6 ms·

I miss skinning so much. I was hugely into the scene of making/releasing skins for any/every program that included the ability (and a bunch that didn’t, thanks

by sen 2y ago

I miss skinning so much. I was hugely into the scene of making/releasing skins for any/every program that included the ability (and a bunch that didn’t, thanks to unsigned applications). To this day I’m the type to customise everything I own and I despise staring at generic looking programs all day. It’s even worse when it’s stuff like Discord that has a very opinionated style that won’t even respect the small amount of customisation my Linux theming gives me. I feel like a huge reason the indie web died off was OSes and programs limiting user customisation which was a gateway drug for many. MySpace themes would get people learning html/css. Winamp skins got people learning photoshop/graphics. mIRC scripting taught people basic coding. OS customising had all of it. Now you just shut up and use it as they dictate.

JohnMakin 2y ago
There's another benefit to opening this kind of functionality to apps - it's very friendly towards developing interfaces that are more friendly to the disabled. I have certain disabilities where specific types of UI designs are basically unusable to me, and without the ability to customize them, I kinda just cannot use them (unless they provide an API as an alternative).
- gorlilla 2y ago
  Until they rug-pull the API access that countless third parties built those accessibility features around....
WD-42 2y ago
I completely agree. I, in no small part, owe my career as a software dev to falling in love with Linux because of the ability to theme everything, apps, desktops, ui toolkits. Of course, this was back in the kde3 and gnome(2?) days. It’s different now, it seems like theming has become actively discouraged, especially in Gnome. It makes me sad wondering how many young creative people the community is missing an opportunity to captivate.
donatj 2y ago
I truly miss working in software in the early 2000's. We were all using XP but it was all customized up the wazoo. Almost all of us had custom themes and icons and what not. I ran a Mac at home, and had that customized as well, I forget the name of the app that would install custom themes/docks, but CandyBar would install custom icon sets. Now days most people don't even bother to change their wallpaper. Live a little!
- KronisLV 2y ago
  > Now days most people don't even bother to change their wallpaper. Live a little! There are some nice communities around custom desktops, like https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/top/?t=year https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/top/?t=year (despite the odd name) For other OSes there’s also https://www.reddit.com/r/desktops/top/?t=year https://www.reddit.com/r/desktops/top/?t=year That said, for many the defaults are sufficient and I guess people just use what’s there out of the box to get things done.
  - mmwelt 2y ago
    Rainmeter[1] is also quite alive on the Windows side. [1] https://www.rainmeter.net/ https://www.rainmeter.net/
- supportengineer 2y ago
  I feel like the cost of housing along with layoff culture has caused an underlying sense of desperation, software isn’t fun when you’re just trying to avoid being homeless/deported
  - Yiin 2y ago
    More likely is that was most of your online entertainment, while today people are mostly hooked on cheap sugar that is social media/short content (me included unfortunately)
  - donatj 2y ago
    Fwiw, you'll be happier and more secure at a stable Midwest company than a trendy coastal company. In my twenty years of doing this, I know personally two developers who were laid off, one of whom was hired back after COVID calmed down. Anyway I think your proposal is flatly absurd. People stopped changing their wallpaper because of housing prices? Shoosh
rhplus 2y ago
Moddable sandboxes like Minecraft and Roblox have picked up that role for younger people.
chankstein38 2y ago
Agreed! mIRC scripting is the reason I am a developer today and the reason it's been my career!
- giantrobot 2y ago
  mIRC scripting as a career?! No thanks! /s
  - chankstein38 2y ago
    haha I'm with you there! I just mean it mIRC scripting was the seed to my eventual career in software!
- paranoidrobot 2y ago
  mIRC scripts were also my first foray into writing code for anything more than "playing around". I write mIRC to help automate some of the things I was doing on IRC at the time. That experience helped me back up my smart-ass comments to a manager at my job about being able to write better software than they were forcing us to use. Eventually I leveraged that experience into getting a real dev job.
fiatpandas 2y ago
The skin I made for Methodus Toolz is amazingly still on this page: https://www.methodus2000.com/methodus3/skins.htm https://www.methodus2000.com/methodus3/skins.htm
- agret 2y ago
  Wow believe it or not I was thinking about that program about 2 weeks ago but thought I'd never be able to remember the name of it. You've made my week. I used to use the Bdog871018 skin. Which one is yours?

