Windows has a UI toolkit in the same way the UK has a constitution: it's not all in one place, and most of it is basically unused, but it almost makes sense if you close your eyes and squint.

their failure modes are just as interesting: trick windows into using the classic theme and enjoy all of these apps experiencing an existential crisis

(note: this only affects newly launched programs)

I am supremely upset still by the initial observation that the "real" ones are crummy and misaligned

what the fu k

Not a single Windows application has adhered to a consistent system-wide identity in decades. Not even programs included with Windows as core components.

The misaligned buttons on the only program using the native decoration is sad, but also very funny

yeah Microsoft hasn't had a consistent design language since Windows 7 lmfao

i had the utter displeasure of learning about this by myself on firefox when i was trying to install some custom themes for it. there's a neato program you can install on windows 11 called "mica for all" which allows you to enable different titlebar effects on win32 applications, but you need to install a custom theme that supports it for the effect to take place on firefox, and every single theme i tried just had broken as hell titlebar buttons. it was sad.

I wish they could do something to make their operating system more consistent but I'm terrified to think of what it would be likely to do to 32-bit programs

extremely offended and distressed. ahhh

Going insane after verifying the misaligned button on my Win 11 laptop.
It looks as though all 3 issues are due to the maximize button highlight being sized wrong, so hopefully this could be a simple fix?

Yeah, I'm back on Windows for the first time in a while, and it bugs me. Every version of Windows gets worse at this, and I don't know why.

Or maybe I do. Years ago, I remember hearing that there were plans to make the .NET runtime a central part of Windows, and the systems people threw serious tantrums, because how dare anybody sully their perfect operating system with...like, applications and code to make that easier. So the various Microsoft factions might literally not be talking to each other anymore.

Which, if anybody knows anybody at Microsoft, this might be the best time to resurrect the company's best not-a-product. https://microsoft-coffee.medium.com/microsoft-coffee-25545836a7e3

At one point I was re-creating the Windows title bar and borders for a borderless window, and noticed this as well - my adventure in studying animation timings (e.g. the Close button fades from half-opacity, not from zero) ended at realizing that even Microsoft's different applications don't draw the controls in the same way,

• Edge uses a rounded "maximize" button even on Win10.
• Different light/dark system apps use a different highlight for min/max buttons (sometimes gray, sometimes accent-shaded).
• For windows with tall title bar (Edge, Store, etc.), the title buttons are sometimes stretched to full height, and sometimes sit in a corner.
• Things that you have outlined in the post here

In the end I think we can all appreciate that at least the buttons appear on the correct side of the window.

It's worth noting that, at least in some of these cases, the reason they're drawing their own buttons is that these applications are drawing stuff in the nonclient area (titlebar). Firefox, Edge, and Windows Terminal all draw tabs in the titlebar. And if you tell Windows "Hey, let me draw the titlebar!", then you gotta draw the whole titlebar. There's no way to tell Windows to draw the buttons and let you handle the rest.

Also, this is not a defense of Windows. So many applications are drawing stuff in the titlebar! There should absolutely be an API that lets you use standard Win32 titlebar controls and still paint the rest of it yourself!

This is the kind of research I want to read, thank you! BTW, windows people, long since, stop creating a masterpiece, rather creating piece of shit while displaying ads on my own+paid windows instance!