4 ms·

Does anyone else miss simple gray GUIs? There is something in my brain that associates that style with “real” computing. I would love to have an editor theme fo

Does anyone else miss simple gray GUIs? There is something in my brain that associates that style with “real” computing. I would love to have an editor theme for it (IntelliJ / vs code / terminal.app).

litenboll 2y ago
Not even a little! I can get nostalgic, sure, but I wouldn't want it to be part of my everyday experience.
com2kid 2y ago
I use the MS DOS editor theme for VS Code!
- netsharc 2y ago
  Wow, the edit.com / qbasic.exe UI! I spent hours in QBasic when I was a teenager. Damn, that's ages ago!
  - _joel 2y ago
    GORILLA.BAS
    - ta12653421 2y ago
      this is already advanced LEVEL II for experienced programmes who were able to use Q Basic. but ... real pro's were using GW Basic! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GW-BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GW-BASIC LOL
bionsystem 2y ago
I like to run LXQt sometimes for that (and for the snappiness / low resources).
bpye 2y ago
I don’t know if I miss grey UIs, but I do miss the consistent design language and how easy it was to tell if something was a button, scrollable, etc.
- simonask 2y ago
  Aren't we at a pretty good place with that stuff, though? It's rare to see the abominations that used to roam, especially in the Flash era. Web designers generally follow mostly the same principles and design language. Windows is the only place where it's still a bit wild west.
  - eMPee584 2y ago
    mobile is an UX / accessibility abyss though xD
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >Aren't we at a pretty good place with that stuff, though? Hell no: I can't tell what is and isn't a button. I can't tell specific areas apart from others (no borders/shading). I can't see or use the scroll bar, assuming one is even present. I can't tell where a window begins and ends. I can't tell which window is active. I can't tell what a window is for. I can't tell what the fuck these Nouveautian Hieroglpyhs from Uranus (aka icons) mean. I could go on, but I digress: Are we in a pretty good place? Hell no.
    - anthk 2y ago
      I use EMWM and a Motif theme for QT5 because of that. For GTK, a nice one it's 'backwater', good enough. Not Motif, but it blends well.
    - jbverschoor 2y ago
      Check my post a few minutes ago to fix most problems. Also, install HazeOver to dim (or hide) inactive windows/apps.
    - simonask 2y ago
timthorn 2y ago
> There is something in my brain that associates that style with “real” computing. That's interesting. For me, it's green or amber terminals - perhaps it's like music where the genre of your teens defines the best music for the rest of your life. Were you a teenager in the Win3.1 era?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
drooopy 2y ago
I sure do. Modern OS UIs might be visually rich and feature-packed, but this definitely came at the cost of clarity and efficiency. Because I do a lot of writing, I keep an old thinkpad and an old PowerBook running NT 4 and Mac OS 9 respectively. There's just something about those grays and the straightforward, no-nonsense UIs that allows me to work without distractions. I can't say the same thing about my macbook and all of its colorful superfluous features. Of course, since those OSes are ancient, it's more difficult to access the internet which also helps quite a lot with me being more focused on my work.
ta12653421 2y ago
Ah, yes, "REAL" computing: in the old days you had to pack your 17inch screen into your car, drive to your friends house, plan to game Doom or Quake, but in the end you were configuring network drivers etc. the whole weekend instead of playing: including features like countless reboots and reinstalls because something was crashed during "optimizing" the memory configuration for whatever driver<->game combo. and if you set a wrong/not supported screen resolution in NT4, you had to set off power to reboot the computer because resolution back-switching was not available back then. REAL computing also in the sense that a 500kb wordfile could crash your machine, if it loaded at all - because it took 1 min to load the bytestream from disk :) yes, good ol days :-D
- kchr 2y ago
  While I appreciate the flashbacks you just gave me, I don't think the enshittifaction of GUI:s is orthogonal to the evolution in not having to deal with hardware issues any more.
  - ta12653421 2y ago
    well, then we may have a different interpretation of "REAL computing" :-D LOL but i agree: that we do not have these hardware issues anymore was huge driver in getting mass adoption of home computing & internet and the ecosystem as a whole - i remember 1994 when i needed a graphic driver update for some niche SVGA card, i had to go to the store, give them 4 x 3.5inch disks, wait one week and then i could get the disks back :-D today, the normal DAU is able to buy a super powerful computer in a discount store and have it running with some games 1h later.
theandrewbailey 2y ago
That's a lot of the reason why I use Chicago95 where I can. https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

litenboll 2y ago

Not even a little! I can get nostalgic, sure, but I wouldn't want it to be part of my everyday experience.

