[HN Gopher] Not So Common Desktop Environment (NsCDE)
___________________________________________________________________
Not So Common Desktop Environment (NsCDE)
Author : rvieira
Score : 123 points
Date : 2022-07-25 08:42 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| cosuhi wrote:
| This looks nice, the goals seem to be pretty close to
| SerenityOS's ones : a "love letter" to 90's UNIX experience,
| using modern tech (although this is obviously not a full-blown OS
| like Serenity). I love retro projects like this!
| mhd wrote:
| The Win95 interface, being rather well-known, was a frequent
| emulation target and generally easier to do than OS X, although
| the finer details are usually missing from both (e.g. good
| keyboard control).
|
| https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
|
| https://sourceforge.net/projects/xpde/
| jszymborski wrote:
| I've used this theme on xubuntu daily for like a year, it's
| pretty great.
| raintrees wrote:
| I love it: "Author will like to apologize for bad english in
| docs. A rand() function putting articles (the, a, an) will
| probably be more accurate."
|
| I may start using that for my code doc as well...
| smm11 wrote:
| Did anyone ever dupe OpenLook?
| mhd wrote:
| As opposed to Motif, you always had one OL implementation
| freely availablye (XView), so there was little need for it.
| It's also a bit weirder, so harder to dupe as e.g. a gtk/qt
| theme. The scrollbar being a prime example.
|
| Also, even older. I think CDE was basically Motif's victory
| lap.
| hulitu wrote:
| Scrollbar in OL was cool. And the round (oval) buttons also.
| The pinning of menu items and automatically selection of
| first menu item was also a nice concept.
| IronWolve wrote:
| Older I get, I care less about the desktop I use as long as I
| have a toolbar, can alt-tab my apps, and has nice looking fonts.
| I look at windows 11 and osx and amazed how win10 and linux font
| rendering is still bad.
|
| Only reason i bring it up, the screenshot looks like a nice and
| fun desktop, but the fonts are still horrible.
|
| I have win11 in a vm, and its amazingly nice looking fonts, in
| win10 I use MacType, on linux I can get terminal fonts to look
| good and ms code, but the gui/desktop still looks meh.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Can you drag stuff onto the taskbar in Win11 yet? Like drag a
| file to a folder icon, the folder window appears, and the file
| is moved to that folder. Or drag a file onto an app icon to
| open the file in that app. The fact that I couldn't do that in
| Win11 blew my mind, and was the deal breaker.
| IronWolve wrote:
| Me too, I reverted due to its horrible toolbar behavior. Now
| I run it in vmware workstation (for nested virt and tpm chip
| emu), so I can monitor updates and see when things are fixed,
| then I'll prob upgrade. WSL2/Android emulation works rather
| well.
|
| I was figuring someone will replace a taskbar replacement
| eventually and work around microsofts stupidity.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| This helps a lot with font rendering in Linux:
| https://pandasauce.org/post/linux-fonts/ It's a bit of work but
| I was a lot happier after making all the tweaks. The biggest
| thing is that Chrome has its own completely isolated view of
| anti-aliasing independent from the system and you have to take
| very specific measures to configure it appropriately. I ended
| up just switching to Firefox and have had less troubles and
| more consistent fonts.
| IronWolve wrote:
| I've been using the arch wiki on configuring auto hinter and
| disabling block fonts, works kinda.
|
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/font_configuration
| peckrob wrote:
| One of the big reasons I have always like CDE/Motif was that it,
| to me, is the epitome of function over form when it comes to a
| desktop UI and widget toolkit. It's actually the same reason I
| think the Windows' UI peaked around Windows 98SE. Things that are
| interactive, like buttons or window frame edges, _look_
| interactive and are easy to spot. Buttons look like buttons.
| Checkboxes look like checkboxes. Contrasting colors are used to
| separate window frames from window contents. Window frames had
| actual _titles_ so that you could glance quickly to see the state
| of your system. You sat down with it, you knew immediately what
| was what.
