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Unrelated, but hope someone here knows: what was the name for Microsoft's design language around 2002? Example for Frontpage https://media.codeweavers.com/pub/c

Unrelated, but hope someone here knows: what was the name for Microsoft's design language around 2002? Example for Frontpage https://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/website/appdb/b7a0a09b0a1517ffa3b924e8e1bff8dc.png https://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/website/appdb/b7... Looking for any info on its principles, or anything really.

RicoElectrico 5y ago
The icons and color scheme remind me of Office 2000.
recentdarkness 5y ago
What do you mean by 'design language'? It was a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, at least as far as I know. What 'design language' are you speaking off? It was supposed to be HTML in the end (well whatever that meant in those editors :D)
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Examples: Microsoft's current design language is called Fluent Design. Google's is called Material Design, and Apple's... idk, their old one was Aqua and their current one is referred to as Cupertino I believe? Not sure if they even gave names to designs back then though, I believe it only became a thing during a design transition era some time ago (moving away from 'skeuomorphic' to 'flat design').
  - qbasic_forever 5y ago
    Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, XP, etc. There wasn't a cohesive design language it was just referred by the OS name. You had garish colorschemes (remember hot dog stand?... yeah) and lots of silly things. Win32 programming back then was barely one step above pushing pixels on a canvas and it showed. VB and OLE, then COM started to standardize prebuilt components like dialogs and such that could be shared and used between apps but it was still a wild west of design. Into the 90s it got worse as Windows 98 gave more control over rendering to apps and we had things like Winamp skins that looked like a modern stereo, or a (thankfully) brief period where non-square windows with ovals, curves, and all kinds of junk were in vogue (track down an old copy of Bryce 3D if you want to see something really wild). It's an era of computing that's probably best left forgotten. :)
1_player 5y ago
I couldn't find much about it. I was learning to program MFC at the time, and just before Windows XP appeared Microsoft started experimenting with that flat buttons style, which I really wanted to adopt my apps. I don't think it was an actual design change from Microsoft, just some transitional look-and-feel they adopted which sits between Office 2000 with the classic Windows 95+ look, and Office 2003 inheriting the Fisher-Price oversatured cartoony look of Windows XP. https://bcgsoft.com/featuretour/tour163.htm https://bcgsoft.com/featuretour/tour163.htm
- tralarpa 5y ago
  > flat buttons style, which I really wanted to adopt my apps Everybody wanted them :) 2000 or 2001, right? It was TBSTYLE_FLAT.
nereye 5y ago
There is a snippet linked to from Wikipedia’s article on Office XP (see section on streamlined user interface): https://web.archive.org/web/20050930195959/http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/2/8/c28831e9-684e-4aab-9af3-f061bf68ad70/XPguide.doc https://web.archive.org/web/20050930195959/http://download.m... The overall UI still uses the Command Bars concept (merging of menus and toolbars) first used in Office 97.
Liquid_Fire 5y ago
I like that the screenshot you picked actually shows FrontPage running under Wine/CrossOver, most likely on Linux + KDE (judging by the title bars). It speaks to how successful Wine is that this is easily confused with a native screenshot.

RicoElectrico 5y ago

The icons and color scheme remind me of Office 2000.

recentdarkness 5y ago

What do you mean by 'design language'? It was a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, at least as far as I know. What 'design language' are you speaking off? It was supposed to be HTML in the end (well whatever that meant in those editors :D)

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Examples: Microsoft's current design language is called Fluent Design. Google's is called Material Design, and Apple's... idk, their old one was Aqua and their current one is referred to as Cupertino I believe? Not sure if they even gave names to designs back then though, I believe it only became a thing during a design transition era some time ago (moving away from 'skeuomorphic' to 'flat design').
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, XP, etc. There wasn't a cohesive design language it was just referred by the OS name. You had garish colorschemes (remember hot dog stand?... yeah) and lots of silly things. Win32 programming back then was barely one step above pushing pixels on a canvas and it showed. VB and OLE, then COM started to standardize prebuilt components like dialogs and such that could be shared and used between apps but it was still a wild west of design. Into the 90s it got worse as Windows 98 gave more control over rendering to apps and we had things like Winamp skins that looked like a modern stereo, or a (thankfully) brief period where non-square windows with ovals, curves, and all kinds of junk were in vogue (track down an old copy of Bryce 3D if you want to see something really wild). It's an era of computing that's probably best left forgotten. :)

1_player 5y ago

I couldn't find much about it. I was learning to program MFC at the time, and just before Windows XP appeared Microsoft started experimenting with that flat buttons style, which I really wanted to adopt my apps. I don't think it was an actual design change from Microsoft, just some transitional look-and-feel they adopted which sits between Office 2000 with the classic Windows 95+ look, and Office 2003 inheriting the Fisher-Price oversatured cartoony look of Windows XP. https://bcgsoft.com/featuretour/tour163.htm https://bcgsoft.com/featuretour/tour163.htm

tralarpa 5y ago
> flat buttons style, which I really wanted to adopt my apps Everybody wanted them :) 2000 or 2001, right? It was TBSTYLE_FLAT.

nereye 5y ago

There is a snippet linked to from Wikipedia’s article on Office XP (see section on streamlined user interface): https://web.archive.org/web/20050930195959/http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/2/8/c28831e9-684e-4aab-9af3-f061bf68ad70/XPguide.doc https://web.archive.org/web/20050930195959/http://download.m... The overall UI still uses the Command Bars concept (merging of menus and toolbars) first used in Office 97.

Liquid_Fire 5y ago

I like that the screenshot you picked actually shows FrontPage running under Wine/CrossOver, most likely on Linux + KDE (judging by the title bars). It speaks to how successful Wine is that this is easily confused with a native screenshot.