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Comment by gojomo | Hacker News Reader

Nice job of aping the Windows look... but often, web apps should look like web apps, since they are stuck in the browser pane, and suffer some network lags. I've seen a lot of projects shoot for a 'desktop-like' look & feel, spend a lot of time chasing it, but always miss by at least enough that the app lands in an 'uncanny valley', neither webby nor desktoppy.

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I've spend the last 9 months building a web-application that had to look like a desktop one. I never liked the idea, but my bosses and our customers were not reasonable.

Now we have an application that runs on a web browser, looks neither like a web pager nor a desktop application, the back button does not work neither the bookmarks. Also, it feels reaaally slow, and there are some big hacks to ensure it works on both IE and FF (on safari and opera you get a message recommending to use IE/FF).

Moreover, we did not use the standard backend for the framework, and we had big problems to make them work well together.

I'm ashamed of myself :(

Dayum that sucks! But I agree that web apps should look like web apps and desktop apps should look like a desktop. Not that there is anything wrong with the latter. So how did the project go?

It is currently working and our customers seems happy.

Considering the pointy haired boss ignored your advice and let the customer run wild in the design phase, you have no reason to feel ashamed for that abomination.

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