|
| NextSTEP/OpenSTEP/GnuSTEP feels similar to me. Yes, by modern
| standards, they are ugly as sin. But they were super, super
| usable for the users with very little ramp-up time.
|
| By contrast, everything else is just so _flat_ now. On my Mac, it
| 's a regular Where's Waldo to figure out what is and isn't
| clickable sometimes. There is very little contrast between the
| window frames and window content ... if there is any at all, and
| I really dislike how they've largely done away with title bars
| entirely. And so much stuff is hidden in menus or behind obtuse,
| difficult to reach settings. I'll occasionally go look at Windows
| and it's not much better.
|
| What's really frustrating is watching some of my elderly family
| members struggle to use newer versions of Windows or macOS
| because the UX has become so flat that using it can be very
| obtuse if it's not something that you use all day, every day. It
| feels like redesigning UIs is becoming a vanity project for
| companies to show they are "modern" ... rather than trying to
| make things better for actual human beings that use computers.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I cannot agree enough. From another comment I made:
|
| > one thing that I _really_ like that a lot of UI has been
| leaving by the wayside is making it clear when something on-
| screen is supposed to be interactable.
|
| > Buttons look like buttons. Menus are always in the same place
| (in-window or top o' the screen, macOS style) instead of having
| to play "find the hamburger" in every single application. Title
| bars are exclusively for identifying and manipulating windows.
| You don't have to worry about accidentally clicking some
| control when you're just trying to move a window.
|
| > The titlebar thing really gets my goat. Firefox uses the
| titlebar as a tab bar, so you switch or close tabs if you try
| to grab the titlebar to move things around. Slack has a big ol'
| search bar in the title bar. macOS[1] Mail.app and Calendar.app
| litter the titlebar with buttons. One of the basic functions of
| the window manager, _moving windows around_, has been hijacked
| to put controls there in the name of reducing clutter when we
| have _insanely_ high DPI displays and we can easily afford to
| give a little screen space to a few controls.
|
| > Drives me crazy.
|
| > [1] I'm at work, so I'm on mac. At home I run pop!_OS and
| KDE, but I have similar complaints there.
| nbzso wrote:
| Still on Catalina. Tried the "new" macOS skins. Don't get me
| started. I am specialist in generating macOS related downvotes
| in HN:)
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Well now on your mac you also have to try randomly hovering
| over stuff to see if it changes so you can then click on it.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Not ugly as sin, just needs a minor update to modern resolution
| and color palettes. As happened multiple times in the 90s.
|
| They even had customizable themes back in the day.
| chakkepolja wrote:
| That's modern windows UI, maybe. I don't have any qualms with
| KDE UIs and still has most qualities you said.
| blackhaz wrote:
| I think modern flat UIs are ugly. Yes, they are simply ugly.
| Give me Motif any day. Really miss Mac OS X Snow Leopard as
| well.
|
| (Actually typing this from a NextSTEP-themed FreeBSD laptop
| with IRIX-like window decorations.)
| mattarm wrote:
| I share most of these sentiments, but I also don't know how
| much of this is my own wistful "those were the days..."
| sentimentality and how much of it is based on a those old Us
| being actually easier to use in practice.
|
| As far as usability, I do think computers have become easier
| for non-experts to use, especially for basic tasks. I
| definitely remember helping some very confused people being
| completely overwhelmed by what to click on, what deeply nested
| menu was needed, etc., when just trying to browse the web or
| check their email. Those basic workflows have gotten better.
|
| In many ways I think modern interfaces are more about mobile
| first, touch based influences, and moving away from keyboard
| and multi-button mouse based interfaces. Stripping things down
| to the very basics is almost required now, given the devices
| people use. You can't "middle click to paste" on an iPad.
| dsr_ wrote:
| It's entirely possible for a GUI to be simple and consistent
| for all normal actions _and also_ have non-obvious shortcuts
| for people who want to invest the time.
|
| It's even better when the non-obvious shortcuts are
| documented and standardized so that you don't have to relearn
| them for each application.
