I like rabbits and robots.


wildweasel
@wildweasel

I just got done augmenting @doodlemancy 's related rant about the size of scrollbars in modern UIs and was reminded, again, of another way in which we were once a great civilization.

Open an Explorer/Finder/uhhhh PCManFM? window right now. Observe the lower-right corner of said window. It is probably rounded, probably a pixel thin even at high-DPI mode, and it is unclear where your mouse arrow should be pointed in order to grab that window to resize it. Worse, for Windows 10/11 users, the grab point - while larger than the visual border - is probably only a few pixels wide.

Now observe the other three pictures, of Apple Lisa OS, Acorn RISC OS, and Amiga Workbench. Notice how the grabbable corner of a window is not only very large, but comes with a very clear and obvious pictogrammed widget. We used to have this EVERYWHERE. Windows XP had it, even. Then we lost it, somewhere over the years. Window borders suddenly needed to be so thin as to be invisible. Who resizes their windows anymore? Everybody just clicks that big, attractive MAKE IT HUGE button. Even if that means inflating a browser window to the point of making text too wide to comfortably read.

This shit used to be big and clear and present. UI design nowadays is so obsessed with conformity that Lord forbid the user be presented with any way to customize it and take it away from the expected status quo. Even something so simple as knowing where to grab a window, to make it slightly bigger.

(img sources: macOS is my own screenshot, all others courtesy of Nathan Lineback of Toastytech.com GUI Gallery. )


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