|
|
Post by kimobaksh38 on Oct 20, 2020 0:39:42 GMT -8
I remember the days of Windows 7 where visual styles and skin were everywhere and easy to install. With Windows removing more and more customizability each update, it makes me really sad. Now we have to use programs like ClassicShell to get even BASIC themeing. Even Windows Classic theme is incredibly hard to access. Is customizability dead?
(And no, being able to change the basic OS color isn't skinning)
|
|
|
|
Post by anixx on Oct 20, 2020 0:49:12 GMT -8
Nadella said he wanted to follow the success of Steve Jobs who made Mac OS not customizable at all.
|
|
|
|
Post by R.O.B. on Oct 20, 2020 8:19:23 GMT -8
This is a very interesting topic, and I think it's one that goes beyond just Windows. It seems to be a thing with tech in general these days.
Anyone remember MySpace? I was never a user of it myself, but I do know that it allowed for complete customization over your page. Everything from the colors to the background to the fonts... you could even add custom music to your page. To a lesser extent, the same thing applies to the old YouTube channel designs. I remember spending hours playing around with the colors and fonts, trying to see what looked best. Whenever you stumbled upon a unique, well-designed channel with a nice background, you wanted to emulate that level of design yourself.
Compare that to Facebook and Twitter, where the only things you can really change are your banner and profile pictures. Everyone's page looks the same now: bland and sterile.
The era of "Any Colour You Like" is over, sadly.
|
|
|
|
Post by travis on Oct 20, 2020 8:26:18 GMT -8
Nadella said he wanted to follow the success of Steve Jobs who made Mac OS not customizable at all. Another person following apples footsteps... |
|
|
|
Post by R.O.B. on Oct 20, 2020 8:39:28 GMT -8
In regards to Windows, the Windows 10 ecosystem makes customization incredibly difficult. Unless you want to hold out on an older version forever, pretty much every advanced tweak is going to be undone in the next feature update. Even if you can automate everything with a script, there's not guarantee that your customizations will work in the next version.
Additionally, Windows itself is becoming more and more difficult to customize, with things like authenticode signatures on DLL files, and more limited control over the appearance of the OS through visual styles and more traditional UI mods. Back in the days of Windows XP, there was an absolute sea of user-made visual styles and modifications to the OS. Even something like the bootscreen was customized to no end. And this continued to a certain degree up to about Windows 7. Starting with Windows 8, things began to get a bit more difficult. And while there was still a lot you could do, it just wasn't what it was. But I think Windows 10 is what really killed it, as its very design seems to actively discourage it.
|
|
|
|
Post by travis on Oct 20, 2020 8:41:29 GMT -8
In regards to Windows, the Windows 10 ecosystem makes customization incredibly difficult. Unless you want to hold out on an older version forever, pretty much every advanced tweak is going to be undone in the next feature update. Even if you can automate everything with a script, there's not guarantee that the your customizations will work in the next version. Additionally, Windows itself is becoming more and more difficult to customize, with things like authenticode signatures on DLL files, and more limited control over the appearance of the OS through visual styles and more traditional UI mods. Back in the days of Windows XP, there was an absolute sea of user-made visual styles and modifications to the OS. Even something like the bootscreen was customized to no end. And this continued to a certain degree up to about Windows 7. Starting with Windows 8, things began to get a bit more difficult. And while there was still a lot you could do, it just wasn't what it was. But I think Windows 10 is what really killed it, as its very design seems to actively discourage it. Not only that, the 2021 Redesign of Windows 10 will bite all of us. Who knows what will be gone? |
|
limmy
New Member
Posts: 5
OS: Windows 10 20H2
Theme: SCT
|
Post by limmy on Oct 24, 2020 5:16:32 GMT -8
Remember early Youtube? Channels were very much customizable, with what the colours and uploadable background textures and the like. I think there's a small video streaming site called VidLii that uses YT's early channel philosophy.
|
|
kamuisuki
Regular Member
~
Posts: 499
OS: Windows Me
Theme: 5048
CPU: Intel Pentium III-S Tualatin
RAM: 2048
GPU: GeForce 3Ti 500
|
Post by kamuisuki on Oct 25, 2020 0:43:23 GMT -8
I'm asking if Windows is not starting to be like GNU , with a shell totally separated , maybe the new UI will be easier to modify and customize, why not one day able to use KDE, Gnome environnement on Windows .
