98.css – design system for building faithful recreations of Windows 98 UIs(jdan.github.io)
jdan.github.io
98.css – design system for building faithful recreations of Windows 98 UIs
https://jdan.github.io/98.css/
184 comments
This is awesome that it was so therapeutic to you! I have several such personal projects that I occasionally work on for similar reasons, moreover to experience the joy of pure programming as opposed to the daily BS I deal with.
One critique (more of a suggested improvement) - the dropdown boxes don’t look/behave as they did in Win 98. They actually render as native select tags on my browser when focused and it kind of breaks the immersion. I’m pretty sure implementing this to simulate the 98 version would be a bit difficult and would involve some JavaScript (which I know you want to avoid), but it may be a neat challenge to tinker with.
One critique (more of a suggested improvement) - the dropdown boxes don’t look/behave as they did in Win 98. They actually render as native select tags on my browser when focused and it kind of breaks the immersion. I’m pretty sure implementing this to simulate the 98 version would be a bit difficult and would involve some JavaScript (which I know you want to avoid), but it may be a neat challenge to tinker with.
Sounds like you want that commit access.
Can you elaborate, what's it supposed to behave like?
Are you sure you need elaboration? They're rendering natively when opened: https://i.imgur.com/1Q7KjB0.png
Windows 98 dropdowns look like e.g.: https://imgur.com/rVQhAIq
Windows 98 dropdowns look like e.g.: https://imgur.com/rVQhAIq
Although I agree that it breaks immersion but using JS would certainly make this too complicated and probably not worth it, considering it will be buggy for sure.
There might be a way: https://web.dev/state-of-css-2022/#customizing-select-elemen...
There might be a way: https://web.dev/state-of-css-2022/#customizing-select-elemen...
> This was my burnout recovery project in April of 2020.
OS UI projects are actually good for this. Back in the day, when Classic Mac OS was customizable thanks to its Theme Manager, I went through a few Kaleidoscope schemes for the same reason. Very therapeutical.
Well done!
OS UI projects are actually good for this. Back in the day, when Classic Mac OS was customizable thanks to its Theme Manager, I went through a few Kaleidoscope schemes for the same reason. Very therapeutical.
Well done!
Strongly agree. Theming in general is a fantastic way to do what you're good at (code and design) but have more agency than "write a test and code that passes it". My goto used to be 3DS home screen themes.
Sounds like the optimistic merging principle of the late Pieter Hintjens: http://hintjens.com/blog:106
I made Obsidian's windows 98 ui theme (now almost defunct with UI overhaul) with help of this.
Seeing the "hello world from VB4" brought back many fond memories. Definitely integrating this into some projects!
very fun stuff...just wanted to share this i found
the win 98 there is using css and js. experiments thats aimed at fun is always welcome
https://twitter.com/PCBANGio/status/1493850712471527426
the win 98 there is using css and js. experiments thats aimed at fun is always welcome
https://twitter.com/PCBANGio/status/1493850712471527426
I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I'm going to do *something* with it.
Very nice thank you for sharing this.
Were there times you felt like you were wasting your time when doing this project?
No - I tend to not take myself too seriously and was very much optimizing for smiles over "usefulness" or "github stars" so it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Nice touch with the cowbell slider ;)
Tiny nitpick – buttons don't look like that when pressed in Windows 98 (or any version of Windows for that matter).
This is what they're supposed to look like: https://imgur.com/a/iFMJCER (98.css on top, Windows 98 below)
As far as I'm aware, the only buttons that look like that when pressed are the Start menu button and taskbar buttons.
Similarly, buttons are supposed to have a black border in addition to the dotted outline when they're focused.
This is what they're supposed to look like: https://imgur.com/a/iFMJCER (98.css on top, Windows 98 below)
As far as I'm aware, the only buttons that look like that when pressed are the Start menu button and taskbar buttons.
Similarly, buttons are supposed to have a black border in addition to the dotted outline when they're focused.
Good catch - You can probably tell which parts I took from Microsoft Windows User Experience [0] and which I built while eyeing my VM.
Unsure why there's a discrepancy. You're probably right re: taskbar buttons.
https://i.imgur.com/dxOYj2Y.png https://i.imgur.com/X3DJ50T.png
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Windows-Experience-Professi...
Unsure why there's a discrepancy. You're probably right re: taskbar buttons.
https://i.imgur.com/dxOYj2Y.png https://i.imgur.com/X3DJ50T.png
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Windows-Experience-Professi...
Probably a design bug in win98! I love that you used the book as reference. Incredible stuff.
I think the thick black border marks the "default dialog button", not focus.
It does both. Black border alone marks the default button in the dialog (unless another button is focused), black border + dotted outline marks focus.
I double checked in a VM running Windows 98 earlier today. I suspect some of these 9x recreations are based solely on screenshots, in which details like active and focus states are not obvious.
I double checked in a VM running Windows 98 earlier today. I suspect some of these 9x recreations are based solely on screenshots, in which details like active and focus states are not obvious.
To put it another way:
* Thick black border indicates which button would be pressed if you hit enter. This is the focused button, or the default button if no button currently has focus.
* Dashed border indicates which button or other control currently has focus; this button is pressed if you hit space (but if another control has focus then space does not press the default button).
* Thick black border indicates which button would be pressed if you hit enter. This is the focused button, or the default button if no button currently has focus.
* Dashed border indicates which button or other control currently has focus; this button is pressed if you hit space (but if another control has focus then space does not press the default button).
I've previously attempted this for Windows 95. I tried very hard to be pixel-accurate. https://hikari.noyu.me/demos/ shows off a bit of what I achieved, but alas it lacks most of the UI elements.
I learned some interesting things from the process. The biggest one for me is that web browsers have only one kind of focus, but Windows has two, a dotted line on the inside (element affected by space bar) and a black outline (element affected by return key). You therefore can't get exactly the same UI in a browser without adding some JS to simulate this second type of focus.
I learned some interesting things from the process. The biggest one for me is that web browsers have only one kind of focus, but Windows has two, a dotted line on the inside (element affected by space bar) and a black outline (element affected by return key). You therefore can't get exactly the same UI in a browser without adding some JS to simulate this second type of focus.
Very cool! I want a Windows 2000 version of it. I think that was the nicest looking Windows. It is very close to this, but with a slightly different main GUI color. Not a complete gray, but ever so slightly beige. Makes it more pleasant to the eye, IMO.
Ideally it should support easy recoloring to match any of the exciting Windows classic themes! Hotdog Stand support when?
Also, agree that Win2000's color scheme was the best looking iteration of the classic Windows look.
Also, agree that Win2000's color scheme was the best looking iteration of the classic Windows look.
I'm still using the Windows 2000 background colour, #3a6ea5, on my dwm setup. It's perhaps a little bit sad that I can recite that from memory.
