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I've never understood why media players in particular feel they have carte blanche to completely ignore any attempt at integrating with the system look and feel

by KwanEsq 13y ago

I've never understood why media players in particular feel they have carte blanche to completely ignore any attempt at integrating with the system look and feel. I never really got along with WinAMP due in no small part to that.

alok-g 13y ago
On the contrary, when Winamp came, I found it full of innovations that could not have been there if they were to follow the system look and feel. It was great to see the old ways broken to make an interface well-suited to the application at hand. I still admire and use Winamp to this day.
eclipticplane 13y ago
Back in WinAmp's rise, the "system look and feel" was stagnant and stale. WinAmp (and other media players) tend to be small on-screen; they are rarely full screen apps. They should play my music and get out of my way. System styles and UI are rarely designed for "small form" applications that need to pack a lot of features into a very small, non-descript space. WinAmp's themes went above and beyond, of course, but those were at the user's discretion.
J_Darnley 13y ago
I usually agree with you. I can't stand most programs that don't use a native Windows interface. Even GTK ones can annoy me. However, Winamp is the one exception I actually like. Perhaps partly because you aren't forced to use a horrible, brightly-coloured, sparse interface that many of them get. Utilities that get forced upon you with device drivers are usually the worst at this.
forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
Excuse me? Winamp was one of the the better programs at integrating with the OS that I had know. it had this thing called skins that made the player look whatever you wanted it to be, including the system look and feel, if you wished. In fact , if you used a Windows OS theme, you will soon discover that Winamp native interface was much much better at what it did than Windows native(native Windows Media witch Winnamp outlook could emulate was atrocious and super bloated).

by KwanEsq 13y ago

alok-g 13y ago

On the contrary, when Winamp came, I found it full of innovations that could not have been there if they were to follow the system look and feel. It was great to see the old ways broken to make an interface well-suited to the application at hand. I still admire and use Winamp to this day.

eclipticplane 13y ago

Back in WinAmp's rise, the "system look and feel" was stagnant and stale. WinAmp (and other media players) tend to be small on-screen; they are rarely full screen apps. They should play my music and get out of my way. System styles and UI are rarely designed for "small form" applications that need to pack a lot of features into a very small, non-descript space. WinAmp's themes went above and beyond, of course, but those were at the user's discretion.

J_Darnley 13y ago

I usually agree with you. I can't stand most programs that don't use a native Windows interface. Even GTK ones can annoy me. However, Winamp is the one exception I actually like. Perhaps partly because you aren't forced to use a horrible, brightly-coloured, sparse interface that many of them get. Utilities that get forced upon you with device drivers are usually the worst at this.

forgottenpaswrd 13y ago

Excuse me? Winamp was one of the the better programs at integrating with the OS that I had know. it had this thing called skins that made the player look whatever you wanted it to be, including the system look and feel, if you wished. In fact , if you used a Windows OS theme, you will soon discover that Winamp native interface was much much better at what it did than Windows native(native Windows Media witch Winnamp outlook could emulate was atrocious and super bloated).