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Remember when theming options for computer interfaces were more than just a choice between bespoke "dark" and "light" modes? Computers are apparently not power

Remember when theming options for computer interfaces were more than just a choice between bespoke "dark" and "light" modes? Computers are apparently not powerful enough to do that today. Go on, fire up Windows 95 in a VM and be utterly amazed at how responsive it is compared to your current Desktop and it has vastly more themeability. This is the future we have made for ourselves.

hulitu 4y ago
> Computers are apparently not powerful enough to do that today. Go on, fire up Windows 95 in a VM and be utterly amazed at how responsive it is compared to your current Desktop and it has vastly more themeability A long time ago computers were mostly used to run local, trusted, programs. Now they run remote, untrusted, code and this is considered a feature. And this remote code needs a powerful machine that's why the interface is kept to a minimum.
LocutusOfBorges 4y ago
It’s a situation where developers joylessly insist that a user’s preferences and control over the interface of the computer they use for hours each day aren’t a worthwhile thing to consider in application development, leading to efforts like the slow de-prioritisation and extinguishing of user-set theme support in GNOME. Enormous shame, really - there’s real value in customisation support.
signaru 4y ago
One of the reasons I like Linux and its window managers. Not only are current Windows themes limited, they also are inconsistent. It hurts my eyes to look at title bars staying white when everything else is in dark mode. That actually gave me a reason to purchase a WindowBlinds license and relive the 90s skinning craziness.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  You say that like Linux doesn't have its own issues of inconsistent GUIs. KDE offers lots of theming options but GNOME has majority and offers none. Also both toolkits today are still less responsive than Win32.
  - tmtvl 4y ago
    Yeah, Xfce was nice when they were still using GTK2, but with the change to GTK3 things are kinda inconsistent.
bigbillheck 4y ago
> be utterly amazed at how responsive it is compared to your current Desktop I would hope so, it's running on hardware much more powerful than what it was designed for.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  So the real question is: what are modern UIs doing that is justifying them being so much slower on the same hardware? We've got orders of magnitude more powerful hardware in exchange for orders of magnitude less responsive UI. Why?
  - bigbillheck 4y ago
    The way I remember it, Windows 95 wasn't all that responsive on typical hardware of the day. I don't have access to a windows machine right now, but if nothing else I'd bet there's just a lot more things trying to run at the same time, and it's not that the UI is slower, it's that the OS is doing more things.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
      > I don't have access to a windows machine right now, but if nothing else I'd bet there's just a lot more things trying to run at the same time People who say this have no idea how much more powerful computers are today. My system is currently using 9 of 32GB and the processor is running 1% of its total capacity over 6 cores. Why does it take more an an imperceptible amount of time for a new Explorer Window to appear?

hulitu 4y ago

> Computers are apparently not powerful enough to do that today. Go on, fire up Windows 95 in a VM and be utterly amazed at how responsive it is compared to your current Desktop and it has vastly more themeability A long time ago computers were mostly used to run local, trusted, programs. Now they run remote, untrusted, code and this is considered a feature. And this remote code needs a powerful machine that's why the interface is kept to a minimum.

LocutusOfBorges 4y ago

It’s a situation where developers joylessly insist that a user’s preferences and control over the interface of the computer they use for hours each day aren’t a worthwhile thing to consider in application development, leading to efforts like the slow de-prioritisation and extinguishing of user-set theme support in GNOME. Enormous shame, really - there’s real value in customisation support.

signaru 4y ago

One of the reasons I like Linux and its window managers. Not only are current Windows themes limited, they also are inconsistent. It hurts my eyes to look at title bars staying white when everything else is in dark mode. That actually gave me a reason to purchase a WindowBlinds license and relive the 90s skinning craziness.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
You say that like Linux doesn't have its own issues of inconsistent GUIs. KDE offers lots of theming options but GNOME has majority and offers none. Also both toolkits today are still less responsive than Win32.
- tmtvl 4y ago
  Yeah, Xfce was nice when they were still using GTK2, but with the change to GTK3 things are kinda inconsistent.

bigbillheck 4y ago

> be utterly amazed at how responsive it is compared to your current Desktop I would hope so, it's running on hardware much more powerful than what it was designed for.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
So the real question is: what are modern UIs doing that is justifying them being so much slower on the same hardware? We've got orders of magnitude more powerful hardware in exchange for orders of magnitude less responsive UI. Why?
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  The way I remember it, Windows 95 wasn't all that responsive on typical hardware of the day. I don't have access to a windows machine right now, but if nothing else I'd bet there's just a lot more things trying to run at the same time, and it's not that the UI is slower, it's that the OS is doing more things.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    > I don't have access to a windows machine right now, but if nothing else I'd bet there's just a lot more things trying to run at the same time People who say this have no idea how much more powerful computers are today. My system is currently using 9 of 32GB and the processor is running 1% of its total capacity over 6 cores. Why does it take more an an imperceptible amount of time for a new Explorer Window to appear?