Unlike many here, I never grokked or really liked WindowMaker. The biggest thing was how the dock icons were occupying too much precious screen space, and were

Unlike many here, I never grokked or really liked WindowMaker. The biggest thing was how the dock icons were occupying too much precious screen space, and were distracting. Especially in the Olden Days when monitor ratios were 4:3. In contrast with a 16:9 or 16:10 modern monitor, where you can put things on the side and they'll be more out of focus. Animated/informational dock icons, to show system stats or whatever, were more of a distraction than were worth it, and if you reduced the size of the dock icon then they became worthless. Couldn't have it both ways. I did not like how big a dock icon was when you minimized a window. This was long after Windows 95 showed a thinner taskbar was perfectly sufficient. I did not like the context menus that stuck around. Muscle memory, perhaps, but again: a distraction. I did love its columnar file/tree navigator, which macOS continues to provide in Finder, although it's not a default! All in all, it felt like an interesting exploration of the computer desktop UX space, but a dead end.