| mhd wrote:
| > It's actually the same reason I think the Windows' UI peaked
| around Windows 98SE. Things that are interactive, like buttons
| or window frame edges, look interactive and are easy to spot.
| Buttons look like buttons.
|
| Unless we're talking about toolbar buttons, where the 3D look
| that was still in Win95 vanished with either Win98 or one of
| the early office suites. I still think that's wrong, and maybe
| even the original sin of our current flatness crisis.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Contrasting colors are used to separate window frames from
| window contents. Window frames_
|
| THIS IS MY BIGGEST0 IRRITATION WITH THE MODERN WINDOWS UI.
| There is no standard window decoration or title formatting,
| particularly no standard way of differentiating between the
| active window and others. It is often difficult to tell what
| application has focus especially if you have two with the same
| theming on different desktops1. And it only seems to get worse
| over time.
|
| I keep thinking of writing a tool that hunts for the top-most
| window4 and draws a nasty great bright green box around it so
| current input focus is impossible-to-mistake obvious! Ugly but
| functional.
|
| ----
|
| [0] of several...
|
| [1] looking at you MS Office, with nothing but a difference in
| text decorations23 between focused and non-focused windows,
| though that is far from the only or the worst offender
|
| [2] from white to off-white
|
| [3] or, for non-maximised windows, for some apps, a slight
| difference in how dark that 1px border is
|
| [4] excluding those that are set always-on-top, hopefully that
| is just a visual thing and the top-most on the task stack is
| actually the one with input focus
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| This is great, using actual CDE is abysmal. I didnt get very far
| installing CDE, but I remember WindowMaker not recognizing full
| screen YouTube videos, I wouldn't be he surprised if CDE was the
| same.
| hulitu wrote:
| There is no link between Windowmaker and CDE.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| I'm talking about general experience with using old window
| managers/desktop env
|
| Edit: But now that I think of it, I do remember Motif WM
| having the same issue with fullscreen, so it's likely CDE
| does as well.
| rwmj wrote:
| I never understood why CDE/Motif was chosen over OLVWM/OpenView
| since the latter was both nicer looking and much easier to use.
| shrubble wrote:
| Sun was the big gorilla in the marketplace and CDE was based
| on non-Sun technology.
|
| CDE rose out of HP Vue window manager.
|
| Motif was considered to be a good choice; some say it is easy
| to program.
| ben7799 wrote:
| Motif was pretty horrific to program. It was full of what
| we would recognize as pointer abuse today.
|
| I was always a little upset when Gtk took off in the late
| 90s, because it had a bunch of similar pointer abuse. It
| seemed to be heavily influenced by Motif. Qt seemed much
| better at the time. Java UI (Swing) clearly seemed a big
| step forward at the time. Tk was pretty nice at the time.
|
| A lot of the X stack back then had this kind of stuff. At
| some point it probably got cleaned up.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| If I had to guess it's because CDE had a more modern, desktop
| oriented design that the newer generation of Unix users,
| specifically PC users would be attracted to.
|
| Straight window managers require a lot more tinkering and
| have steeper learning curves.
| occoder wrote:
| To me it's the exact opposite, OpenLook was just _UGLY_. CDE
| /Motif didn't look that great either, but it was at least
| serviceable.
|
| It's very telling that no one at Sun would look at OpenLook
| and recognize it as ugly. Sun was an engineering company, the
| entire company, from the CEO on down, had no taste.
|
| Exhibit #2: the Java Metal look and feel, almost repulsively
| ugly, yet no one at Sun saw anything wrong.