> It's perhaps a little bit sad that I can recite that from memory.
No, it just tells a story of what you've been in to years ago.
The color codes burned into my memory are: #aeaedd, #11ff11 and #dddd11. Who wants to guess where these came from?
No, it just tells a story of what you've been in to years ago.
The color codes burned into my memory are: #aeaedd, #11ff11 and #dddd11. Who wants to guess where these came from?
Has the first one something to do with Sun Microsystems?
I liked rounded corners on Windows XP. It was the only version of Windows that looked professional and nice at the same time.
Windows 10's design is just bland. I don't know why MS went ahead with this soulless design for so many years after Windows 8 came to be.
Windows 11 tries to be nicer but really it's just a fancy cover on legacy designs left over from since Windows 3.1.
Windows 10's design is just bland. I don't know why MS went ahead with this soulless design for so many years after Windows 8 came to be.
Windows 11 tries to be nicer but really it's just a fancy cover on legacy designs left over from since Windows 3.1.
> I liked rounded corners on Windows XP. It was the only version of Windows that looked professional and nice at the same time.
It's interesting you say that, since I remember back at the time XP was released, so many people complained about how Windows XP had a "Fisher Price" UI that was distinctly non-professional. (Personally, I always liked XP's look.)
It's interesting you say that, since I remember back at the time XP was released, so many people complained about how Windows XP had a "Fisher Price" UI that was distinctly non-professional. (Personally, I always liked XP's look.)
Yeah, the huge blue window decoration with the giant red X and to a lesser degree the mismatched scroll bars really gave it a cheap look, IMO. The rest of the GUI design was actually quite nice. Just these extreme primary colors, overly large GUI elements, and mismatched colors did look bad to me.
That’s why I always switched to XP silver instead of the default blue.
Now that's a first to me. Like other commenters said, I also think there was nothing nice about Windows XP's theme. It looked clunky and childish. I mean, I know some people who liked it, but never have I heard anyone refer to it as professional looking.
>I don't know why MS went ahead with this soulless design for so many years after Windows 8 came to be.
My guess is they need it to feel different enough to justify the price tag of a major upgrade.
In reality the changes behind the scene since Windows 7 have been incremental.
My guess is they need it to feel different enough to justify the price tag of a major upgrade.
In reality the changes behind the scene since Windows 7 have been incremental.
Vista*
Beautiful.
It’s crazy to see this and realize how much current Windows is unusable. I haven’t used Windows in ~10 years and every time I see the current interface I can’t believe someone is able to use it without losing their mind.
It’s crazy to see this and realize how much current Windows is unusable. I haven’t used Windows in ~10 years and every time I see the current interface I can’t believe someone is able to use it without losing their mind.
Just curious but in what ways?
Me, I used Windows for years until ~2008. In 2008 I started using both Mac and Windows. In 2010 I started using Linux, Mac, and Windows. I never really found one better than another. Each one had their strengths, none of them had huge UI issue for me at least.
For example, one plus I find on Windows vs MacOS is I use Chrome with multiple profiles. Windows is able to display an icon per profile in the dock. Mac is not (not idea if this is a limitation of MacOS or Chrome on MacOS)
Another plus I find on Windows is zip support is better. On Mac, to use a zip you double click it and the OS uncompresses the zip. On Windows you double click it and Windows Explorer just looks inside the zip like it's a folder. You can directly copy and paste, or drag and drop, files out of the zip into other folders or apps, no need to first unzip it.
I'm not saying Windows is better, just different. Windows 11 cleaned some things up. Explorer is streamlined compared to 10 for example.
Plenty of things I like on Mac, like Terminal with bash or zsh vs Powershell on Windows (though I can run WSL but for actual windows stuff I usually stick to powershell). Airplay I use often to stream to my TV.
Me, I used Windows for years until ~2008. In 2008 I started using both Mac and Windows. In 2010 I started using Linux, Mac, and Windows. I never really found one better than another. Each one had their strengths, none of them had huge UI issue for me at least.
For example, one plus I find on Windows vs MacOS is I use Chrome with multiple profiles. Windows is able to display an icon per profile in the dock. Mac is not (not idea if this is a limitation of MacOS or Chrome on MacOS)
Another plus I find on Windows is zip support is better. On Mac, to use a zip you double click it and the OS uncompresses the zip. On Windows you double click it and Windows Explorer just looks inside the zip like it's a folder. You can directly copy and paste, or drag and drop, files out of the zip into other folders or apps, no need to first unzip it.
I'm not saying Windows is better, just different. Windows 11 cleaned some things up. Explorer is streamlined compared to 10 for example.
Plenty of things I like on Mac, like Terminal with bash or zsh vs Powershell on Windows (though I can run WSL but for actual windows stuff I usually stick to powershell). Airplay I use often to stream to my TV.
For me the taskbar in W11 is a giant step back, all windows are collapsed into a group. No idea why they removed the ability to keep them expanded other than trying to mimic the look of OSX
That's been the default since Windows 7 though.
Most people have been using the taskbar that way for nearly 15 years, only a minority of people would have switched away from the default.
Most people have been using the taskbar that way for nearly 15 years, only a minority of people would have switched away from the default.
I'm not upgrading to w11 because of this. such bs
I use ExplorerPatcher so that on W11, I can still have a button per open application:
https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher
It also brings other Windows 10 UI paradigm's back in.
https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher
It also brings other Windows 10 UI paradigm's back in.
Every other major release is a step back for Windows. It’s as if they’ve not noticed that trend.
> For example, one plus I find on Windows vs MacOS is I use Chrome with multiple profiles. Windows is able to display an icon per profile in the dock. Mac is not (not idea if this is a limitation of MacOS or Chrome on MacOS)
I have a strong feeling that this is Chrome's limitation. The builtin Activity Monitor on macOS can even plot a realtime graph of CPU usage in the dock icon, and various other apps (including third party) are able to alter their own icon as well, so this doesn't look like a private API. Having two separate instances of an app in the dock is achievable with minimal hackery (I managed to do this a couple of times by accident, just by poking at and exploring the system).
Of course nothing helps if the app doesn't want to go the extra mile to integrate with the platform, which is how we keep ending up with the lowest common denominators for everything.
I have a strong feeling that this is Chrome's limitation. The builtin Activity Monitor on macOS can even plot a realtime graph of CPU usage in the dock icon, and various other apps (including third party) are able to alter their own icon as well, so this doesn't look like a private API. Having two separate instances of an app in the dock is achievable with minimal hackery (I managed to do this a couple of times by accident, just by poking at and exploring the system).
Of course nothing helps if the app doesn't want to go the extra mile to integrate with the platform, which is how we keep ending up with the lowest common denominators for everything.