com2kid 2y ago

I use the MS DOS editor theme for VS Code!

netsharc 2y ago
Wow, the edit.com / qbasic.exe UI! I spent hours in QBasic when I was a teenager. Damn, that's ages ago!
- _joel 2y ago
  GORILLA.BAS
  - ta12653421 2y ago
    this is already advanced LEVEL II for experienced programmes who were able to use Q Basic. but ... real pro's were using GW Basic! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GW-BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GW-BASIC LOL

bionsystem 2y ago

I like to run LXQt sometimes for that (and for the snappiness / low resources).

bpye 2y ago

I don’t know if I miss grey UIs, but I do miss the consistent design language and how easy it was to tell if something was a button, scrollable, etc.

simonask 2y ago
Aren't we at a pretty good place with that stuff, though? It's rare to see the abominations that used to roam, especially in the Flash era. Web designers generally follow mostly the same principles and design language. Windows is the only place where it's still a bit wild west.
- eMPee584 2y ago
  mobile is an UX / accessibility abyss though xD
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >Aren't we at a pretty good place with that stuff, though? Hell no: I can't tell what is and isn't a button. I can't tell specific areas apart from others (no borders/shading). I can't see or use the scroll bar, assuming one is even present. I can't tell where a window begins and ends. I can't tell which window is active. I can't tell what a window is for. I can't tell what the fuck these Nouveautian Hieroglpyhs from Uranus (aka icons) mean. I could go on, but I digress: Are we in a pretty good place? Hell no.
  - anthk 2y ago
    I use EMWM and a Motif theme for QT5 because of that. For GTK, a nice one it's 'backwater', good enough. Not Motif, but it blends well.
  - jbverschoor 2y ago
    Check my post a few minutes ago to fix most problems. Also, install HazeOver to dim (or hide) inactive windows/apps.
  - simonask 2y ago

timthorn 2y ago

> There is something in my brain that associates that style with “real” computing. That's interesting. For me, it's green or amber terminals - perhaps it's like music where the genre of your teens defines the best music for the rest of your life. Were you a teenager in the Win3.1 era?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

drooopy 2y ago

I sure do. Modern OS UIs might be visually rich and feature-packed, but this definitely came at the cost of clarity and efficiency. Because I do a lot of writing, I keep an old thinkpad and an old PowerBook running NT 4 and Mac OS 9 respectively. There's just something about those grays and the straightforward, no-nonsense UIs that allows me to work without distractions. I can't say the same thing about my macbook and all of its colorful superfluous features. Of course, since those OSes are ancient, it's more difficult to access the internet which also helps quite a lot with me being more focused on my work.

ta12653421 2y ago

Ah, yes, "REAL" computing: in the old days you had to pack your 17inch screen into your car, drive to your friends house, plan to game Doom or Quake, but in the end you were configuring network drivers etc. the whole weekend instead of playing: including features like countless reboots and reinstalls because something was crashed during "optimizing" the memory configuration for whatever driver<->game combo. and if you set a wrong/not supported screen resolution in NT4, you had to set off power to reboot the computer because resolution back-switching was not available back then. REAL computing also in the sense that a 500kb wordfile could crash your machine, if it loaded at all - because it took 1 min to load the bytestream from disk :) yes, good ol days :-D

kchr 2y ago
While I appreciate the flashbacks you just gave me, I don't think the enshittifaction of GUI:s is orthogonal to the evolution in not having to deal with hardware issues any more.
- ta12653421 2y ago
  well, then we may have a different interpretation of "REAL computing" :-D LOL but i agree: that we do not have these hardware issues anymore was huge driver in getting mass adoption of home computing & internet and the ecosystem as a whole - i remember 1994 when i needed a graphic driver update for some niche SVGA card, i had to go to the store, give them 4 x 3.5inch disks, wait one week and then i could get the disks back :-D today, the normal DAU is able to buy a super powerful computer in a discount store and have it running with some games 1h later.

theandrewbailey 2y ago

That's a lot of the reason why I use Chicago95 where I can. https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95