Re:Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
by Lammy on Saturday October 26, 2019 @01:01AM
(#21361822)
Windows codename Neptune: https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft_Neptune
It’s interesting to see twenty year old experiments with flat UI designs considering how dominant that style is today with Android 5, iOS 7, Windows 8, etc.
Re:Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
by TheKarateKid on Saturday October 26, 2019 @03:44AM
(#21362338)
Indeed. Ironically, I think I remember reading that the Neptune apps’ UI was HTML-based, since Microsoft wanted IE to power everything.
And now many apps use HTML/JS/CSS for styling and rendering.
Re:Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
by garaetjjte on Saturday October 26, 2019 @11:34AM
(#21364262)
These apps looks like they are made in IE6-era Electron..
Re:Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
by Lammy on Saturday October 26, 2019 @05:14PM
(#21366243)
They are! The same tech powered Active Desktop and the "smart" Explorer sidebars in Windows XP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application
Microsoft was planning on building an entirely new Internet-focused consumer version of NT. It was too ambitious for its time, so to meet deadlines, most of it was scrapped and some UI elements were backported into an updated Windows 98 which became ME. This is why Explorer for both ME and 2000 look similar despite having little else in common.
Other elements of the scrapped project made its way into XP, but barely compared to what it was supposed to be. I think XP’s fancy login screen was one of them.
If anyone’s interested I’ll try to find where I read all of this. It might’ve been on Paul Thurrott’s Windows Supersite or another site that collected Windows betas.