> Sadly, almost nobody uses Win32 scroll bars any more. Everybody uses frameworks that provide their own custom scroll bars.
Yeah and, sadly, those framework implementations are all mired in some amount of bollocks due to lack of care, attention, or interest from their creators. And by bollocks I mean they either behave differently or do less.
But I very much miss the days of consistent UX across Windows applications, or indeed applications on any other OS.
I don’t mind if you want a custom look and feel for your application: I very much do mind if your widgets don’t behave like other widgets of the same type or, at least, where any variance is at least a superset of OS level functionality rather than a crippled subset.
I was always frustrated by how hard Microsoft made this as time wore on and they moved through more and more UI frameworks, and then offerings like CEF and Electron entered the mix as well. The UI story on Windows started getting particularly messy around 2007 or so and has been in an awful state of confusion for at least 15 years now.
I literally have no idea what I’d use to develop a Windows desktop app nowadays and, honestly, none of the options fill me with enthusiasm. With more recent desktop experiments, partly because whilst I might want them to run on Windows I don’t primarily work on Windows, I’ve gone the Rust + Qt route simply because it offers native performance and it doesn’t feel like I’m getting rug pulled by either set of creators any time soon.
> I don’t mind if you want a custom look and feel for your application
I would go further and say that I don’t want a custom look and feel for each app unless the app is a game, especially if your app is a regular line of business app. The default Win32 widgets are good enough. The default Cocoa widgets are also good enough.
> I don’t want a custom look and feel for each app
I'd agree personally, but when you look at the huge success of things like WinAmp's themes back in the day, there clearly is (was?) a large market for it.
People talk about functionality and features (well, tech people do), but for a large part of the population, the eye demands its share. Your application doesn't look good? Sorry, skipped it already. First use doesn't feel intuitive? Delete. Another app does the same, perhaps even worse, but has funkier colors? Switch.
If a framework cannot provide you with the right looks, you have to to override it. Hence the mess.
You have the situation confused. The market is for users to customize applications in the way that suits them.
The problem we face right now is that this has been flipped and applications are now forcing developer customizations onto users and removing any and all choice or customization. Up to and including ignoring and overriding OS level customization.
bartread · · focus · HN ↗
Yeah and, sadly, those framework implementations are all mired in some amount of bollocks due to lack of care, attention, or interest from their creators. And by bollocks I mean they either behave differently or do less.
But I very much miss the days of consistent UX across Windows applications, or indeed applications on any other OS.
I don’t mind if you want a custom look and feel for your application: I very much do mind if your widgets don’t behave like other widgets of the same type or, at least, where any variance is at least a superset of OS level functionality rather than a crippled subset.
I was always frustrated by how hard Microsoft made this as time wore on and they moved through more and more UI frameworks, and then offerings like CEF and Electron entered the mix as well. The UI story on Windows started getting particularly messy around 2007 or so and has been in an awful state of confusion for at least 15 years now.
I literally have no idea what I’d use to develop a Windows desktop app nowadays and, honestly, none of the options fill me with enthusiasm. With more recent desktop experiments, partly because whilst I might want them to run on Windows I don’t primarily work on Windows, I’ve gone the Rust + Qt route simply because it offers native performance and it doesn’t feel like I’m getting rug pulled by either set of creators any time soon.
kccqzy · · focus · HN ↗
I would go further and say that I don’t want a custom look and feel for each app unless the app is a game, especially if your app is a regular line of business app. The default Win32 widgets are good enough. The default Cocoa widgets are also good enough.
abanana · · focus · HN ↗
I'd agree personally, but when you look at the huge success of things like WinAmp's themes back in the day, there clearly is (was?) a large market for it.
tgv · · focus · HN ↗
If a framework cannot provide you with the right looks, you have to to override it. Hence the mess.
unrented7977 · · focus · HN ↗
The problem we face right now is that this has been flipped and applications are now forcing developer customizations onto users and removing any and all choice or customization. Up to and including ignoring and overriding OS level customization.