MacOS desktop feels weird after years of using gnome2, gnome3 and Kde as dsily driver.
Some things are a dream come true in terms of utility. Others feel really archaic compared to FOSS desktops.
Some things are a dream come true in terms of utility. Others feel really archaic compared to FOSS desktops.
My favorite part of Windows is how it likes to add new features and demand my attention. And constantly use tons of cycles on VMs that aren't doing any work. And the bifurcated GUI configuration.
if you havent used in 10 years how can you judge the usability objectively?
I have more or less this theme on my linux installation. It’s both nostalgic and very useable. Just need a slight update for high dpi, since the buttons are a tad hard to click.
I'll take it over the current slow WPF mess.
What WPF mess are you talking about? Aside from Visual Studio, I can't think of many first-party GUIs that are written in WPF.
I was thinking Visual Studio, fired up 2008 on a VM with minimal specs the other day and it's amazing how fast it used to be.
Admittedly I know WPF needs good graphics hardware which I'm sure Citrix is not providing.
I know we need to scale for different screens but the reality is it's slower then ever on faster hardware.
Admittedly I know WPF needs good graphics hardware which I'm sure Citrix is not providing.
I know we need to scale for different screens but the reality is it's slower then ever on faster hardware.
The port of VS to WPF was definitely not a showcase for WPF capabilities. Pretty much everything was worse or slower after the port. And a ton of features was missing. Even now the customization of toolbars is not as elegant as it was on 2008. Not a surprise that they didn’t use XAML for any other big application
> Not a surprise that they didn’t use XAML for any other big application
UWP/WinUI/Metro uses XAML and Microsoft was very committed to that for a while. UWP didn't really pan out, but that was for reasons other than XAML and WinUI IMO.
UWP/WinUI/Metro uses XAML and Microsoft was very committed to that for a while. UWP didn't really pan out, but that was for reasons other than XAML and WinUI IMO.
Also see XP and 7 versions:
https://botoxparty.github.io/XP.css/
https://khang-nd.github.io/7.css/
I built https://simulator.money using this
I'm a bit disappointed by the XP version's use of bitmaps for certain elements; it's completely possible to achieve the XP look purely with box-shadow properties.
I’ve always been a Mac guy, but there’s no denying XP really stood the test of time.
I wanted to disagree, most likely because I'm one of the few who completely skipped XP jumping straight from 2000 to Vista. But I can't, turns out you are right, on that project page, in isolation, the elements actually do look good! Much better than what I think of when I think "XP" (mostly the task bar, start button and main window decorations I guess)
Well, I am a Mac guy as well, but I did use Windows quite a bit in the past (.NET dev) and I always much preferred the more "serious" aesthetic of Windows 2000 (very similar to 98) than the "toy" aesthetic of Windows XP.
i liked macos 7/8/9 aesthetics.
Windows 7 comes close.
Beautiful and lovely.
I dread every app update these days. What buttons will lose their edges? Which icons will become indistinguishable vector hieroglyhps? Will the menu bar inexplicably become all-caps? What new upsells and attention-sinks will be forced unturnoffably into my precious screen real-estate?
This, though... you can see what things are. Buttons have edges. It's obvious at a glance what's editable and what's not. This is truly the UI of the future. I feel like, with a UI like this, the user could use the computer, not the other way around. I can't wait for the world to catch up.
Minor bug report: The first row of buttons in the "Button" section make the rest of the page move down when clicked (Firefox/Mac). The other buttons are all fine though.
I dread every app update these days. What buttons will lose their edges? Which icons will become indistinguishable vector hieroglyhps? Will the menu bar inexplicably become all-caps? What new upsells and attention-sinks will be forced unturnoffably into my precious screen real-estate?
This, though... you can see what things are. Buttons have edges. It's obvious at a glance what's editable and what's not. This is truly the UI of the future. I feel like, with a UI like this, the user could use the computer, not the other way around. I can't wait for the world to catch up.
Minor bug report: The first row of buttons in the "Button" section make the rest of the page move down when clicked (Firefox/Mac). The other buttons are all fine though.
When I click one of the "Click me", "Submit", "Preset" buttons in Components/Button section, entire page jumps with 1 pixel. Looks bad.
Checkbox labels text is selectable. Should not happen in UI. Same about title bars. Title bars also do not set cursor: pointer. Also happens in some other components.
Dropdown contents have wrong colors. I think they use default browser styling or something like that.
Those are minor nitpicks, of course. This style is very nostalgic, thanks for making it. I thought about using this kind of UI for some web app, I think I'll reimplement it myself (because that's the fun), but I'll keep this style in mind.
Checkbox labels text is selectable. Should not happen in UI. Same about title bars. Title bars also do not set cursor: pointer. Also happens in some other components.
Dropdown contents have wrong colors. I think they use default browser styling or something like that.
Those are minor nitpicks, of course. This style is very nostalgic, thanks for making it. I thought about using this kind of UI for some web app, I think I'll reimplement it myself (because that's the fun), but I'll keep this style in mind.
Better to contribute.
I created a browser extension using this library!
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xp-newtab/ncfmloga...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xp-newtab/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xp-newtab/
Great work! What strikes me the most is how accessible the components are. So easy to make out the different states of each component at a glance. Would love to actually build something with this!
Just beautiful. Even after all these years Microsoft's UI paradigm is still pretty much what I think a computer should look like.
Sure we have new visual styles and high resolution now, but the core design language is still pretty much the same. It's really hard to improve on it.
Even on mobile it just works.
Most of the attempts at more modern newer things feel unpredictable, or very limited, or they hide everything behind shortcuts and gestures and are near unusable unless you use the program all day every day and know everything.
Android is pretty good, maybe my favorite os to use, but a lot of the best parts are similar to this just adapted for touch.
Sure we have new visual styles and high resolution now, but the core design language is still pretty much the same. It's really hard to improve on it.
Even on mobile it just works.
Most of the attempts at more modern newer things feel unpredictable, or very limited, or they hide everything behind shortcuts and gestures and are near unusable unless you use the program all day every day and know everything.
Android is pretty good, maybe my favorite os to use, but a lot of the best parts are similar to this just adapted for touch.
Win 98's UI isn't very pretty (IMHO) but at least it's spare and relatively clean. Also it doesn't take a lot of resources to render. Compare with MS's more recent efforts.
Personally I'm clinging to macOS 10.14 for as long as I can. More recent iterations have very much lost their way.
Personally I'm clinging to macOS 10.14 for as long as I can. More recent iterations have very much lost their way.
Aesthetically it's a bit vintage for non-nostalgia purposes, but IMHO the issues are purely things like fonts and colors and rounding, layout and behavior is excellent.
