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> First is what happens once you run anything that isn’t made by them — all of the sudden totally different UIs That's a weird criticism. How many competing U

> First is what happens once you run anything that isn’t made by them — all of the sudden totally different UIs That's a weird criticism. How many competing UI frameworks with completely different look'n'feel are there in a default win10 install ? How many control panels and file dialogs ?

handrous 5y ago
Sure, and everyone complains about that on Win10 because it sucks there, too. Windows the OS has improved greatly over the years, in many ways, but the UI has mostly not improved, or has even regressed, since, oh, I dunno, win98/2k. Maybe WinXP.
- fsiefken 5y ago
  XP with the classic themes was the best. A while ago I did my best to get a decent browser that could display modern webpages running so perhaps I could use XP as a desktop. Nothing really works. Modern Java apps same thing, the JRE is frozen in time somewhere, .NET same thing. SSL isn't compatible. Perhaps one could compile a recent Wine, Mono/.NET or Java to XP and run some things. Or perhaps better, use a windows theme for a linux desktop - and stick to gtk apps. https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
- jeromenerf 5y ago
  No, no one really cares about homogeneity. Big name apps geared towards music, photo, video, 3D, GIS, IDE … have always looked somehow differently designed and for a good reason when compared to the browser and file manager. There is more value in design than consistency on production oriented systems. It seems the contrary is preferred for mobile.
  - e3bc54b2 5y ago
    Those big-ass different looking applications on desktop you mention are creator's tools. It makes sense they differentiate (specialize) their UX to deliver maximum utility, especially important to carry it over a decade or more of OS design transitions. Of course they look different. Mobile devices are by and large meant for and used as consumption tools. So consistency is desired there.
- jcelerier 5y ago
  No, the immense majority of windows users couldn't care less.
kemiller 5y ago
And this is exactly why some people prefer MacOS, which eOS is trying to emulate.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  MacOS still has anachronistic design elements. My least favorite was the Dashboard, which long outstayed it's welcome...
  - handrous 5y ago
    I prefer the Dashboard to its kind-of replacement, whatever they call the slidey-out widget sidebar thing you get when you click on the clock (which, unrelated to the comparison between those two since the Dashboard's invocation wasn't exactly sensible, either—what the hell?)
    - wlesieutre 5y ago
      They're just called "Widgets in Notification Center" now. Agreed that Dashboard was more useful, if I could put the new widgets in an overlay instead of the sidebar I would.
    - zonabey 5y ago
      Yes! You know Dashboard was a completely separate layer. I could watch a video in full screen and take notes with semi transparent stickes. Try doing that in full screen with the stickes app... You can't! The dashboard feature is totally underrated. What would be even better would be if you could actually put any window in there. Or if any window could be made semi transparent and float on top. And have that entire layer be toggleable with transitions.... It's total shame that they've removed it entirely.
  - wlesieutre 5y ago
    Fun fact: Apple made up the <canvas> tag for Dashboard and it was later adopted as a web standard
phendrenad2 5y ago
OP is clearly criticizing the entire Linux ecosystem and not just Elementary.
outworlder 5y ago
Although I think the criticism is also overblown, there's a difference: under windows, it's mostly about look and feel. Older apps look like garbage, or are inconsistent with the current look. Take an older app and compare with an app from the store, and they look like they came from a different OS. Interestingly, Microsoft Apps are the largest offenders, historically. They like to ship them with new versions of their common controls library, so it may take a while until you see changes in the OS itself (the ribbon being a large offender). However, things work similarly. All the keyboard shortcuts work (unless they messed up on purpose), screen readers work, most settings work across the board (even if it makes the app look even worse). Change the color scheme, everything changes. In most cases, you can use the same API functions to interact with the controls, and WM messages tend to work consistently. Not so with linux GUI toolkits. There has been a lot of effort in trying to make them look the same, but it's pretty obvious when an app is written in GTK vs QT or TK. Even the way they respond to sizing events change. Widgets work totally differently, keyboard shortcuts and conventions change. It's less of a problem than it used to be, but it is still there, and it is sometimes very jarring. I don't know how to fix it, but it has to be fixed at some point.
azinman2 5y ago
Windows 10 is a disaster. Not exactly something to emulate, but at least it’s going to be some vintage of windows. So copy and paste will be consistent and not change ctrl versus meta versus select & middle mouse button. Linux is all over the place. I can’t even have consistent hidpi support without manual tweaks, and even then certain apps layouts become very strange. I’m really comparing to macOS, which clearly is what eOS is trying to be.