| kloch wrote:
| Exception: Sun's printed documentation was beautiful
| hulitu wrote:
| As far as i remember there were 2 organizations which tried
| to standardize UNIX: X/Open and Open Look. One had IBM, DEC ,
| HP in it the other SUN and AT&T. One choose Motif/CDE, the
| other OpenLook. In the end the OL people gave up and
| everibody went CDE under the OpenGroup umbrella.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Back in the 90's, I felt the exact opposite. Motif was much
| better looking and easier to use than Open Look. These days
| they both look pretty dated.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > I remember WindowMaker not recognizing full screen YouTube
| videos
|
| I'm using Window Maker for years now and full screen YouTube
| videos work perfectly fine. Perhaps you used some very ancient
| version? The latest from the official site[0] should work
| (though getting the "next" branch from git might be better if
| you want all the latest fixes - and bugs :-P - as releases
| happen infrequently).
|
| [0] https://www.windowmaker.org/
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| This was probably 2015, so it was likely that.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Most likely yeah. In 2015 i used Window Maker as my main WM
| and at least Firefox worked fine with fullscreen videos and
| from a quick look via git blame support for the
| _NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN state for _NET_WM_STATE was added
| in 2009.
|
| However AFAIK that was in the CRM fork which became the
| main/official version somewhere in 2013 so it is possible
| your distro at the time had some version from 2006 (which
| AFAIK was when the last version from the previous
| developers was made).
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Note that the original versions of CDE[1] and Motif[2] are
| released as FOSS these days and apparently receive a modest
| amount of maintenance, though I don't know how hard it is to
| actually get them to work (and whether their internals are of any
| interest--I haven't heard much praise for Motif).
|
| [1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
|
| [2] https://sourceforge.net/projects/motif/
| xvilka wrote:
| They might have had more attention and contributors if they
| were hosted on GitHub or GitLab (or FreeDesktop's GitLab). Or
| the SourceHut. Sourceforge is the worst possible choice for
| development nowadays.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| (To answer my own question, under NixOS
| serivces.xserver.desktopManager.cde.enable = true;
|
| will add a functional entry for CDE to your display manager. I
| have not been able to get plain $ startx `nix
| path-info nixpkgs#cdesktopenv`/opt/dt/bin/Xsession
|
| to work, and debugging it seems to involve a more extensive
| digging expedition into the innards of this beast that I care
| to undertake right now.)
| soraminazuki wrote:
| It looks like you need a few other daemons configured besides
| CDE itself. But as you mentioned, setting cde.enable is way
| easier.
|
| https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/634141959076a8ab69ca2c.
| ..
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Two things that Motif has going for it is that nowadays it is
| very lightweight without missing much functionality (at least
| from a pure "functionality" perspective) and the API has been
| stable since the 90s, so code breakage is rare (though it can
| still happen since AFAIK some Unix vendors did make
| customizations that weren't 100% compatible).
| wk_end wrote:
| > without missing much functionality (at least from a pure
| "functionality" perspective)
|
| Does it support accessibility, DPI independence, layouts that
| automatically resize (important when you need to support
| different languages), right-to-left text...? Many "modern"
| toolkits struggle with stuff like this - it'd be really cool
| (and maybe even useful?) if Motif had that stuff down.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > accessibility
|
| I don't know about that, Motif was used (and in some
| circles is still used) a lot with government and scientific
| projects so it might have something but that is just
| guesswork. If it has it'd be something specific to it.
|
| > DPI independence
|
| Depends on what you mean with this. Motif was made to work
| in a large number of different systems with different
| graphics abilities so it can use arbitrary text and gap
| sizes, a large part of the visual side can be customized to
| make it work at any DPI. I think it can also use the DPI
| settings from the X server to adjust sizes too.
|
| However it doesn't have automatic and dynamic scaling in
| mixed DPI scenarios since there isn't any commonly accepted
| mechanism for X11 toolkits to do that (this is more of a
| political/social issue than a technical one - the X server
| already provides all the necessary information and
| functionality but there needs to be something akin to EWMH
| -or even a new version of EWMH- to standardize messages and
| behavior for handling DPI dynamically).
|
| > layouts that automatically resize
|
| It was one of the first toolkits to provide such
| functionality.
