7 ms·

Can anyone think of a reason why to do this? Apart from personal fun project, of course!

by jp0d 5y ago

sigzero 5y ago
Nostalgia mostly. However, Win95 had very clear UI elements that made it nice to use.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Donald 5y ago
The 90s were a decade of unbridled American power and optimism. The Soviet union had crumbled and the world was America's oyster. This week's events will cause a resurgence in 90s nostalgia in the West.
- sys_64738 5y ago
  If the best we could do was Win95 then that explains the decline in American imperialism.
bigDinosaur 5y ago
Talking point if out in public (assuming you have this on a laptop or similar) or at a meetup?
LeoPanthera 5y ago
Because that desktop is honestly clearer and faster to understand that today's chromeless trends. Buttons look like buttons, and text boxes are obvious.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  And there is just enough whitespace. Not waaayyyyy toooooo muuuuccchhh. And there’s consistency. Not eight generations of UI redesigns for each control. And you can actually tell which window has the focus.
  - bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
    Every time our screens get bigger, designers eat the space!
  - forgotmypw17 5y ago
    I use it as my daily driver, and all the answers are here, plus familiarity.
  - polski-g 5y ago
    AWS's recent redesign makes every single UI element have 16px of whitespace. What exactly was the point?
assttoasstmgr 5y ago
Because we hit peak desktop right around Windows 2000. Just about everything since then has been a step backwards in speed and usability. The Mac Finder is a hot mess and seems to get worse with every release. The 964 different desktops available for Linux are in general a hodgepodge of slow impossible-to-use disasters. A notable exception is XFCE but it's a bit of a second-class citizen and even things in XFCE don't work well. (Example: network configuration, you need to be logged in as root to use this applet.) Edit: I would like to point out that the Win2k desktop was blazing fast on a machine with 256MB of RAM. I can't get Debian to install on a machine with less than 512MB without complaining.
- grishka 5y ago
  IMO the last decently desktop version of Windows was 7. After that, it was utterly ruined by the existence of touchscreens and Microsoft's insistence that they're the next big thing in computers. My main issue with current macOS is the combined toolbars and titles, including in finder. There's too much padding but then everything feels unnecessarily cramped. My second issue with modern macOS is their new icon system where literally nothing is aligned to the pixel grid. But there's still a surprising amount of dense UIs — I guess it helps that Apple has a clear separation between touch (iPad) and non-touch (Mac) product lines.
  - bitigchi 5y ago
    It's possible to disable toolbars and use a menu-bar/shortcut oriented workflow like in the Classic Mac OS.
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  Speak for yourself, my riced out linux desktop is fast and usable AF
- aluminum96 5y ago
  > we hit peak desktop right around Windows 2000 I could not disagree more strongly. Win2000 buttons are tiny, drag areas are tiny, basically everything is tiny and unclickable. I strongly prefer the generously-proportioned, touch-inspired interfaces of the last 4-5 years.
prvc 5y ago
Both a more efficient use of screen space (at least, compared to the default themes of XFCE, crucially, but also KDE, GNOME, and others), and an aesthetically better visual design. I am surprised to have just written this latter observation, considering this came from Microsoft, but I suppose the era when it was designed demanded it, both as a result of the lower screen resolutions used, and the the contemporary marketing needs for the release of Windows 95.
- assttoasstmgr 5y ago
  I wouldn't say marketing so much as Microsoft did a lot of usability testing back then where psychologists threw people in a room and took notes while they interact with the UI. I don't think any OSS projects have this luxury (or money needed to throw around for that sort of thing). Raymond Chen vaguely references it here https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120126-00/?p=8453 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120126-00/?p=84... Also, back then, you had to make the best with the resources you had. Computers were slow so UIs had to be lightweight out of necessity. Yet here we are in 2022 and GUI applications have become so bloated they take longer to open up then they did in the 90s. And yes I'm looking at you, GTK and Windows 'Modern' apps.
  - userbinator 5y ago
    and GUI applications have become so bloated they take longer to open up then they did in the 90s. ...while somehow being even less graphically complex.
  - tadfisher 5y ago
    The Gnome project performs usability tests pretty often. That's what led to decisions like deprecating the secondary app menu (app menu in the title bar) and the newer horizontal workspace layout, iirc.
    - voidfunc 5y ago
      And the Gnome project consistently gets it wrong because they keep forgetting their primary target users are not rando's that have never used a computer but mostly season Linux vets.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Some people like very simple interfaces, icons and schemes. It's a very utilitarian interface and works fine. I often use lxqt which is pretty barebones on VMs to cut down a bit on the memory footprint.
toast0 5y ago
AFAIK, Windows 95 was the last UI design with a published design methodology that includes numerous laboratory test sessions. I'm not sure the original URL, but it was republished [1]. It's listed at ACM [2] as published April 1996, so they were sharing how they did it pretty soon after it was done. I just don't think Microsoft continued to do lab testing of their design, at least they haven't told us that they did, but it feels like a lot of things have gotten harder to do rather than easier to do, which doesn't match their earlier design goals. Windows 95 wasn't the peak, but it was a huge step vs Windows 3.1. IMHO, Apple clearly doesn't care about desktop experience (and anyway, their keyboard shortcuts are wrong, so I'm not using their design), and I don't think any OSS desktop environment is funding user studies (but I'd be happy to see evidence otherwise). Given that situation, I'd rather use the UI that had design goals I like and a design process that allowed developing towards those goals. [1] https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-95s-user-interface/ https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-9... [2] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/238386.238611 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/238386.238611
ziotom78 5y ago
I am currently using KDE with the Reactionary theme [1], which gives my desktop a nice Windows95 look. I love it because the meaning of the buttons on the title bars of windows is very clear, and I know exactly which visual elements can be pressed and which one not. (Disclaimer: I started using computers in late '80s and used Windows95/98/2000 a lot before moving to full Linux when Windows XP came out, so I was already pretty used to the interface.) [1] https://store.kde.org/p/1253201/ https://store.kde.org/p/1253201/
narag 5y ago
I haven't tried this one, but I will. My reason is that I quit Linux because they took away the two pane, file tree in the left, file explorer from me. I was using lxde and suddenly they decided to "redesign" the explorer (more like redoing it from scratch) and the new one had not the file tree pane. I was using lxde because I didn't like Plasma, another imposed "redesign". Now that was the last straw. 15 or 20 years ago... I can't understand why people think it's OK to shit on my muscle memory and habits.
- pcdoodle 5y ago
  Some people don't understand the time value of habits. Makes me angry.