handrous 5y ago

Sure, and everyone complains about that on Win10 because it sucks there, too. Windows the OS has improved greatly over the years, in many ways, but the UI has mostly not improved, or has even regressed, since, oh, I dunno, win98/2k. Maybe WinXP.

fsiefken 5y ago
XP with the classic themes was the best. A while ago I did my best to get a decent browser that could display modern webpages running so perhaps I could use XP as a desktop. Nothing really works. Modern Java apps same thing, the JRE is frozen in time somewhere, .NET same thing. SSL isn't compatible. Perhaps one could compile a recent Wine, Mono/.NET or Java to XP and run some things. Or perhaps better, use a windows theme for a linux desktop - and stick to gtk apps. https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
jeromenerf 5y ago
No, no one really cares about homogeneity. Big name apps geared towards music, photo, video, 3D, GIS, IDE … have always looked somehow differently designed and for a good reason when compared to the browser and file manager. There is more value in design than consistency on production oriented systems. It seems the contrary is preferred for mobile.
- e3bc54b2 5y ago
  Those big-ass different looking applications on desktop you mention are creator's tools. It makes sense they differentiate (specialize) their UX to deliver maximum utility, especially important to carry it over a decade or more of OS design transitions. Of course they look different. Mobile devices are by and large meant for and used as consumption tools. So consistency is desired there.
jcelerier 5y ago
No, the immense majority of windows users couldn't care less.

kemiller 5y ago

And this is exactly why some people prefer MacOS, which eOS is trying to emulate.

smoldesu 5y ago
MacOS still has anachronistic design elements. My least favorite was the Dashboard, which long outstayed it's welcome...
- handrous 5y ago
  I prefer the Dashboard to its kind-of replacement, whatever they call the slidey-out widget sidebar thing you get when you click on the clock (which, unrelated to the comparison between those two since the Dashboard's invocation wasn't exactly sensible, either—what the hell?)
  - wlesieutre 5y ago
    They're just called "Widgets in Notification Center" now. Agreed that Dashboard was more useful, if I could put the new widgets in an overlay instead of the sidebar I would.
  - zonabey 5y ago
    Yes! You know Dashboard was a completely separate layer. I could watch a video in full screen and take notes with semi transparent stickes. Try doing that in full screen with the stickes app... You can't! The dashboard feature is totally underrated. What would be even better would be if you could actually put any window in there. Or if any window could be made semi transparent and float on top. And have that entire layer be toggleable with transitions.... It's total shame that they've removed it entirely.
- wlesieutre 5y ago
  Fun fact: Apple made up the <canvas> tag for Dashboard and it was later adopted as a web standard

phendrenad2 5y ago

OP is clearly criticizing the entire Linux ecosystem and not just Elementary.

outworlder 5y ago

Although I think the criticism is also overblown, there's a difference: under windows, it's mostly about look and feel. Older apps look like garbage, or are inconsistent with the current look. Take an older app and compare with an app from the store, and they look like they came from a different OS. Interestingly, Microsoft Apps are the largest offenders, historically. They like to ship them with new versions of their common controls library, so it may take a while until you see changes in the OS itself (the ribbon being a large offender). However, things work similarly. All the keyboard shortcuts work (unless they messed up on purpose), screen readers work, most settings work across the board (even if it makes the app look even worse). Change the color scheme, everything changes. In most cases, you can use the same API functions to interact with the controls, and WM messages tend to work consistently. Not so with linux GUI toolkits. There has been a lot of effort in trying to make them look the same, but it's pretty obvious when an app is written in GTK vs QT or TK. Even the way they respond to sizing events change. Widgets work totally differently, keyboard shortcuts and conventions change. It's less of a problem than it used to be, but it is still there, and it is sometimes very jarring. I don't know how to fix it, but it has to be fixed at some point.

azinman2 5y ago

Windows 10 is a disaster. Not exactly something to emulate, but at least it’s going to be some vintage of windows. So copy and paste will be consistent and not change ctrl versus meta versus select & middle mouse button. Linux is all over the place. I can’t even have consistent hidpi support without manual tweaks, and even then certain apps layouts become very strange. I’m really comparing to macOS, which clearly is what eOS is trying to be.