|
| > right-to-left text
|
| AFAIK it has support for both right-to-left and top-to-
| bottom (for, e.g., Chinese) text layout support. However
| that is only about layout, i think Motif can only use
| either core fonts or Xft, so you do not get proper support
| for Arabic, etc.
|
| Regardless what i had in mind with "pure functionality
| perspective" was about things like having working GUI
| elements such as buttons, menus, windows, lists, dialogs,
| events, etc, etc - i.e. the necessary bits for all toolkits
| to have to be "GUI toolkits" :-P.
|
| I don't know if Motif itself is developed much anymore
| though, i took a look in the SourceForge repository some
| time ago and seemed that development dried up. Sadly it was
| open sourced about a decade too late to gain any momentum.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I don't want to enrage anyone, but.. is there a Docker image or
| Dockerfile?
| [deleted]
| nathan_compton wrote:
| There is an AUR package and you can base a Docker image off
| Arch, so its pretty straightforward to set one up.
| qalmakka wrote:
| CDE was overall ok. The real crime was the terrible palettes they
| used, stuff like violet and blue, pink and green... '90s kitsch
| at its highest.
| butz wrote:
| Back in the day there were not much colors to choose from, in
| case you even had color monitor.
| kloch wrote:
| Especially with Sun where the vast majority of color frame
| buffers were 8-bit throughout the 1990's
| mxuribe wrote:
| I was about to respond with "Hey, I'm actually fond of those
| color palettes...". But, then, I realized really what i have a
| fondness for is the nostalgia of those times, not necessarily
| the colors or palettes... Good times!
| airocker wrote:
| Novice question to window manager experts: Is it possible to
| build browser as a window manager? Something like OS -> OpenGL ->
| socket -> http/websocket -> browser based desktop ? Then be able
| to easily port all gnu apps. RDP would be a native experience
| this way over the browser.
|
| Excuse my ignorance if I am missing something here but would love
| to understand if there is a basic flaw in building something like
| this.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Latency would be horrible, but you could do it. There were a
| few WMs/DEs that did things like that in the past.
| airocker wrote:
| Do you remember which one? What do you think would be the
| source of latency at least in the local machine setup (not
| over network). Would not passing window manager commands be
| much faster than passing video or pixel level information?
| scotty79 wrote:
| I don't want to offend anybody but for me this kind of graphics
| is very hard to look at.
|
| I wonder why all the progress of aesthetics of desktop
| environments happened on windows and macs (also chrome) while
| linux desktop system did not introduce anything pretty.
|
| Or am I missing something?
| frankzander wrote:
| Can someone explain to me, why someone would use such an (in my
| opinion) ugly looking DE? I think it could be very fast. But
| using some pretty looking DE doesn't have to be slow. So it looks
| like some "nerds" sit down and did something like an graphical
| user interface without anything like prettiness in mind. I always
| ask myself the whole time why anyone would use something
| unpretty? I know the history ... it looks like something I used
| on some old unixes but I'm glad that it's been replaced by KDE or
| Gnome or XFCE ... something what the eye pleases. Why doesn't not
| everybody strive for prettiness?
| frankzander wrote:
| Thank you for voting a honest question down. I just wanted to
| understand.
| jagger27 wrote:
| > (in my opinion) ugly
|
| There's your answer.
| jrm4 wrote:
| This looks like it could be very dense and functional. I see
| the appeal.
|
| Counterpoint: Gnome, in its failed attempts to be like MacOS
| but "better" for me ends up looking and feeling like "Fisher
| Price, My First Computer." I'm a grown-up who can handle and
| appreciate both complexity and customization. Stop trying to
| make decisions for me and get out of my way.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| Speaking personally, I see what you mean, but one thing that I
| _really_ like that a lot of UI has been leaving by the wayside
| is making it clear when something on-screen is supposed to be
| interactable.
|
| Buttons look like buttons. Menus are always in the same place
| (in-window or top 'o the screen, macOS style) instead of having
| to play "find the hamburger" in every single application. Title
| bars are exclusively for identifying and manipulating windows.
