4 ms·

The animated Navigator icon with the stars always gave me a sense of actually navigating cyberspace. Same with the BBSes These days we're just browsing glossy

The animated Navigator icon with the stars always gave me a sense of actually navigating cyberspace. Same with the BBSes These days we're just browsing glossy magazines.

function_seven 5y ago
Related nostalgia: websites that didn’t specify a bgcolor, so they got defaulted to gray. And the tables with the default embossed look.
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  Grey on Netscape, IE's default background was white.
  - CTOSian 5y ago
    also : text in black not the today's crap look.
    - scarygliders 5y ago
      I will never understand why people think grey text on a white background is a good idea.
      - iamjochem 5y ago
        the following explains the 'why': https://uxmovement.com/content/why-you-should-never-use-pure-black-for-text-or-backgrounds/ https://uxmovement.com/content/why-you-should-never-use-pure... no idea to what extent, if at all, it is true. I can imagine there being a grain of truth in there but that implementing this correctly is much more difficult and nuanced than it might seem at first glance - most "digital designers"[1] probably don't get the budget/freedom to properly tackle accessibility in their commercial projects, I can also imagine that the majority of digital designers are 'young' and have close to 20/20 vision making it that much harder for them to truly put themselves in the shoes (eyes?) of people with lesser than perfect vision[2]. as someone with only a laymans' understanding of all this stuff I'm probably guilty of talking out of my **; I welcome someone with real graphic design credentials putting me straight :D [1] "digital designer", a person working in/with visual design, who started employment, or was born, after the release of the first iPhone ;-) (alternatively someone working in the design industry who never had the privilege of buying a copy of "The Face" for the simple fact they we not born in 1985) [2] a category I begrudgingly have to admit to being part of more and more ;-/
        lupire 5y ago
        Ugh, that #444 in the article is horrific to try to read.
        Jenda_ 5y ago
        What about not setting color of text (especially when it's dark text on light backgroud - the "default") at all and leave it to the user? There is a setting in web browser exactly for this: https://user-media-prod-cdn.itsre-sumo.mozilla.net/uploads/images/2019-04-24-16-57-47-5d5088.png https://user-media-prod-cdn.itsre-sumo.mozilla.net/uploads/i...
      - Jenda_ 5y ago
        Related tragedy: font-weight: 300 used on webpages. In combination with low contrast (the most absurd thing I have seen was #999 on white) it's completely unreadable. I have actually written a bookmarklet to fix it: https://paste.debian.net/1207934/ https://paste.debian.net/1207934/ I also have (partially outdated) custom stylesheet that fixes that for websites I {used to,} visit often: https://jenda.hrach.eu/w/blackweb https://jenda.hrach.eu/w/blackweb
danielcarvalho 5y ago
Was thinking the same thing! Miss those feels.
bitwize 5y ago
That icon was called a "throbber". The name came from the original icon used back when the browser was called Mosaic NetScape (and the early Netscape Navigator days): a simple blocky purple N with a 90s pixel bevel effect on it. When animated the bevel would alternate between "sticking out" and "going in" to the plane of the screen, causing the N to appear to "throb". The name stuck, and all browser icons that animated to indicate network activity came to be called "throbbers". I liked throbbers because they signalled "ok, I'm going to the network to fetch what you asked for" as opposed to the hourglass cursor which indicated ordinary computer activity. It was Windows 98 that ruined the experience and thrill of "going to the network", because Microsoft decided that the web and the local desktop should merge into a single, seamless experience. They seemed not to understand that the network was fundamentally different, and in many ways more dangerous, than the local PC because it is almost always, as we say today, someone else's computer; and that the end user should be made aware of and encouraged to respect that difference. I think the nostalgia for the feeling of navigating cyberspace is part of what inspires art movements like vaporwave, with its incorporation of 90s GUI elements in its aesthetic. In the 90s, there was always this ambient feeling of "this boxy beige Macintosh isn't a sleek Ono-Sendai cyberdeck, but it's an acceptable interim substitute until you get a cyberdeck which could be any day now". We were sort of roleplaying at being a part of sort of a beta version of Gibson's tragically hip cyberfuture, not realizing that we were ultimately being sold the shitty parts of that future without any of the cool parts. It's kind of like the joke about Bill Gates in hell: the cool stuff was just the demo.
- Minor49er 5y ago
  > It was Windows 98 that ruined the experience and thrill of "going to the network", because Microsoft decided that the web and the local desktop should merge into a single, seamless experience. One weird side effect of this was that Internet Explorer and Explorer itself were integrated. At a time, you could set your desktop wallpaper to an HTML page. There were even "HTML apps" introduced around the same time* which I believe is still being somewhat continued today for Windows 10 widget development * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application
  - 5y ago
drewzero1 5y ago
I use the Firescape Navigator[0] add-on that adds the Netscape throbber to my Firefox toolbar. It reminds me of when I was still using Netscape daily and had just started switching to Firefox. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firescape_navigator/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firescape_nav...