I'm not sure I could make it look any better. It's a pretty nice theme considering it was meant for VGA and seems to have been designed around a more limited set of colors.
Plus you'd be seeing it on a beige monitor with a wide bezel, with a full size beige keyboard, likely on a desk that also had a note pad, pens, and stationary. I'm guessing it also was meant to look somewhat obviously techno rather than the appliancelike looks of new stuff, because the fact that computers existed was a big deal and they probably wanted to highlight that.
I think they did a decent job with the context and what I imagine they wanted to communicate.
I'm not sure I could make it look any better. It's a pretty nice theme considering it was meant for VGA and seems to have been designed around a more limited set of colors.
Plus you'd be seeing it on a beige monitor with a wide bezel, with a full size beige keyboard, likely on a desk that also had a note pad, pens, and stationary. I'm guessing it also was meant to look somewhat obviously techno rather than the appliancelike looks of new stuff, because the fact that computers existed was a big deal and they probably wanted to highlight that.
I think they did a decent job with the context and what I imagine they wanted to communicate.
Very nice and very clean! And I love the demo page. May deserve an update for styled pop-up menus, which became available recently, compare [1].
(Minor nitpick: I'm missing the combo box, the much discussed genuine UI element of Windows. – Have a look at datalists for input elements.)
[1] https://web.dev/state-of-css-2022/#customizing-select-elemen...
(Minor nitpick: I'm missing the combo box, the much discussed genuine UI element of Windows. – Have a look at datalists for input elements.)
[1] https://web.dev/state-of-css-2022/#customizing-select-elemen...
> styled pop-up menus, which became available recently
It is not available in any mainline browser to my knowledge. It's still under development, and requires a flag to be set to use: https://open-ui.org/prototypes/selectmenu
It is not available in any mainline browser to my knowledge. It's still under development, and requires a flag to be set to use: https://open-ui.org/prototypes/selectmenu
I think, we'll see broader support soon. It's probably worth waiting, since it's a better solution than any homegrown code, regarding accessibility and overall robustness. (Worst case, you just lose some styling.)
Hmm, am I misparsing the documentation? As far as I can tell from that link,<selectmenu> is actually not yet generally available. (It's also nowhere on MDN.) I was all excited about using it…
<selectmenu> is available in Chromium-based browsers and requires a Canary version as well as the Experimental Web Platform features flag to be enabled in about:flags.
My pet theory is that web.dev exists to raise hype around wildly experimental features and thus put pressure on other browser vendors to implement them.
I give this a “10” on the UI usability scorecard.
Totally agree.
Unix Motif, Windows 3/95/98, Classic MacOS... they were all highly usable. I crave the relentlessly, unashamed, unambiguousness of these old UIs, compared to modern UI which has devolved into something just as pretentious as the much hated skeuomorphism stage, only at the other end of the spectrum: extreme aesthetic minimalism at all cost (the user's cost).
Unix Motif, Windows 3/95/98, Classic MacOS... they were all highly usable. I crave the relentlessly, unashamed, unambiguousness of these old UIs, compared to modern UI which has devolved into something just as pretentious as the much hated skeuomorphism stage, only at the other end of the spectrum: extreme aesthetic minimalism at all cost (the user's cost).
Classic Mac OS in what era?
The System 7 UI toolkit was underdeveloped, and forced a lot of applications to roll their own controls (with mixed success). The System 8 "Platinum" appearance mostly resolved that, though; I'd point to that as an excellent design for the era.
The System 7 UI toolkit was underdeveloped, and forced a lot of applications to roll their own controls (with mixed success). The System 8 "Platinum" appearance mostly resolved that, though; I'd point to that as an excellent design for the era.
I am not sure what you meant with underdeveloped, but I felt as time moved on, macOS became kind of cluttered with many small components that (from my POV) didn't add much. Perhaps you feel many of these components added much needed features?
Usability wise, I feel System 7 was the high point of Classic macOS.
Usability wise, I feel System 7 was the high point of Classic macOS.
The Control Manager in System 7 (and earlier) was pretty barebones in terms of features. Buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, scroll bars, popup menus, and text fields -- and that was it. A lot of commonly used UI elements, like heavy lines around default buttons or boxes around groups of controls, weren't part of the Control Manager and had to be implemented by individual applications -- and anything more complex like tables or toolbars was right out.
The System 7 version of Control Manager didn't apply much in the way of styling to controls, either. Windows were white; controls were black and white. Scrollbars got a bit of color in System 7, but nothing else did. It was funtional, but it wasn't pretty, and a lot of applications used custom CDEFs to add a bit of shading and color.
The System 7 version of Control Manager didn't apply much in the way of styling to controls, either. Windows were white; controls were black and white. Scrollbars got a bit of color in System 7, but nothing else did. It was funtional, but it wasn't pretty, and a lot of applications used custom CDEFs to add a bit of shading and color.
The UIs around the year 2001 were fantastically accessible. The recent obsession with flatness undid a lot of good practices.
I like the SerenityOS design choices. Looks pretty much like a 2001-or-so UI, but adopting more modern design elements (such as, e.g. breadcrumb navigation widgets) where they actually make sense.
Honestly full-assed implementation. Font hinting is a bit odd with a green sheen on Firefox Win 10...
I noticed that too! I wonder what's happening there. I searched the CSS and there's nothing like green in there... Anyone have clues as to what's causing the text within textboxes and such to be green?
My guess is subpixel rendering. The single pixel lines ending up halfway across a pixel, activating more green than it intended to do.
This fix (https://stackoverflow.com/a/22925525) removes the green shine despite being prefixed with -webkit. It's not longer a pixel-perfect match with Windows 98, though, so CRT users may notice the difference!
This fix (https://stackoverflow.com/a/22925525) removes the green shine despite being prefixed with -webkit. It's not longer a pixel-perfect match with Windows 98, though, so CRT users may notice the difference!
There are some minor discrepancies. Window titlebars weren't gradient in Win98 - that came in Win2k and WinME. The combobox dropdown has rounded ages (Win11 + Edge) and there's a gap between it and the textbox. The tree view has different widths for "+" and "-" on the nodes, and neither is properly aligned with the dotted lines of the tree.
The biggest giveaway, though, is that you can drag to highlight text pretty much anywhere.
The biggest giveaway, though, is that you can drag to highlight text pretty much anywhere.
Windows 98 used a gradient for its title bar [1]:
https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Windows_98?file=W98-2.png
https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Windows_98?file=W98-2.png
I must have misremembered, then; my apologies. Perhaps it was a Win98 vs Win98 SE difference?
Maybe it also required GPU drivers to be installed? I clearly remember the gradient bars.
