How can you tell that any Windows or Mac clone UI is a re-implementation? Easy: try to move your mouse diagonally into the Send To menu after letting it pop up. If the send-to menu closes as you mouse over the item into the submenu, it's a clone. If the menu stays up even if you brush over another menu item, it's either real or a Good Clone. :)
For the fun history, @DonHopkins had a thread a few years back:
There was an economies of scale back then with OS-level UI components.
If Microsoft spent money on UX research that improved its UI controls, it would benefit a lot of people. Essentially the cost of that research was bore by all application developers.
The problem now? Every company is designing their own UI components. Every company has to bear the cost of UX research individually. It’s a lot of wheel re-inventing. UX easily takes a backseat.
As a side note: With the Internet (and myself) getting older and older, I appreciate the effort of the Internet Archive more and more. So many links I was able to revive thanks to a cached version. So many of my own works I was able to retrieve. It's a blessing, and not praised enough.
Man nothing drives me further up the wall than when a nice progress indicator with discrete segments gets animated with a lazy `to { rotate(360deg); }` etc[1]. It is my molehill to die on
There's something like this in every desktop Linux I've tried, which made it feel like using the mouse was in some way weird and broken. But I've been using it for long enough now that it either got fixed, or more likely, I got used to it. I don't even remember what it was, something about clicking drop down menus a certain way?
Reminds me of the first time I ever used classic Macintosh System OS, and how you have to hold the mouse button down to keep menus open. It doesn't take much to throw everything off.
It also fails the "hold right click" test, Windows didn't popover context menus until right click was released. Instead, for file, it did a kind of "contextual drag and drop".
I don't have an appropriate machine (virtual or otherwise) at the moment to check, but I believe this is another one of those things they screwed up around Windows 10 or so --- right-clicking on the Start menu and trying to get to the submenu that has the shut down / logout options was made significantly more frustrating because of it.
Have you considered that you can actually right click the start button, open a window, throw machine out of window? (I’ll get my coat!)(it’s cold out here collecting discarded pc’s)
If you have another option with a submenu on either side of Send To, the Send To menu will close. It closes as soon as you move over any item with a submenu. But it just so happens that Send To is typically by itself, so it's a good test regardless.
I must be a freak then because one of the first tweaks I do to any Windows install since possibly Win98 days is to set menu delay to 0ms. I like the snappy precise feel and have no problems not taking shortcuts across menu items.
In the web sphere, I recall Amazon having done something like this in the very early days when there was a sidebar with categories that you could kinda drill into. Mouseover one, and there was an invisible triangle off to the right that if you kept inside of, it wouldn't switch the current category.
Another example, half of the stuff I tried had a different outcome from a actual Windows XP, on the systray, explorer side bar, what About dialogs were supposed to show, and so on.
I believe that anyone who isn't explicitly looking for it is subconsciously frustrated by the lack of it and they just don't know why the UI is "annoying".
It is slightly more than just a UI since all of the applications actually work (you can save and reload for example and still see your previous files too).
I remember being extremely envious of the "Alienware theme" that you could only get with an actual Alienware machine.
That was surprisingly short-lived though, such custom experiences are uncommon these days. Seems like nobody is theming Windows- they just fill it with crapware.
I remember those themes - the sleek "glowing" blue accents on shiny silver and black UI elements looked so fancy back then. There was a Windows Media Player skin too if I recall correctly.
Why theme it? For many people, it has three main functions: starting a game, starting Chrome, and starting MSO. All three kinds have their own custom look, or theme support. The native UI is barely visible, unless you're a heavy Explorer user.
More games ran on it (mostly thanks to higher DirectX version).
From developer perspective, XP was the first version of Windows with registration-free COM and side-by-side assemblies, which (if used properly by app devs) fully solved the "DLL hell" problem.
Lots of relatively small UI improvements that all added up. I honestly never noticed them until years later when I had to use a slightly older machine and had an "oh wow" moment.
I was hoping this was emulation, like the windows 95 in js that exists, but its more of a simulator. The web browser doesnt work and the minesweeper game uses a text emoji instead of a picture for the face
Turns out you can just click and drag to select everything in Minesweeper, and it reveals all the hidden numbers. There’s even a sneaky little “debug” text in the bottom-left corner that shows where all the bombs are.