|
|
|
|
Post by R.O.B. on Oct 25, 2020 10:44:03 GMT -8
I'm asking if Windows is not starting to be like GNU , with a shell totally separated , maybe the new UI will be easier to modify and customize, why not one day able to use KDE, Gnome environnement on Windows . I strongly believe this is the only way things like the classic theme will be usable on Windows 10 in the future. We need to take some notes from Linux if we want to have a customizable Windows 10 in the long run. |
|
|
|
Post by prengle on Oct 25, 2020 15:49:00 GMT -8
big tech/silicon valley megacorps adore sterile, soulless, uncustomizable flat uis because they: - strip even more control and consent away from the end user
- mean that money doesn't have to be spent on an actual graphic design team - they can just draft everything in powerpoint
- fetishize implementing a "clean", "consistent", "unified" user interface that appeals only to toddlers and twitterbrained bugmen
there are some smaller sites/services propping themselves up on 90s/2000s-era nostalgia and customizability (neocities, vidlii, friendproject, etc.) but the short answer is that user-end personalization was brutally murdered years ago. as far as your tech overlords are concerned, a "light" and a "dark" theme is good enough :3 I'm asking if Windows is not starting to be like GNU , with a shell totally separated , maybe the new UI will be easier to modify and customize, why not one day able to use KDE, Gnome environnement on Windows . I strongly believe this is the only way things like the classic theme will be usable on Windows 10 in the future. We need to take some notes from Linux if we want to have a customizable Windows 10 in the long run. ms announced that they planned on decoupling the shell from win10's core architecture a year ago, except it's windows 10 and we all know they're just going to use this as an excuse to remove "legacy" components and cram in more fluent/uwp/metro crap so... meh. windows has been a lost cause for nearly a decade and alternative oses like linux are legitimately the only viable long-term option, in my eyes at least www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-yields-more-secrets-microsoft-plan-to-split-os-from-shell-takes-shape/ (copy the url and paste it into a new tab or something, god i hate proboards) |
|
|
|
Post by ihatemetro on Oct 25, 2020 18:53:00 GMT -8
big tech/silicon valley megacorps adore sterile, soulless, uncustomizable flat uis because they: - strip even more control and consent away from the end user
- mean that money doesn't have to be spent on an actual graphic design team - they can just draft everything in powerpoint
- fetishize implementing a "clean", "consistent", "unified" user interface that appeals only to toddlers and twitterbrained bugmen
there are some smaller sites/services propping themselves up on 90s/2000s-era nostalgia and customizability (neocities, vidlii, friendproject, etc.) but the short answer is that user-end personalization was brutally murdered years ago. as far as your tech overlords are concerned, a "light" and a "dark" theme is good enough :3 I strongly believe this is the only way things like the classic theme will be usable on Windows 10 in the future. We need to take some notes from Linux if we want to have a customizable Windows 10 in the long run. ms announced that they planned on decoupling the shell from win10's core architecture a year ago, except it's windows 10 and we all know they're just going to use this as an excuse to remove "legacy" components and cram in more fluent/uwp/metro crap so... meh. windows has been a lost cause for nearly a decade and alternative oses like linux are legitimately the only viable long-term option, in my eyes at least www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-yields-more-secrets-microsoft-plan-to-split-os-from-shell-takes-shape/ (copy the url and paste it into a new tab or something, god i hate proboards) Agreed. It's sad to see what UIs have become in the past 15 years or so. What used to be super customizable UIs are now just boring, flat, barely customizable UIs that look worse than what Windows 3.0 had (due to CPU limitations) if it wasn't for the glass blur. The only hopes left are Linux and the *BSD family, which are still fully customizable down to the kernel even in some cases (Mac OS not included), but application support is awful on those Operating Systems. Plus, my desktop and laptop are not tablets. Don't shove a tablet UI on desktop users. At least Apple did this correctly, a separate OS for mobile and another separate OS for laptops/desktops. |
|