Win32 GUI wasn't composited until Vista, so it was all GDI 2D primitives rendered directly to the framebuffer. These could be accelerated, but I don't recall any case where some GDI feature would be unavailable if hardware didn't accelerate it - all primitives had software implementations, it just wouldn't be as fast.
However, now that I think about it, such gradient bars must have required at least 16-bit color to work without dithering, so they were probably turned off by default for anything lower. And, at the time, budget video cards had limits on color depth in higher resolutions - e.g. for S3 Trio, if I remember correctly, you got a max of 24-bit color at 800x600, 16-bit at 1024x768, and 8-bit at 1280x1024; you could see the color depth combo box switch as you dragged the resolution slider. So I probably just ran it at 8-bit depth then.
However, now that I think about it, such gradient bars must have required at least 16-bit color to work without dithering, so they were probably turned off by default for anything lower. And, at the time, budget video cards had limits on color depth in higher resolutions - e.g. for S3 Trio, if I remember correctly, you got a max of 24-bit color at 800x600, 16-bit at 1024x768, and 8-bit at 1280x1024; you could see the color depth combo box switch as you dragged the resolution slider. So I probably just ran it at 8-bit depth then.
I think they were disabled for 16 color mode, but on 256 colors they were rendered with dithering, which looked kinda cool. I distinctly remember it from playing rollercoaster tycoon; the game ran in 8bpp mode and used the system open/save dialogs.
Given the deep integration of Internet Explorer I wonder if an IE update did it?
Styling drop-down contents in most modern browsers os either very limited or impossible. That's why so many UI frameworks reimplement them from scratch, usually with the help of JavaScript
Well, it has just become available recently. But, since this is a project from 2020, this hadn't been an option then.
[1] https://web.dev/state-of-css-2022/#customizing-select-elemen...
[1] https://web.dev/state-of-css-2022/#customizing-select-elemen...
[deleted]
Awesome! I like this a lot.
Recently, I've been attempting to create a global user style sheet that applies a reasonable set of nicely accessible rules to every website, essentially forcing buttons to look and behave like buttons, and to have a consistent theme across the internet. I started out by applying Window 95-like styles, and this is how it currently looks: https://waritschlager.de/share/0E7AB89CE86B1319A671D35EA2697... (background not changed to grey for now), not finished yet. Turns out, writing a global stylesheet is really difficult. For example, you cannot just "make all buttons grey":
First of all, there are many different ways to identify a button. This is a subset of my current button matching rule:
Secondly, as soon as you overwrite the background color of all buttons, you will lose its background images which may be important. This happens way too often, also surrounding elements which actually have nothing to do with button semantics. So you need to apply a partially transparent background color. While it can still look perfect with the right tuning, it will then look horrible on non-white backgrounds.
There are also way too many nested buttons and empty buttons out there, it all needs consideration.
Finally, to detect a "pressed down" state, you'd normally use `aria-selected`, but barely anyone ever uses that, so it's back to matching class names `.active` and `.selected`, but then you also need to exclude `.inactive`, `.interactive`, `.deselected` and so on...
My conclusion so far is that building a global style sheet is definitely possible, but can get ugly sometimes. And instead of hand-crafting my own styles, I can now integrate 98.css's ones, that's great :-)
Also worth mentioning: A near-perfect win95 XFCE theme: https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
Recently, I've been attempting to create a global user style sheet that applies a reasonable set of nicely accessible rules to every website, essentially forcing buttons to look and behave like buttons, and to have a consistent theme across the internet. I started out by applying Window 95-like styles, and this is how it currently looks: https://waritschlager.de/share/0E7AB89CE86B1319A671D35EA2697... (background not changed to grey for now), not finished yet. Turns out, writing a global stylesheet is really difficult. For example, you cannot just "make all buttons grey":
First of all, there are many different ways to identify a button. This is a subset of my current button matching rule:
button, input[type=submit], input[type=button], a[class*="btn" i], a[class*="button" i], *[role=button], *[role=tab], *[role=menuitem], *[role=menuitemcheckbox], a:not([role=button] ...etc) > *:not(div ...etc)
Secondly, as soon as you overwrite the background color of all buttons, you will lose its background images which may be important. This happens way too often, also surrounding elements which actually have nothing to do with button semantics. So you need to apply a partially transparent background color. While it can still look perfect with the right tuning, it will then look horrible on non-white backgrounds.
There are also way too many nested buttons and empty buttons out there, it all needs consideration.
Finally, to detect a "pressed down" state, you'd normally use `aria-selected`, but barely anyone ever uses that, so it's back to matching class names `.active` and `.selected`, but then you also need to exclude `.inactive`, `.interactive`, `.deselected` and so on...
My conclusion so far is that building a global style sheet is definitely possible, but can get ugly sometimes. And instead of hand-crafting my own styles, I can now integrate 98.css's ones, that's great :-)
Also worth mentioning: A near-perfect win95 XFCE theme: https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
That was a nice touch to include the gradient title bar. I always thought that was a fun feature. Too bad they removed it with Windows 10 / 11 by default.
thanks for this
i have moaned very hard re: the flat / glassy UIs of today, and i deeply loathe how newer folks have no respect for maintaining a working tab-order
good grief, losing the reliability of pressing tab and focus going to where i wanted it? really got me
i have moaned very hard re: the flat / glassy UIs of today, and i deeply loathe how newer folks have no respect for maintaining a working tab-order
good grief, losing the reliability of pressing tab and focus going to where i wanted it? really got me
Pretty cool. I love those old UI's. I once tried rebuilding a functional Windows 3.11 with pure CSS and Vue components. Sadly the used Vue version is kinda outdated by now and I am not sure if I want to spent time updating it all...
https://github.com/sleepybuildings/vuedows
https://github.com/sleepybuildings/vuedows
Did Windows 98 really have such laughably low contrast between text and that dark grey background?
Yes and no?
I mean yes it was black text (0, 0, 0) against light gray background (192, 192, 192) as shown here.
But there's no universe in which that is "laughably low contrast". It's a full three-quarters of maximum contrast (not accounting for gamma). In fact, the WebAIM contrast checker says that's a contrast ratio of 11.54:1 which far surpasses even the AAA standard of 7:1 [1].
So not really sure what you're talking about.
Also, this was only for UX elements in things like dialogs and toolbars. Obviously content areas like inside a text editor were against a white background.
[1] https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
I mean yes it was black text (0, 0, 0) against light gray background (192, 192, 192) as shown here.
But there's no universe in which that is "laughably low contrast". It's a full three-quarters of maximum contrast (not accounting for gamma). In fact, the WebAIM contrast checker says that's a contrast ratio of 11.54:1 which far surpasses even the AAA standard of 7:1 [1].
So not really sure what you're talking about.
Also, this was only for UX elements in things like dialogs and toolbars. Obviously content areas like inside a text editor were against a white background.