I also hoped it was actual emulation. I could tell it wasn't when I saw the bootup progress bar moving more smoothly than it ever did in real Windows :)
I was able to get the "browser" to work by opening the Flash Player and clicking the link to the Ruffle website. It's just an embedded view so some sites don't work (I think dependent on your browser settings.)
I feel slightly ashamed that I spent enough time using Windows XP that was able to spot that this was a clone based on the fonts and shadow effects alone.
It could be a badge of honor! You used the system so much that clones can't fool you. To be fair, Windows text rendering does have a very specific look that's difficult to perfectly replicate without using the actual Windows APIs.
I'm sure some here could look at a screenshot of the same text rendered on Windows, macOS, and Linux and tell them apart.
Yep. No web search. No ads or news or weather or links to apps that aren't actually installed. Opens virtually instantly. Lots of stock customization options (icon size, icon order, pinned icons, classic vs XP style, all shortcuts toggleable).
The only thing I miss is the search bar - I became quite used to that with Windows 7.
The Windows XP start menu sucked, no search function and it was common to have 3 columns full of shortcuts with folders inside folders. It only got better with Windows Vista.
Readit News
For the fun history, @DonHopkins had a thread a few years back:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17404345
Now it's all about how to make it useful to the company.
<YOUR FILES ARE NOT BACKED UP, WOULD YOU LIKE TO TURN ON ONEDRIVE?>
<Yes> <Maybe later>
Anyway, the links in that post have deteriorated.
Here's the link to Raymond Chen's blog: https://web.archive.org/web/20190218080905/https://blogs.msd... (shame on MS for redirecting you to another page when showing you a 404, which make it harder to find the original URL).
Updated link to Raymond Chen's blog, where the comments have been 'retired': https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20080619-00/?p=21...
And the 2 imgur links (same issue with the redirecting...):
https://web.archive.org/web/20230509182201/https://i.imgur.c...
and
https://web.archive.org/web/20230507201645/https://i.imgur.c...
If Microsoft spent money on UX research that improved its UI controls, it would benefit a lot of people. Essentially the cost of that research was bore by all application developers.
The problem now? Every company is designing their own UI components. Every company has to bear the cost of UX research individually. It’s a lot of wheel re-inventing. UX easily takes a backseat.
(Only ignorant fools would start to fight it.)
[1] https://cdn.dribbble.com/userupload/41647820/file/original-8...
https://xkcd.com/612/
https://bjk5.com/post/44698559168/breaking-down-amazons-mega...
Reminds me of the first time I ever used classic Macintosh System OS, and how you have to hold the mouse button down to keep menus open. It doesn't take much to throw everything off.
https://bjk5.com/post/44698559168/breaking-down-amazons-mega...
Deleted Comment
Deleted Comment
https://docs.win32.run/
https://github.com/ducbao414/win32.run
It seems functional to me!
Kudos to the author!
(takes less memory than Miro, at least in Firefox :D)
No half fakes allowed.
Ouch.
There was a cambrian explosion of tools to customize the look and feel. TweakXP pro is the one I remember. All pirated off-course.
That was surprisingly short-lived though, such custom experiences are uncommon these days. Seems like nobody is theming Windows- they just fill it with crapware.
We found more fun in ricing our linux desktops :) https://reddit.com/r/unixporn
Taskbar grouping.
ClearType.
Remote Desktop.
More games ran on it (mostly thanks to higher DirectX version).
From developer perspective, XP was the first version of Windows with registration-free COM and side-by-side assemblies, which (if used properly by app devs) fully solved the "DLL hell" problem.
Better support for dealing with "we never tested outside of windows 98" apps.
early version of SxS.
Various small enhancements.
Didn't care for the UI, though - looked childish...
Nice effort though.
I'm sure some here could look at a screenshot of the same text rendered on Windows, macOS, and Linux and tell them apart.
The only thing I miss is the search bar - I became quite used to that with Windows 7.
I never needed search in XP cause I knew where everything was.
Since Windows 8.1’s fucking abomination of a Start Menu, yeah, I’d miss having search.
That will be fun in the office :-)