5 ms·

Honestly full-assed implementation. Font hinting is a bit odd with a green sheen on Firefox Win 10...

int_19h 4y ago
There are some minor discrepancies. Window titlebars weren't gradient in Win98 - that came in Win2k and WinME. The combobox dropdown has rounded ages (Win11 + Edge) and there's a gap between it and the textbox. The tree view has different widths for "+" and "-" on the nodes, and neither is properly aligned with the dotted lines of the tree. The biggest giveaway, though, is that you can drag to highlight text pretty much anywhere.
- Kranar 4y ago
  Windows 98 used a gradient for its title bar [1]: https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Windows_98?file=W98-2.png https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Windows_98?file=W98-2.png
  - int_19h 4y ago
    I must have misremembered, then; my apologies. Perhaps it was a Win98 vs Win98 SE difference?
    - gsich 4y ago
      Maybe it also required GPU drivers to be installed? I clearly remember the gradient bars.
      - int_19h 4y ago
        Win32 GUI wasn't composited until Vista, so it was all GDI 2D primitives rendered directly to the framebuffer. These could be accelerated, but I don't recall any case where some GDI feature would be unavailable if hardware didn't accelerate it - all primitives had software implementations, it just wouldn't be as fast. However, now that I think about it, such gradient bars must have required at least 16-bit color to work without dithering, so they were probably turned off by default for anything lower. And, at the time, budget video cards had limits on color depth in higher resolutions - e.g. for S3 Trio, if I remember correctly, you got a max of 24-bit color at 800x600, 16-bit at 1024x768, and 8-bit at 1280x1024; you could see the color depth combo box switch as you dragged the resolution slider. So I probably just ran it at 8-bit depth then.
        iforgotpassword 4y ago
        I think they were disabled for 16 color mode, but on 256 colors they were rendered with dithering, which looked kinda cool. I distinctly remember it from playing rollercoaster tycoon; the game ran in 8bpp mode and used the system open/save dialogs.
    - mattl 4y ago
      Given the deep integration of Internet Explorer I wonder if an IE update did it?
- Raicuparta 4y ago
  Styling drop-down contents in most modern browsers os either very limited or impossible. That's why so many UI frameworks reimplement them from scratch, usually with the help of JavaScript
  - masswerk 4y ago
    Well, it has just become available recently. But, since this is a project from 2020, this hadn't been an option then. [1] https://web.dev/state-of-css-2022/#customizing-select-elements https://web.dev/state-of-css-2022/#customizing-select-elemen...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- chungy 4y ago
  Windows 95 lacked titlebar gradients. Windows 98 introduced them.
  - Narishma 4y ago
    Like many UI elements at the time, they were first introduced in Microsoft Office (95 in this case) and then put in the next version of Windows.
claudiawerner 4y ago
I noticed that too! I wonder what's happening there. I searched the CSS and there's nothing like green in there... Anyone have clues as to what's causing the text within textboxes and such to be green?
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  My guess is subpixel rendering. The single pixel lines ending up halfway across a pixel, activating more green than it intended to do. This fix (https://stackoverflow.com/a/22925525 https://stackoverflow.com/a/22925525) removes the green shine despite being prefixed with -webkit. It's not longer a pixel-perfect match with Windows 98, though, so CRT users may notice the difference!

There are some minor discrepancies. Window titlebars weren't gradient in Win98 - that came in Win2k and WinME. The combobox dropdown has rounded ages (Win11 + Edge) and there's a gap between it and the textbox. The tree view has different widths for "+" and "-" on the nodes, and neither is properly aligned with the dotted lines of the tree. The biggest giveaway, though, is that you can drag to highlight text pretty much anywhere.

Kranar 4y ago
Windows 98 used a gradient for its title bar [1]: https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Windows_98?file=W98-2.png https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Windows_98?file=W98-2.png
- int_19h 4y ago
  I must have misremembered, then; my apologies. Perhaps it was a Win98 vs Win98 SE difference?
  - gsich 4y ago
    Maybe it also required GPU drivers to be installed? I clearly remember the gradient bars.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Win32 GUI wasn't composited until Vista, so it was all GDI 2D primitives rendered directly to the framebuffer. These could be accelerated, but I don't recall any case where some GDI feature would be unavailable if hardware didn't accelerate it - all primitives had software implementations, it just wouldn't be as fast. However, now that I think about it, such gradient bars must have required at least 16-bit color to work without dithering, so they were probably turned off by default for anything lower. And, at the time, budget video cards had limits on color depth in higher resolutions - e.g. for S3 Trio, if I remember correctly, you got a max of 24-bit color at 800x600, 16-bit at 1024x768, and 8-bit at 1280x1024; you could see the color depth combo box switch as you dragged the resolution slider. So I probably just ran it at 8-bit depth then.
      - iforgotpassword 4y ago
        I think they were disabled for 16 color mode, but on 256 colors they were rendered with dithering, which looked kinda cool. I distinctly remember it from playing rollercoaster tycoon; the game ran in 8bpp mode and used the system open/save dialogs.
  - mattl 4y ago
    Given the deep integration of Internet Explorer I wonder if an IE update did it?
Raicuparta 4y ago
Styling drop-down contents in most modern browsers os either very limited or impossible. That's why so many UI frameworks reimplement them from scratch, usually with the help of JavaScript
- masswerk 4y ago
  Well, it has just become available recently. But, since this is a project from 2020, this hadn't been an option then. [1] https://web.dev/state-of-css-2022/#customizing-select-elements https://web.dev/state-of-css-2022/#customizing-select-elemen...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chungy 4y ago
Windows 95 lacked titlebar gradients. Windows 98 introduced them.
- Narishma 4y ago
  Like many UI elements at the time, they were first introduced in Microsoft Office (95 in this case) and then put in the next version of Windows.

claudiawerner 4y ago

I noticed that too! I wonder what's happening there. I searched the CSS and there's nothing like green in there... Anyone have clues as to what's causing the text within textboxes and such to be green?

jeroenhd 4y ago
My guess is subpixel rendering. The single pixel lines ending up halfway across a pixel, activating more green than it intended to do. This fix (https://stackoverflow.com/a/22925525 https://stackoverflow.com/a/22925525) removes the green shine despite being prefixed with -webkit. It's not longer a pixel-perfect match with Windows 98, though, so CRT users may notice the difference!