Well, I use Emacs and that's the opposite of not-customizing, but not
for eye candy, but for functionality.

On 5/17/2023 3:11:05 PM, Ander GM wrote:
> Well, I use Emacs and that's the opposite of not-customizing, but not
> for eye candy, but for functionality.
>

You're definitely not the only one...but I think the issue goes way deeper.

Back in the 1980s, a LOT of research was done to find the right balance of
functionality and usability for computers. At the time, people were moving from
'not-computers' to 'computers', so they needed to do the job *way* better than
the existing methods. IBM-compatible desktops cost some $3,000-$5,000 at the
time, so it was the sort of sale that really needed to have functionality
front-and-center.

Over the next 40 years, UIs got better looking and, in general, better usability
(though Snapchat's "secret UI" situation is a mess, and the absence of text
labels is a terrible direction). This has certainly been a good thing (This is a
mess:
http://www.graphpaper.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/bru_main_screen.jpg), but
while letting developers make UIs without any oversight ends up with an ugly,
undesirable mess, letting UI/UX people turn software into an art project that
lacks the sort of consistent cues and elements needed to make software
discoverable is an equally terrible extreme
(https://chromeunboxed.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/launcherWithBlur.png?ezimgfmt=ngcb93/notWebP).

Command line interface programs certainly do not have to be pretty, but there is
certainly room for improvement without needing a GUI overlay. We can easily talk
about Synaptic Package Manager. Recently I attempted to do an upgrade for
something and it required me to accept that there was a version change. Well, it
gave me something I could copy/paste into Google and get moving, but under the
circumstances, the better solution would be to say something like "this
repository has a significant version change, so any updates from this repository
will not be added automatically. To update applications from this repository, run
this command again with the "--allow-releaseinfo-change" argument." . Save me the
Google search for such a consistent behavior.

Overall, I agree that desktop environments seem to be trending into either one
extreme or the other. Either the UI is reflective of a room full of artists and
no users (Windows 11, MacOS 11, recent KDE iterations), or it's a set of
developers who are optimizing for the machine, rather than the person (Openbox).
I think LXDE and XFCE have a reasonable middle ground, but where most Linux
desktop environments seem to falter is in their system config panels. For all of
the faults of Windows, changing the screen resolution and wallpaper are fairly
easy to get to and intuitively so. Moving shortcuts from the Start Menu to the
Desktop, while a regression in Windows 11, is way easier to do in Win9x-10 than
it seems to be in most DEs.

...All of that being said, I would love nothing more than to be able to run KDE
or XFCE on Windows...let me use a Linux UI with a Windows backend and I will be
happy. Sadly, no such love, and I do understand why.

On Wed, 17 May 2023 21:11:02 +0200, Ander GM wrote:

> Well, I use Emacs and that's the opposite of not-customizing, but not
> for eye candy, but for functionality.

I agree the modern UI's suck. I been using the same .fvwmrc file since
97, I found a setup that works for me back then, and with minor changes
over the years, it still the same interface I have used since 97. Also
Emacs is my editor of choice still.

--Michael

On 6/13/23 4:19 AM, Michael P. O'Connor wrote:
> On Wed, 17 May 2023 21:11:02 +0200, Ander GM wrote:
>
>> Well, I use Emacs and that's the opposite of not-customizing, but not
>> for eye candy, but for functionality.
>
> I agree the modern UI's suck. I been using the same .fvwmrc file since
> 97, I found a setup that works for me back then, and with minor changes
> over the years, it still the same interface I have used since 97.

I chose fvwm95 -- it was more completely configured than fvwm and I'm
still lazy. I edit the .fvwm95rc by hand, but I think later versions
offer some sort of GUI-thing to do it. Too much trouble to look...

>Also Emacs is my editor of choice still.

I started using pico when I used tin and pine. Did I mention something
about laziness?

--
Cheers, Bev
Ride faster, I hear banjo music!