Can anyone think of a reason why to do this? Apart from personal fun project, of course!

by jp0d 5y ago

Can anyone think of a reason why to do this? Apart from personal fun project, of course!

sigzero 5y ago

Nostalgia mostly. However, Win95 had very clear UI elements that made it nice to use.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Donald 5y ago

The 90s were a decade of unbridled American power and optimism. The Soviet union had crumbled and the world was America's oyster. This week's events will cause a resurgence in 90s nostalgia in the West.

sys_64738 5y ago
If the best we could do was Win95 then that explains the decline in American imperialism.

bigDinosaur 5y ago

Talking point if out in public (assuming you have this on a laptop or similar) or at a meetup?

LeoPanthera 5y ago

Because that desktop is honestly clearer and faster to understand that today's chromeless trends. Buttons look like buttons, and text boxes are obvious.

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
And there is just enough whitespace. Not waaayyyyy toooooo muuuuccchhh. And there’s consistency. Not eight generations of UI redesigns for each control. And you can actually tell which window has the focus.
- bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
  Every time our screens get bigger, designers eat the space!
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  I use it as my daily driver, and all the answers are here, plus familiarity.
- polski-g 5y ago
  AWS's recent redesign makes every single UI element have 16px of whitespace. What exactly was the point?

assttoasstmgr 5y ago

Because we hit peak desktop right around Windows 2000. Just about everything since then has been a step backwards in speed and usability. The Mac Finder is a hot mess and seems to get worse with every release. The 964 different desktops available for Linux are in general a hodgepodge of slow impossible-to-use disasters. A notable exception is XFCE but it's a bit of a second-class citizen and even things in XFCE don't work well. (Example: network configuration, you need to be logged in as root to use this applet.) Edit: I would like to point out that the Win2k desktop was blazing fast on a machine with 256MB of RAM. I can't get Debian to install on a machine with less than 512MB without complaining.

