped the ball on following their own UI guidelines.

This intense hatred for Electron has always baffled me. I thought the community in general was in favour of allowing people to create whatever they wanted, however they wanted. More people making software is good! And the community grows because of it, and everything is better. But every time an electron app gets promoted somewhere (HN/Reddit/Twitter/wherever) there is always _someone_ yelling at the developer because they decided to use Electron.

As a javascript developer, I'm sorry that I don't have the patience/smarts/skills/time to learn C++/Qt/GTK/WxWidgets/etc. HTML/CSS/Javascript is all I know and it's probably all I will reasonably stay with for a while because of various circumstances. And Electron lets me use the knowledge I already have to make things.

That's not to say that Electron doesn't have all these issues, of course. But I feel that this policing of how people write their own software (especially when it's something purely done as a hobby and/or just to share something with people) is getting somewhat out of hand.

Here's a hypotetical/philosophical question for the community in general. Given no other alternatives to do X, what is preferable? An Electron app that allows people to do X, or no app at all?

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

#228

Post by flenserboy »

Nicely done — but what would be even more interesting would be an attempt to see where Mac OS would have gone had a) Aqua not happened, and b) Had they resisted the trends in interfaces that most OSes have followed since. I'm genuinely curious to see where Mac OS (or Windows 2000, for that matter) might be today, especially from the perspective of usability, going their own, user- and content-focused, ways.

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

#229

Post by waynecochran »

nebula8804 wrote: post #164
waynecochran wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been working on Cocoa app all week... still using Objective-C too ...

Oh ok thats good. The OP gave me the opposite impression. Other than the boutique software companies that specialize in a few Mac apps, I don't see as much Cocoa anymore and thats a shame.

I agree. You can't find up to date tutorials anymore. I have done enough in the past that I can usually cobble my way through it since I have done a bit of Cocoa programming over the last 18 years -- I don't know how anyone would start from scratch these days.

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

#230

Post by spectre3d »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #183
grishka wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things. - The UIs of the 90s were made with mice and keyboards in mind. The designers' minds weren't yet compromised by the existence of touchscreens, both on phones and Windows laptops. - IT companies were building tools to empower users and actually competed with each other fiercely. It was important to make sure your UI doesn't suck, because otherwise someone else will. This competition required the companies…

How is mac UI "compromised by the existence of touchscreens", when there's not a single MacOS device with a touchscreen? >IT companies were building tools to empower users and actually competed with each other fiercely. Glorifying 90s feature factories? That's a new one.

>there's not a single MacOS device with a touchscreen

The Touch Bar is a touchscreen. It’s on the current 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro and many previous-gen Macs.

Biggest problem is that I can’t use it without looking at it.

https://robservatory.com/the-fundamental-problem-with-the-to...

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