| You don't have to worry about accidentally clicking some
| control when you're just trying to move a window.
|
| The titlebar thing really gets my goat. Firefox uses the
| titlebar as a tab bar, so you switch or close tabs if you try
| to grab the titlebar to move things around. Slack has a big ol'
| search bar in the title bar. macOS[1] Mail.app and Calendar.app
| litter the titlebar with buttons. One of the basic functions of
| the window manager, _moving windows around_, has been hijacked
| to put controls there in the name of reducing clutter when we
| have _insanely_ high DPI displays and we can easily afford to
| give a little screen space to a few controls.
|
| Drives me crazy.
|
| 90s GUIs were obsessively focused on making the function of
| something apparent based on its appearance. You learn a few
| different common controls, and you know how everything works,
| and it's consistent. [2]
|
| Modern UI has sacrificed discoverability, and to some degree
| usability, for style. You can have both, but no one seems
| interested in that.
|
| [1] I'm at work, so I'm on mac. At home I run pop!_OS and KDE,
| but I have similar complaints there.
|
| [2] I mean, not always. There are of course a thousand examples
| of shitty applications not playing nice, but lots of really
| heavily-used applications did.
| frankzander wrote:
| Oh that's crazy. Thank you for that. That's something I never
| thought of. I'm obsessed with prettiness but at the end it
| have to be functional and all you writing about is something
| that is also something important BEFORE prettiness. Thx for
| that.
| [deleted]
| phoe-krk wrote:
| > something what the eye pleases
|
| Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. People tend to like the
| fact that all shapes and UI controls were clearly defined and
| very easy to tell apart from one another, plus there is a giant
| nostalgia factor in play. See e.g.
| https://www.reddit.com/r/windows98/comments/ktz5v3/just_made...
| for an example of this behavior.
| tsuru wrote:
| I'm definitely in that camp. 4Dwm was nice back in the day. I
| never got the appeal of CDE back then. That said, after
| looking at old screenshots, I definitely prefer anti-aliased
| fonts.
| frankzander wrote:
| ok good points ... I expected that. Yes beauty is in the eye
| of the beholder IMHO this counts only for a limited scope.
| Discussing this further would lead into a philosophical
| debate. What I never got into my mind is "nostalgia".
| Nostalgia isn't worth of nothing for me. I tried but can't
| understand why this is for somebody anything worth because in
| my eyes it's like hold tight to something obsolete.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > Yes beauty is in the eye of the beholder IMHO this counts
| only for a limited scope.
|
| And that scope is arbitrary and each person has their own
| threshold, so we go back to "beauty is in the eye of the
| beholder" :-P.
|
| I didn't grew up or have any sort of nostalgia for
| CDE/Motif myself but i think it looks fine. I prefer Window
| Maker / NeXTStep myself though.
| kjs3 wrote:
| tl;dr: I don't like something, so no one should like that
| thing, and if they do they get a derogatory label as 'nerds'.
| You might want to read the room...
|
| For some of us, computers are tools, not manifest expressions
| of our self-important concepts of 'good taste'. I could not
| possibly care less about rounded corners, transparent windows
| so I can see some pretentious background picture through my
| code, animated _anything_ or whatever else the latest UX fad
| is. I want my window manager simple, consistent, functional,
| fast, familiar and out of the way of _the actual work I 'm
| doing_. Simplicity is it's own kind of 'pretty'.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| When I sit down at a computer, I want to run an application and
| get something done. I don't want a desktop environment in my
| way, trying to entertain me, or otherwise distracting me. I am
| also not trying to entertain someone else when using a computer
| [see footnote]. Looking pretty is for art and games.
|
| The specific aesthetic that matters when you are working and
| trying to accomplish something are ergonomics. Is what I need
| where I need it and easily findable?
|
| Below are concrete preferences of mine and likely many others
| which could lead to a DE prioritizing things other than
| appearance:
|
| - Can I see at a glance my commands and tools, or are they
| hidden behind "beautiful" panels and other formerly
| skeuomorphic metaphors that got rubbed down into large blank
| areas of color?