by sen 2y ago

JohnMakin 2y ago

There's another benefit to opening this kind of functionality to apps - it's very friendly towards developing interfaces that are more friendly to the disabled. I have certain disabilities where specific types of UI designs are basically unusable to me, and without the ability to customize them, I kinda just cannot use them (unless they provide an API as an alternative).

gorlilla 2y ago
Until they rug-pull the API access that countless third parties built those accessibility features around....

WD-42 2y ago

I completely agree. I, in no small part, owe my career as a software dev to falling in love with Linux because of the ability to theme everything, apps, desktops, ui toolkits. Of course, this was back in the kde3 and gnome(2?) days. It’s different now, it seems like theming has become actively discouraged, especially in Gnome. It makes me sad wondering how many young creative people the community is missing an opportunity to captivate.

donatj 2y ago

I truly miss working in software in the early 2000's. We were all using XP but it was all customized up the wazoo. Almost all of us had custom themes and icons and what not. I ran a Mac at home, and had that customized as well, I forget the name of the app that would install custom themes/docks, but CandyBar would install custom icon sets. Now days most people don't even bother to change their wallpaper. Live a little!

KronisLV 2y ago
> Now days most people don't even bother to change their wallpaper. Live a little! There are some nice communities around custom desktops, like https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/top/?t=year https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/top/?t=year (despite the odd name) For other OSes there’s also https://www.reddit.com/r/desktops/top/?t=year https://www.reddit.com/r/desktops/top/?t=year That said, for many the defaults are sufficient and I guess people just use what’s there out of the box to get things done.
- mmwelt 2y ago
  Rainmeter[1] is also quite alive on the Windows side. [1] https://www.rainmeter.net/ https://www.rainmeter.net/
supportengineer 2y ago
I feel like the cost of housing along with layoff culture has caused an underlying sense of desperation, software isn’t fun when you’re just trying to avoid being homeless/deported
- Yiin 2y ago
  More likely is that was most of your online entertainment, while today people are mostly hooked on cheap sugar that is social media/short content (me included unfortunately)
- donatj 2y ago
  Fwiw, you'll be happier and more secure at a stable Midwest company than a trendy coastal company. In my twenty years of doing this, I know personally two developers who were laid off, one of whom was hired back after COVID calmed down. Anyway I think your proposal is flatly absurd. People stopped changing their wallpaper because of housing prices? Shoosh

rhplus 2y ago

Moddable sandboxes like Minecraft and Roblox have picked up that role for younger people.

chankstein38 2y ago

Agreed! mIRC scripting is the reason I am a developer today and the reason it's been my career!

giantrobot 2y ago
mIRC scripting as a career?! No thanks! /s
- chankstein38 2y ago
  haha I'm with you there! I just mean it mIRC scripting was the seed to my eventual career in software!
paranoidrobot 2y ago
mIRC scripts were also my first foray into writing code for anything more than "playing around". I write mIRC to help automate some of the things I was doing on IRC at the time. That experience helped me back up my smart-ass comments to a manager at my job about being able to write better software than they were forcing us to use. Eventually I leveraged that experience into getting a real dev job.

fiatpandas 2y ago

The skin I made for Methodus Toolz is amazingly still on this page: https://www.methodus2000.com/methodus3/skins.htm https://www.methodus2000.com/methodus3/skins.htm

agret 2y ago
Wow believe it or not I was thinking about that program about 2 weeks ago but thought I'd never be able to remember the name of it. You've made my week. I used to use the Bdog871018 skin. Which one is yours?