The animated Navigator icon with the stars always gave me a sense of actually navigating cyberspace. Same with the BBSes These days we're just browsing glossy magazines.

function_seven 5y ago

Related nostalgia: websites that didn’t specify a bgcolor, so they got defaulted to gray. And the tables with the default embossed look.

LeoPanthera 5y ago
Grey on Netscape, IE's default background was white.
- CTOSian 5y ago
  also : text in black not the today's crap look.
  - scarygliders 5y ago
    I will never understand why people think grey text on a white background is a good idea.
    - iamjochem 5y ago
      the following explains the 'why': https://uxmovement.com/content/why-you-should-never-use-pure-black-for-text-or-backgrounds/ https://uxmovement.com/content/why-you-should-never-use-pure... no idea to what extent, if at all, it is true. I can imagine there being a grain of truth in there but that implementing this correctly is much more difficult and nuanced than it might seem at first glance - most "digital designers"[1] probably don't get the budget/freedom to properly tackle accessibility in their commercial projects, I can also imagine that the majority of digital designers are 'young' and have close to 20/20 vision making it that much harder for them to truly put themselves in the shoes (eyes?) of people with lesser than perfect vision[2]. as someone with only a laymans' understanding of all this stuff I'm probably guilty of talking out of my **; I welcome someone with real graphic design credentials putting me straight :D [1] "digital designer", a person working in/with visual design, who started employment, or was born, after the release of the first iPhone ;-) (alternatively someone working in the design industry who never had the privilege of buying a copy of "The Face" for the simple fact they we not born in 1985) [2] a category I begrudgingly have to admit to being part of more and more ;-/
      - lupire 5y ago
        Ugh, that #444 in the article is horrific to try to read.
      - Jenda_ 5y ago
        What about not setting color of text (especially when it's dark text on light backgroud - the "default") at all and leave it to the user? There is a setting in web browser exactly for this: https://user-media-prod-cdn.itsre-sumo.mozilla.net/uploads/images/2019-04-24-16-57-47-5d5088.png https://user-media-prod-cdn.itsre-sumo.mozilla.net/uploads/i...
    - Jenda_ 5y ago
      Related tragedy: font-weight: 300 used on webpages. In combination with low contrast (the most absurd thing I have seen was #999 on white) it's completely unreadable. I have actually written a bookmarklet to fix it: https://paste.debian.net/1207934/ https://paste.debian.net/1207934/ I also have (partially outdated) custom stylesheet that fixes that for websites I {used to,} visit often: https://jenda.hrach.eu/w/blackweb https://jenda.hrach.eu/w/blackweb

danielcarvalho 5y ago

Was thinking the same thing! Miss those feels.

bitwize 5y ago

That icon was called a "throbber". The name came from the original icon used back when the browser was called Mosaic NetScape (and the early Netscape Navigator days): a simple blocky purple N with a 90s pixel bevel effect on it. When animated the bevel would alternate between "sticking out" and "going in" to the plane of the screen, causing the N to appear to "throb". The name stuck, and all browser icons that animated to indicate network activity came to be called "throbbers". I liked throbbers because they signalled "ok, I'm going to the network to fetch what you asked for" as opposed to the hourglass cursor which indicated ordinary computer activity. It was Windows 98 that ruined the experience and thrill of "going to the network", because Microsoft decided that the web and the local desktop should merge into a single, seamless experience. They seemed not to understand that the network was fundamentally different, and in many ways more dangerous, than the local PC because it is almost always, as we say today, someone else's computer; and that the end user should be made aware of and encouraged to respect that difference. I think the nostalgia for the feeling of navigating cyberspace is part of what inspires art movements like vaporwave, with its incorporation of 90s GUI elements in its aesthetic. In the 90s, there was always this ambient feeling of "this boxy beige Macintosh isn't a sleek Ono-Sendai cyberdeck, but it's an acceptable interim substitute until you get a cyberdeck which could be any day now". We were sort of roleplaying at being a part of sort of a beta version of Gibson's tragically hip cyberfuture, not realizing that we were ultimately being sold the shitty parts of that future without any of the cool parts. It's kind of like the joke about Bill Gates in hell: the cool stuff was just the demo.

Minor49er 5y ago
> It was Windows 98 that ruined the experience and thrill of "going to the network", because Microsoft decided that the web and the local desktop should merge into a single, seamless experience. One weird side effect of this was that Internet Explorer and Explorer itself were integrated. At a time, you could set your desktop wallpaper to an HTML page. There were even "HTML apps" introduced around the same time* which I believe is still being somewhat continued today for Windows 10 widget development * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application
- 5y ago

drewzero1 5y ago

I use the Firescape Navigator[0] add-on that adds the Netscape throbber to my Firefox toolbar. It reminds me of when I was still using Netscape daily and had just started switching to Firefox. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firescape_navigator/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firescape_nav...