[1] https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
It does pass the old WebAIM contrast test, although that test doesn't consider font size or font weight.
The proposed WCAG 3 contrast test, the Advanced Perceptual Contrast Algorithm, does consider font size and font weight. If I'm reading this correctly, the minimum recommended font size for normal 400 font weight with these colors is 16.75px, and the 11px seen in this 98.css demo is indeed laughably small: https://www.myndex.com/APCA/?BG=dfdfdf&TXT=222222&DEV=G4g&BU...
That said, what I was referring to primarily was the blue text color (#007AFF) against that grey background color (#dfdfdf), but reviewing that now it appears that blue text color is the default button color in iOS Safari, and likely not the intention of the 98.css authors. I'm only seeing this blue color in iOS Safari, so it likely merely indicates some CSS bug somewhere between 98.css and iOS Safari. But for reference, this blue color scores a dreadful 3:1 on the old WebAIM contrast test, and according this this APCA Contrast Calculator is only suitable for 400 font weight at 37px font size: https://www.myndex.com/APCA/?BG=dfdfdf&TXT=007aff&DEV=G4g&BU...
The proposed WCAG 3 contrast test, the Advanced Perceptual Contrast Algorithm, does consider font size and font weight. If I'm reading this correctly, the minimum recommended font size for normal 400 font weight with these colors is 16.75px, and the 11px seen in this 98.css demo is indeed laughably small: https://www.myndex.com/APCA/?BG=dfdfdf&TXT=222222&DEV=G4g&BU...
That said, what I was referring to primarily was the blue text color (#007AFF) against that grey background color (#dfdfdf), but reviewing that now it appears that blue text color is the default button color in iOS Safari, and likely not the intention of the 98.css authors. I'm only seeing this blue color in iOS Safari, so it likely merely indicates some CSS bug somewhere between 98.css and iOS Safari. But for reference, this blue color scores a dreadful 3:1 on the old WebAIM contrast test, and according this this APCA Contrast Calculator is only suitable for 400 font weight at 37px font size: https://www.myndex.com/APCA/?BG=dfdfdf&TXT=007aff&DEV=G4g&BU...
To give it some credit, CRTs handle such contrast quite differently to modern screen technologies. The CRT itself added a tiny bit of colour bleed and blurring and the fact the colour is radiated out (rather than filtered out, like on LCD based technologies) gave it more contrast than you'd think looking at these colours now.
Is it possible to reproduce that effect on an LCD to restore the original contrast?
crazygringo(2)
Yes!
does a similiar thing exist for old macos style?
I love this and am glad to see it every time it is mentioned somewhere. It makes me long for the days when OS UIs were like this
Re: labels with inputs
Isn’t it better to put the input inside the label tag so you avoid the awkward dead zone between the checkbox and the label text?
Isn’t it better to put the input inside the label tag so you avoid the awkward dead zone between the checkbox and the label text?
Cool! Wish we can do this easily with QT in Win10.
This really brings out the old memories. i have seen this post long back on hn and incorporated your 98css theme on to my side project which generates code screenshots.
if you want to check it out go to https://codekeep.io/screenshot and select Windows 98
https://github.com/andersevenrud/retro-css-shell-demo
https://github.com/arturbien/React95
https://github.com/botoxparty/XP.css
https://github.com/Gioni06/terminal.css
https://github.com/jianzhongli/csswin10
https://github.com/khang-nd/7.css
https://github.com/kristopolous/BOOTSTRA.386
https://github.com/lachsfilet/Renkbench
https://github.com/lolstring/window98-html-css-js
https://github.com/micah5/PSone.css
https://github.com/nostalgic-css/NES.css
https://github.com/npjg/classic.css
https://github.com/robbiebyrd/platinum
https://github.com/bryanbraun/after-dark-css
https://github.com/npjg/new-dawn
https://github.com/ritenv/retro-desktop
https://github.com/RoelN/c64css3
https://github.com/sakofchit/system.css
https://github.com/vinibiavatti1/TuiCss
https://code.divshot.com/geo-bootstrap/
https://github.com/arturbien/React95
https://github.com/botoxparty/XP.css
https://github.com/Gioni06/terminal.css
https://github.com/jianzhongli/csswin10
https://github.com/khang-nd/7.css
https://github.com/kristopolous/BOOTSTRA.386
https://github.com/lachsfilet/Renkbench
https://github.com/lolstring/window98-html-css-js
https://github.com/micah5/PSone.css
https://github.com/nostalgic-css/NES.css
https://github.com/npjg/classic.css
https://github.com/robbiebyrd/platinum
https://github.com/bryanbraun/after-dark-css
https://github.com/npjg/new-dawn
https://github.com/ritenv/retro-desktop
https://github.com/RoelN/c64css3
https://github.com/sakofchit/system.css
https://github.com/vinibiavatti1/TuiCss
https://code.divshot.com/geo-bootstrap/
This is wonderful work. One little issue I noticed is that when I click on Cick me, Submit or Reset button the rest of the page below shifts a little down. The page resets to normal when I release the button. Reproducible on Chrome on mac. Does anyone else notice this? Not sure if this is an issue with the CSS or the page layout.
Some part of me wants to launch a serious enterprise-type product but use this for the admin dashboard.
Is there something like this for like mid-90s Unix X-Windows or something along those lines?
Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I made this based on the look of CDE:
https://nielssp.github.io/classic-stylesheets/?theme=cde&ski...
It also includes all the default color schemes.
Yes thank you!!
An important nuance for me in "classic" 3D styles is wether the font in a button get sunken when I click it. It adds much "feel" for me.
I wish there were more CSS templates for doing native-looking interfaces for popular current OSes. I always look and come up empty.
a lot of justified praise for win95/98 ui every time it comes up. but I would like to hear criticism if possible. anyone?
Plenty of criticism to be found about Win95/98.
The control panel and menus upon menus upon menus were not very user friendly. The design was built around low-res CRT screens, which very negatively affects modern screens. Hitboxes were often small, especially for the mice at the time. Commonly used UI elements such as the start menu lacked tons of features we take for granted now (searching in the start menu, for example). Icons were low-res and not always clear, though they were made excellently with more care than any other facet of any modern piece of software I can think of. Navigation controls were severely limited, simple things like breadcrumb navigation simply wasn't invented yet.
Windows XP fixed a lot of small issues found in the Win9x/Win2k UI styling. It had its own problems, but going back to the 9x days is not always an improvement.
It says a lot that I find the 9x style so much easier to use than the "modern" flat designs. It's like we're back in the middle of DOS text characters all over again, having UI elements execute actions after you've guessed about what they might do.
As for a modern take on old ideals, the SerenityOS design is an amazing combination of Win9x/Win2k ideas and modern controls. ReactOS is also used to have a new take on the old style, but that has been modernized to Win10-like menu bars in recent releases.