grishka 5y ago
IMO the last decently desktop version of Windows was 7. After that, it was utterly ruined by the existence of touchscreens and Microsoft's insistence that they're the next big thing in computers. My main issue with current macOS is the combined toolbars and titles, including in finder. There's too much padding but then everything feels unnecessarily cramped. My second issue with modern macOS is their new icon system where literally nothing is aligned to the pixel grid. But there's still a surprising amount of dense UIs — I guess it helps that Apple has a clear separation between touch (iPad) and non-touch (Mac) product lines.
- bitigchi 5y ago
  It's possible to disable toolbars and use a menu-bar/shortcut oriented workflow like in the Classic Mac OS.
LAC-Tech 5y ago
Speak for yourself, my riced out linux desktop is fast and usable AF
aluminum96 5y ago
> we hit peak desktop right around Windows 2000 I could not disagree more strongly. Win2000 buttons are tiny, drag areas are tiny, basically everything is tiny and unclickable. I strongly prefer the generously-proportioned, touch-inspired interfaces of the last 4-5 years.

prvc 5y ago

Both a more efficient use of screen space (at least, compared to the default themes of XFCE, crucially, but also KDE, GNOME, and others), and an aesthetically better visual design. I am surprised to have just written this latter observation, considering this came from Microsoft, but I suppose the era when it was designed demanded it, both as a result of the lower screen resolutions used, and the the contemporary marketing needs for the release of Windows 95.

assttoasstmgr 5y ago
I wouldn't say marketing so much as Microsoft did a lot of usability testing back then where psychologists threw people in a room and took notes while they interact with the UI. I don't think any OSS projects have this luxury (or money needed to throw around for that sort of thing). Raymond Chen vaguely references it here https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120126-00/?p=8453 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120126-00/?p=84... Also, back then, you had to make the best with the resources you had. Computers were slow so UIs had to be lightweight out of necessity. Yet here we are in 2022 and GUI applications have become so bloated they take longer to open up then they did in the 90s. And yes I'm looking at you, GTK and Windows 'Modern' apps.
- userbinator 5y ago
  and GUI applications have become so bloated they take longer to open up then they did in the 90s. ...while somehow being even less graphically complex.
- tadfisher 5y ago
  The Gnome project performs usability tests pretty often. That's what led to decisions like deprecating the secondary app menu (app menu in the title bar) and the newer horizontal workspace layout, iirc.
  - voidfunc 5y ago
    And the Gnome project consistently gets it wrong because they keep forgetting their primary target users are not rando's that have never used a computer but mostly season Linux vets.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Some people like very simple interfaces, icons and schemes. It's a very utilitarian interface and works fine. I often use lxqt which is pretty barebones on VMs to cut down a bit on the memory footprint.

toast0 5y ago

AFAIK, Windows 95 was the last UI design with a published design methodology that includes numerous laboratory test sessions. I'm not sure the original URL, but it was republished [1]. It's listed at ACM [2] as published April 1996, so they were sharing how they did it pretty soon after it was done. I just don't think Microsoft continued to do lab testing of their design, at least they haven't told us that they did, but it feels like a lot of things have gotten harder to do rather than easier to do, which doesn't match their earlier design goals. Windows 95 wasn't the peak, but it was a huge step vs Windows 3.1. IMHO, Apple clearly doesn't care about desktop experience (and anyway, their keyboard shortcuts are wrong, so I'm not using their design), and I don't think any OSS desktop environment is funding user studies (but I'd be happy to see evidence otherwise). Given that situation, I'd rather use the UI that had design goals I like and a design process that allowed developing towards those goals. [1] https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-95s-user-interface/ https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-9... [2] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/238386.238611 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/238386.238611

ziotom78 5y ago

I am currently using KDE with the Reactionary theme [1], which gives my desktop a nice Windows95 look. I love it because the meaning of the buttons on the title bars of windows is very clear, and I know exactly which visual elements can be pressed and which one not. (Disclaimer: I started using computers in late '80s and used Windows95/98/2000 a lot before moving to full Linux when Windows XP came out, so I was already pretty used to the interface.) [1] https://store.kde.org/p/1253201/ https://store.kde.org/p/1253201/

narag 5y ago

I haven't tried this one, but I will. My reason is that I quit Linux because they took away the two pane, file tree in the left, file explorer from me. I was using lxde and suddenly they decided to "redesign" the explorer (more like redoing it from scratch) and the new one had not the file tree pane. I was using lxde because I didn't like Plasma, another imposed "redesign". Now that was the last straw. 15 or 20 years ago... I can't understand why people think it's OK to shit on my muscle memory and habits.

pcdoodle 5y ago
Some people don't understand the time value of habits. Makes me angry.