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 Post subject: A Double Blast From The Past of Winstep
PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:00 pm 
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Oh my, a blast or two from Winstep's past - early days really. :) First, a menu with the titlebar at the side:
Attachment:
Sideways.jpg
Sideways.jpg [ 68.51 KiB | Viewed 14003 times ]

Never seen that in later themes really. I think this was one of Mr. Folden's (J.T.) - and note the Restore.... entry.... ;)

And the old-style preferences applet, here regarding titlebar gadgets etc. :
Attachment:
Widgets2.jpg
Widgets2.jpg [ 62.73 KiB | Viewed 14003 times ]

Both of these c.1999, early-ish? Came across these on old backups while looking for something else.

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 Post subject: Re: A Double Blast From The Past of Winstep
PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:31 pm 
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nexter wrote:
Never seen that in later themes really. I think this was one of Mr. Folden's (J.T.) - and note the Restore.... entry.... ;)


Ahahaha! I recognize the wallpaper, so I'm probably responsible for that menu entry :)

Skinners can still do vertical titlebars on menus, but nobody ever does. There's a lot of 'different' stuff you can do when skinning Winstep applications (overlays on docks, etc...) but mostly all skinners prefer to stay 'in-the-box'.

nexter wrote:
Both of these c.1999, early-ish?


Yep. That's Windows 98. :)

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 Post subject: Re: A Double Blast From The Past of Winstep
PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 1:36 am 
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winstep wrote:
nexter wrote:
Never seen that in later themes really. I think this was one of Mr. Folden's (J.T.) - and note the Restore.... entry.... ;)

Ahahaha! I recognize the wallpaper, so I'm probably responsible for that menu entry :)

LOLOL! Ooh, you.... Well done! ;) And apologies to John. :)
winstep wrote:
Skinners can still do vertical titlebars on menus, but nobody ever does. There's a lot of 'different' stuff you can do when skinning Winstep applications (overlays on docks, etc...) but mostly all skinners prefer to stay 'in-the-box'.

Oh I know they can still be done, as I did them in two of my really old themes and still working fine. Personally, don't really like nor see the point of vertical titlebars. But, OTOH, yes, people always like to stay well within the box, and with skinning it not only makes life much easier but also can be a great pity as so many possibilities can remain unexplored. Perhaps if there were a range of basic overlays it might encourage skinners? (Funnily enough, I'm thinking of doing one of my own for a theme I have in mind of doing....)
winstep wrote:
nexter wrote:
Both of these c.1999, early-ish?

Yep. That's Windows 98. :)

Ugh! That monstrosity! ;)

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 Post subject: Re: A Double Blast From The Past of Winstep
PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 4:18 pm 
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Think about the aesthetics and visual presentations of Windows 95 and 98 as compared to now, roughly 20 years later.

I'm curious to see how our interfaces will look 20 years from now.


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 Post subject: Re: A Double Blast From The Past of Winstep
PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:56 pm 
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DesertDwarf wrote:
Think about the aesthetics and visual presentations of Windows 95 and 98 as compared to now, roughly 20 years later.

I'm curious to see how our interfaces will look 20 years from now.

Unrecognisable, almost certainly Ric. :) And possibly/probably even uglier than Win10.

Twenty years ago was the 'golden age' of NT4 and the abominations of Win 9x - a 32bit layer covering over a 16bit interface sitting on an 8bit OS (DOS!) with a 4bit BIOS, by a 2bit software company that doesn''t give 1bit about the customer! :P Seriously though, it wasn't a bad interface, mostly built (under licence - which came easy as Gates and 'St. Steve' Jobs were close mates) from the Workspace Manager GUI of OPENSTEP OS, just doing it slightly differently visually and without the full power of the original. Thus, OPENSTEP's mother of all docks with its tasklist etc. became the Windows Taskbar (with the addition of the systray) and Start Menu, and File Viewer became Windows (File) Explorer. Quite neat really, if neither as powerful and versatile nor anything like as pretty as the original. Though in fairness, you could of course change the look of the Windows version quite a bit, whereas you couldn't change it at all in the original 'STEP.

Then came Windows 2000 (NT5, really) and the first hint of changes to come - alpha transparency, for instance. Still, it looked pretty much the same, and you could make it look exactly like NT4 if you were so inclined, and change it just as much as before. When the long-awaited NT5.1 - speak Windows XP - finally came, straight 'out of the box' it looked quite different already, and there was a hint of 'Styles' to come, but again, you could simply revert to the 'Windows Classic' look (I.e., Win2K), and also still mess around as much as you liked. The Start Menu took on a totally different style, pre-shadowing that of Win7 (and presumably the previous Vista), but you could re-set that to 'Windows Classic' as well. I'll skip Vista as have no direct experience of it.

Moving on to Windows 7 (NT6.1, actually), 'Styles' ruled the roost though at least you can go back to 'Windows Classic' look, but you can't mess anymore. The Win7 style start menu is actually quite well thought out in its own way I think, and you have to like it or lump it of course. As such, the default look of Win7 isn't too bad really.

Again, I'll have to skip Windows 8/8.1 as no experience of it at all. And then the shock-horror story of the Windows 10 look. OMFG! How much uglier can you make it? And no real 'personalisation' choices, either.

So, if these historic trends are anything to go by, twenty years from now we'll have to first of all do everything via stupid Cortana's stupid successor - no mouse or KB except in special circumstances perhaps - and everything will be just about as fugly as can be. :)

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