[HN Gopher] Rendering "modern" Winamp skins in the browser
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Rendering "modern" Winamp skins in the browser
Author : mariuz
Score : 43 points
Date : 2024-11-22 16:58 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jordaneldredge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jordaneldredge.com)
| aalimov_ wrote:
| Winamp skins era brings back so much nostalgia.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I miss the visualizers.
| treve wrote:
| Love this project and I've been following 'winamp skins bot' on
| mastodon and Twitter previously for a while. Fun blast to the
| past: https://indieweb.social/@winampskins@botsin.space
|
| Potentially a small correction, I think the 'new' skins were
| introduced with Winamp 3 not 5. 5 was released because 3 was
| disliked, and incorporated both features from 2 and 3 (2+3 = 5)
| pfoof wrote:
| Exactly how I remember it - I had only Winamp 3 and installed
| all those funky modern skins.
| irskep wrote:
| I'd love to see this hooked up to Navidrome, Jellyfin, or one of
| the other home server music solutions. Such a vibe.
| BishopIndigo wrote:
| Apropo of nothing, for all of Spotify's UX changes, I feel like
| skins and visualization of the music are missing from their
| desktop/web client. For desktop they've taken away the full-
| window playlist view in favor of a sidebar-only playlist. That's
| one thing I miss about being able to use Winamp or Windows Media
| Player to play music on a desktop :'(
| WD-42 wrote:
| Wish we had more skinnable applications these days. UI has become
| so flat and boring. It's like the industry became allergic to
| fun.
| threekindwords wrote:
| my brain was jazzed checking out these modernized versions of
| winamp skins. i really love that skin with the dude's green
| head having the playlist within... bring back memories. all
| these skeuomorphs are so wild and wonderful, oh so far away
| from the boring flatness of modern UI.
|
| we lost something unique in the pursuit of true usability and
| reliability. however, i don't disagree with where we've ended
| up, i think it's a better interface for any human to pick up
| and use, but yes, i agree, in comparison it is... boring. but
| is boring really better?
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I don't think current UIs are better even if you leave aside
| the boredom factor. Flat, monochrome designs are terrible for
| usability as well as looks.
| gyomu wrote:
| The industry is mature and trying to squeeze out every cent it
| can from as many customers as possible now.
|
| UIs are thoroughly tested to ensure people will engage with the
| product as long as possible, in the ways that are most
| beneficial to the product owners. Boring flat UIs are more
| amenable to being endlessly tweaked and AB tested by product
| managers with no vision other than "make metric go up".
|
| It's the difference between hanging out in your friend's
| backyard, and hanging out in Disneyland.
|
| As a user, it sucks. Only way out is to actively pursue and use
| software made by small, human developers rather megacorps.
| There is still fun, quirky software out there but it doesn't
| have $100M marketing budgets so it's on you to find it.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I disagree, stuff today is un-boring _mostly in a bad way_ : Is
| this a link or a button? Is that a checkbox or an option box?
| Where'd my scrollbar go? How was I supposed to know _that_ was
| clickable? Is this row of text labels a bunch of tabs, or a
| bunch of new panels? What zones are right-clickable, and does
| right-click even work? Will this website hijack key combos used
| by my browser? Does this app even _have_ key combos, and why
| can 't I discover them without an external cheatsheet?
|
| In contrast, a lot of classic 1990-2010 stuff was stable and
| boring because it had reached a point of working well and the
| visual indicators were consistent.
|
| Now it's more like "pandering to the lowest common denominator
| of a touchscreen interface, and doing it badly", or
| "sacrificing good UX in the name of looking different".
| pfoof wrote:
| I remember my two favorite skins: working iPod 4G and iPod Nano
| 1st gen. With functional scrollwheel and menus.
|
| Was it really since Winamp 5? IIRC, I installed them on Winamp 3.
|
| Edit: I just fell into a nostalgia spiral reading Winamp forums.
| It still has posts from 2000.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I wonder how many of these skins are ported from other apps. I'm
| pretty sure the big green face shipped with SoundJam, and the one
| after it is definitely from Audion. (see
| https://blog.panic.com/facing-forward/)
|
| I still miss controlling my music through a little rocket-bike I
| drew. That was fun.
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