The control panel and menus upon menus upon menus were not very user friendly. The design was built around low-res CRT screens, which very negatively affects modern screens. Hitboxes were often small, especially for the mice at the time. Commonly used UI elements such as the start menu lacked tons of features we take for granted now (searching in the start menu, for example). Icons were low-res and not always clear, though they were made excellently with more care than any other facet of any modern piece of software I can think of. Navigation controls were severely limited, simple things like breadcrumb navigation simply wasn't invented yet.
Windows XP fixed a lot of small issues found in the Win9x/Win2k UI styling. It had its own problems, but going back to the 9x days is not always an improvement.
It says a lot that I find the 9x style so much easier to use than the "modern" flat designs. It's like we're back in the middle of DOS text characters all over again, having UI elements execute actions after you've guessed about what they might do.
As for a modern take on old ideals, the SerenityOS design is an amazing combination of Win9x/Win2k ideas and modern controls. ReactOS is also used to have a new take on the old style, but that has been modernized to Win10-like menu bars in recent releases.
Did you actually use w9x at 800x600 or 1024x768? It was perfectly fine.
I kinda want a win31.css now, but those 16-bit combo boxes would be murder to pull off properly.
This was pure joy to interact with
Can we also get a Windows Vista version? That was the BEST Windows ever! I liked it so much!
There is a Windows 7 version mentioned above.
https://khang-nd.github.io/7.css
https://khang-nd.github.io/7.css
Either this is some sarcasm, or this is the first time I found anyone that liked Vista.
It ran on one of my laptops for many years without any problems.
One strange thing: that laptop seemed to have a rare chipset and Vista was the only OS that came with the correct drivers for power management. I spent several weeks in vain trying to persuade other operating systems (tried old and new versions of Windows and Linux, various drivers and configuration hacks) not to turn the thing into a heater even at 0% CPU load.
Pretty sad. The hardware is still fully functional.
One strange thing: that laptop seemed to have a rare chipset and Vista was the only OS that came with the correct drivers for power management. I spent several weeks in vain trying to persuade other operating systems (tried old and new versions of Windows and Linux, various drivers and configuration hacks) not to turn the thing into a heater even at 0% CPU load.
Pretty sad. The hardware is still fully functional.
It's disturbing how much I love this. Also Licensed under a MIT license. Very Nice.
Can Microsoft sue for something like this? Ethically I don’t think they should. But, can they?
IANAL, but I think not.
I think this because there have been a plethora of tools and libraries over the decades (think Tk, WxWidgets, and similar) that emulate the native look-and-feel of the OS and I believe a company has to defend it's IP/copyrights otherwise it implicitly loses the ability to do so in the future.
See: https://www.varnumlaw.com/insights/enforce-your-intellectual...
Consequently, this is why companies will so often be quick to "attack" random side projects people do targeting their IP (even very old IP). It isn't necessarily out of a malicious desire so much as a legal requirement. If they don't then a "serious" company can follow suit and then they have no ability to fight it.
Edit: to be clear, obviously they _can_ sue.
I think this because there have been a plethora of tools and libraries over the decades (think Tk, WxWidgets, and similar) that emulate the native look-and-feel of the OS and I believe a company has to defend it's IP/copyrights otherwise it implicitly loses the ability to do so in the future.
See: https://www.varnumlaw.com/insights/enforce-your-intellectual...
Consequently, this is why companies will so often be quick to "attack" random side projects people do targeting their IP (even very old IP). It isn't necessarily out of a malicious desire so much as a legal requirement. If they don't then a "serious" company can follow suit and then they have no ability to fight it.
Edit: to be clear, obviously they _can_ sue.
Trademark requires defense or it can be challenged. Copyright requires no such active defense to maintain and can be enforced selectively.
You can sue anyone for anything, this is America.
Suggestion: The "Show code" links should be a button.
[deleted]
This brought back a wave of nostalgia, thank you!
Cool. Does not support dark mode though.
There was no dark mode fad in 1998. Different color schemes for visually impaired people existed, but they were most often not very aesthetic.
You are correct. There was no OOTB dark mode in 1998. I remember it well because I wasted some time every now and then trying to make one using the appearance control panel. It was frustrating because I could come very close to a universal dark mode. But I remember certain types of text couldn't have their color independently set. One of them (body text? can't remember) used the same color as title bars. Which would make it unusable in a proper dark mode.
I guess I was slightly ahead of my time in wanting system wide dark mode. XP with the theming hacks made me very happy.
I guess I was slightly ahead of my time in wanting system wide dark mode. XP with the theming hacks made me very happy.
Microsoft did actually make a "dark" XP theme. It was available "officially" available but they didn't really market it and it had limited adoption. I stumbled upon it and thought I was v cool for using it.
https://archive.org/details/WindowsXPRoyaleNoirTheme
https://archive.org/details/WindowsXPRoyaleNoirTheme
I didn't know about that one. Looks nicer than the one I ended up using.
Another problem with this was that some software was just broken. For some reason, some devs explicitly set the text color of labels in their software to black instead of the system default color, but left everything else—including the background—to use the system's color. So you end up with black on black for your dark theme.
I remember Encarta being darkmode in 98. Maybe some of the MSN stuff too. Even painted their own titlebars differently.
it's not a fad.
Yeah, I do seem te recall dark mode being better for people with... I think it was cataract? Though with that notable exception dark mode is of course entirely superfluous.
DarkReader extension (available
on all browsers) makes everything have DarkMode. Unless you’re visiting a website designed by <canvas /> loving sadists, then you’ll need a welding helmet.
Honest question, because I don’t remember: does Windows 98?
I know you could edit the theme around to set the UI scheme colours to a darker one, but as a kid I could never make it look nice
I know you could edit the theme around to set the UI scheme colours to a darker one, but as a kid I could never make it look nice
I do remember a high contrast mode. Quite garish with white text on black background with bright blues and I think yellow and red too.
I think this might be it: https://never-obsolete.tumblr.com/post/180144131029/high-con...
edit: yellow and red is from win 3.1's hotdog mode: https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-tribute-to-the-windows-31-ho...
I think this might be it: https://never-obsolete.tumblr.com/post/180144131029/high-con...
edit: yellow and red is from win 3.1's hotdog mode: https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-tribute-to-the-windows-31-ho...
Speaking of yellow and red .. don't forget the noteworthy and stunning specimen, HotDog Linux.
https://hotdoglinux.com/
https://hotdoglinux.com/
You could come close to a proper dark mode, but would fall short. That's with using the color scheme editor in the control panels. I wasted too much time back in '98 trying to make a proper dark mode. Not that we called it that back then.