|
| - Do all my commands and tools fit on the screen and aren't
| separated by seas of overly minimalist whitespace or require
| clicks in weird, unobvious places or require weird mouse
| gestures that might be misinterpreted from my normal mouse
| movements?
|
| - I want text labels because I'm literate and can understand
| words, not impressionistic random icons that look like
| hieroglyphics.
|
| - When I click on something - is there some immediate feedback
| to give my brain a sense of interactivity? After all that is
| why I'm using a graphical toolkit and not a serial terminal. My
| RAM should go to what I'm using the computer for, which is
| applications, not the DE.
|
| Footnote: Some who work in sales or marketing and use computers
| in front of others, such as paying clients, might actually need
| to "look pretty" while doing their tasks. Their DE requirements
| would be different.
| frankzander wrote:
| That's also interesting. I know that not everybody have an
| eye for style like I have. TBH I wreck my nerves if an
| interface looks like some ugly pile of sh* (no I do not mean
| the CDE thing). I do not agree with " Looking pretty is for
| art and games." because if you take a look at some commercial
| audio plugins for Cubase/ProTools/whatever you'll see that
| they always look good, fancy and please the eye. They
| wouldn't invest any money if looking pretty is only for "art
| and games" and a "simple" formular based interface is
| everything the customer needs.
|
| The remaining points you listed are good point's I'll think
| over. Thx
| sufficientConds wrote:
| I don't agree with the point about audio plugins.
| Functionality is far more important when I'm evaluating
| audio plugins than looks. If a plugin has a "good, fancy"
| custom UI sometimes it takes longer to read labels or view
| the value of a knob. I usually opt for my DAW's default
| interface over a custom one unless there is additional
| information in the custom one. I find this keeps me in my
| flow and lets me manipulate the plugin more efficiently.
|
| I'm sure some people buy plugins because how they look, but
| people also buy wine because the bottle, and books because
| the cover. Personally I'd rather buy audio plugins because
| they sound good and get the job done.
|
| I hear ProTools and Ableton Live disparaged all the time
| for having simpler "ugly" UIs. Both programs remain popular
| because many people enjoy them for reasons other than eye
| candy. Perhaps it isn't that others don't have an eye for
| style, but simply that their exist other factors that
| people prioritize over style.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > I know that not everybody have an eye for style like I
| have.
|
| Another way to think of that is that your taste is not the
| same as others' - do not let that difference blind you and
| make you think yours is somehow superior, accept that what
| you dislike can be something that others do like and this
| isn't about them lacking something you do not.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Good point bringing up up audio plugins. I wish many things
| worked like them. Everything visible/not too much hidden
| unless it's really complex, available/usually discoverable,
| and responsive in real time.
| kps wrote:
| It was deliberately similar to contemporary Windows and OS/2.
| (Sadly the only part that stuck was CUA.)
| whartung wrote:
| Also appreciate that CDE was designed at a time when a 16-32MB
| workstation was commonly deployed. The overall footprint of
| these DEs is quite low, especially compared to today.
|
| "Prettiness", while desirable, is also/can be expensive in
| terms of everything: CPU, RAM, IO, none of which the machines
| these were deployed on had in any abundance.
|
| It's really hard to appreciate how slow older hardware was.
|
| Today, if you wanted a DE on a small machine with 1G of RAM,
| something like CDE might be a really good fit. Especially if
| you could get away with something like Lynx for a browser.
| mindcrime wrote:
| If I want "prettiness" I'll go to an art gallery. When I sit
| down in front of the computer, I typically want to _get work
| done_. I want functional first and foremost. Prettiness gets
| very, very close to a "0" weighting from me in relative terms.
| Just let me accomplish the damn task I'm trying to accomplish,
| without getting in the way.
| User23 wrote:
| It's neat to see FVWM still getting used. I gave up on it when,
| after converting my exceedingly customized .fvwmrc to fvwm2, I
| lost it in a move.
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