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Comment by PanicAdmin | Hacker News Reader

I see that this very bad idea is returning from the 90's.

I reckon a lot of the people clamoring for these things are gen z or younger first discovering the idea of customizable OS's and are now going through all the awful decisions that were made before. Pretty sure I've seen a version of this skeuomorphic desktop like 15 times at this point.

In the last century, there was an app for Apple's Mac OS (before MacOSX), called Kaleidoscope[0]. It allowed massive customization.

Fun, but most themes were basically unusable.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleidoscope_(software)

Some samples: https://web.archive.org/web/20110709175639fw_/http://www.kal...

(The one I used the most, was Ozymandias II).

The children yearn for Microsoft Bob - which took this idea a bit further:

"Microsoft Bob presented screens showing a house, with rooms that the user could visit containing familiar objects corresponding to computer applications, such as a desk with pen and paper and a checkbook. Clicking on the pen and paper would open the system's word processor."

Some level of skeuomorphic design is quite nice, like what we saw from Apple during the Forstall era. It seemed to strike a good balance.

Something like Microsoft BOB takes the metaphor too far and gets weird.

I think this project leans on it a little too hard, but a balanced approach can make the systems quite charming and provide a nice juxtaposition to the very austere hardware we have these days.

Personally, I found skeuomorphic design to be something that I really enjoyed, for a couple of days, but rapidly got sick of.

That may have more to with the skills of the implementors, as opposed to the concept, as a whole.

I do find modern "flat" design to be less "fun," but I get a lot more done with it.

That might be the thing. In real life you don't use the same stationary for years. Your desk is a reflection of your mood and evolves almost daily. Maybe that's where these fail?

Indeed, my mood most days is bland, monotonic, and flat, just like my desktop.

I'm not sure why you are participating in this thread then.

This is where themes come in.

> In real life you don't use the same stationary for years.

That's honestly just because I can't reuse paper I've already written something on. That's a limitation of paper I'm glad the digital did away with.

I've used some pens for years. Once I found one I liked, I stuck with it.

I switched to Linux to get away from the UI churn. Things changing without my consent does not bring me joy, but it's not like you really have a choice if you run Windows (or a distro with a DE that does do the churn).

You point is?

I functionally do use the same stationary for years. The only exception is paper, which I try to avoid using due to its real world limitaions. My desk doesn't change depending on my mood. It barely develops yearly, let alone daily.

What's so bad about it?

He doesn't like it.

Why's it bad?

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