The downfall was a type of text (body text?) which used the same color as the titlebar. It couldn't be independently set. Was a bit frustrating back then.
There were the high contrast modes back then, but they were too ugly to use unless you needed the contrast.
The downfall was a type of text (body text?) which used the same color as the titlebar. It couldn't be independently set. Was a bit frustrating back then.
There were the high contrast modes back then, but they were too ugly to use unless you needed the contrast.
Yeah that’s exactly what I remembered: you could make some of the UI dark for sure, but it wasn’t a real dark mode like we expect today; there was still a fair bit of light colouring because it didn’t have enough flexibility?
No, you could do it. There is the limitation GP mentions, but that just meant you were limited in choice. Like you had to pick a text color that would look good on title bars and on window background.
There was however no reason software had to adhere to that. You were free to make your app as colorful as possible. Some devs were nice enough to set the text color to black but leave everything else to use the system theme, so with your dark theme you end up with a nice black on black. I think there were even some Microsoft apps that shipped with windows that had parts that were just "hard-coded" to a light theme.
There was however no reason software had to adhere to that. You were free to make your app as colorful as possible. Some devs were nice enough to set the text color to black but leave everything else to use the system theme, so with your dark theme you end up with a nice black on black. I think there were even some Microsoft apps that shipped with windows that had parts that were just "hard-coded" to a light theme.
Definitely was stuck with either light coloring somewhere, or difficult to read text. I remember experimenting with different shades of gray for either the background or the text, but couldn't find one which would work on both dark and light backgrounds. And you'd always have a light background popping up somewhere.
In retrospect, it's a little funny. Apparently the coders & designers at Microsoft in the 90's never anticipated someone wanting a mostly dark desktop. They'd come up with crazy color schemes like Hot Dog, but never any gray & black schemes.
In retrospect, it's a little funny. Apparently the coders & designers at Microsoft in the 90's never anticipated someone wanting a mostly dark desktop. They'd come up with crazy color schemes like Hot Dog, but never any gray & black schemes.
There were preset themes. Some were dark.
They certainly weren’t really a “dark mode” in the modern usage though I thought, they had ridiculously high contrast still around parts of it?
I don’t remember any of those dark presets being that dark either except for the High Contrast one — but this is going to drive me nuts all day now so I’m going to dig through a Win98 VM and see what I can find!
If there’s one that’s a good fit, might be a fun pull request to write for this project :)
I don’t remember any of those dark presets being that dark either except for the High Contrast one — but this is going to drive me nuts all day now so I’m going to dig through a Win98 VM and see what I can find!
If there’s one that’s a good fit, might be a fun pull request to write for this project :)
why would anyone want to resurrect that terrible operating system? that’s the bar with which crappy software is measured against
Consider that for some people that terrible operating system might have been the first system the have ever used, maybe as a kid.
I (an avid linux user who spends more time in the terminal than on a UI) certainly recall that my first contact with any computer with a keyboard was Windows 95. It was a complete mystery to me. The fascination that unexplainable object had on a 7 year old certainly had an effect on my life.
And guess what I remember? That grey interface with the blue title bar.
So as crappy as it might have been, as ethically unsound as the company who made it might have behaved themselves, the visual likeness of the system of my childhood tingles some old memories. And that is not even remotely odd. People can be nostalgic for literally everything, because we do not long for the old artifacts themselves, but for the feelings, friends and times we might have had when they were around.
For some of us the grey windows of Microsofts operating system have gained symbolic value beyond the aesthetical or functional qualities inherent to the system itself.
I (an avid linux user who spends more time in the terminal than on a UI) certainly recall that my first contact with any computer with a keyboard was Windows 95. It was a complete mystery to me. The fascination that unexplainable object had on a 7 year old certainly had an effect on my life.
And guess what I remember? That grey interface with the blue title bar.
So as crappy as it might have been, as ethically unsound as the company who made it might have behaved themselves, the visual likeness of the system of my childhood tingles some old memories. And that is not even remotely odd. People can be nostalgic for literally everything, because we do not long for the old artifacts themselves, but for the feelings, friends and times we might have had when they were around.
For some of us the grey windows of Microsofts operating system have gained symbolic value beyond the aesthetical or functional qualities inherent to the system itself.
First computer I used was running Dos and Windows 3.1.
But my favorite Windows version is XP, I was doing service desk / junior sysadmin at the time and XP was just so easy to work with. You could fix a lot of problems by simply editing the registry or files in the windows folder directly and you could re-image a machine in about 2 minutes. The control panel was really easy to navigate and consistent.
I really wish XP was still supported.
But my favorite Windows version is XP, I was doing service desk / junior sysadmin at the time and XP was just so easy to work with. You could fix a lot of problems by simply editing the registry or files in the windows folder directly and you could re-image a machine in about 2 minutes. The control panel was really easy to navigate and consistent.
I really wish XP was still supported.
Well alright, but I was tech support for many Windows 98 users back in the day and wow did I hate microsoft. It was such a ridiculous mess, like a house of cards. Fix one thing and another broke, cryptic dll packs when installed fixed some problems then needed patching again and again and again. And everyone blamed tech support. We were incompetent, the software came from god. fml I hate that os
Everyone still blames tech support for everything and I think that will likely continue indefinitely regardless of correctness and quality of software.
Just like for someone working at a 90s McDonalds the old architecture might make them want to vomit while for a kid that grew up during that time that architecture might carry good memories for them.
Both (and more) perspectives can be valid at the same time.
Both (and more) perspectives can be valid at the same time.
When it comes to look and feel specifically, these days it's not rare for websites and even apps to use styling such that it's impossible to tell a link from a label, and either from a button - everything is flat, and color differences are often deliberately minimal. That was not a problem in Win98 days.
If you think the Win9x UI was terrible, have you seen what passes for "design" these days...?
I was never a Windows guy, even less then, but you just have to love this demo page.
I can imagine this making the internet a little less scary to some legacy users who are still working with ‘98 tech (you would be horrified at how many there are).
nostalgia.
Doesn't seem faithful enough. Windows 98 UIs looked better than this and didn't use green text.
I wouldn't really call this "faithful", I have yet to see actual pixel-perfect recreations of any Windows UI in any form whatsoever, but I'd love to see one.
I absolutely would. Not really sure what you’re on about.
This was my burnout recovery project in April of 2020. Very much a labor of love and a surprising way to realize I still liked programming. I wrote some scattered thoughts here [0]
I also "run" this project quite differently than I usually do - when I receive a pull request instead of merging it I do a quick glance through the user's github to make sure they're not a spammer before giving them _commit access_ and asking them to merge their own PR [1]. It has worked wonders.
[0]: https://notes.jordanscales.com/ffa53b57
[1]: https://twitter.com/jdan/status/1528026508564078593