Windows 2000 CSS Theme | Hacker News Reader

Windows 2000 CSS Theme

win2k.brod.io

130 pointsbrod30 comments

I kinda miss when computers looked like this.

We too brother, we too.

really?

Yeah. I still use the classic theme in Windows 7. It's fluff-free. I like that Win 8/10 have gone simpler with the UI theme, but absolutely hate that hidden sidebar thing. Aero on Vista/Win7 is just too gaudy (though better than XP was).

Before you accuse me of being a curmudgeon, know that I love the Ribbon as well. :)

I've always wondered about people that like the old Win2000 or 95 look. And I am hoping you can answer some questions for me.

The actual OS aside, do you prefer the look of Win2000 over the look of Win8?

I get that Win2000 is minimalistic. But it's not too flat that you can't tell what is what. And I like that. But what I hate about it is the colours. Especially the grey, turquoise, and dark blue. They literally nauseate me sometimes. Do you not find the colours off-putting?

I actually prefer the Win8 look. It's cleaner and still simple. But all the other mystery navigation of Win8 makes it a non-starter for me.

I hate the turquoise. Don't mind the dark blue and grey.

Slap XFCE on a Linux distro and go to town.

> Slap XFCE on a Linux distro and go to town.

I'd guess similar themes to be available to also KDE, not just Xfce. (Xfce also has modern looking themes, but the default is very dated.)

In a few years UIs will hopefully start looking like this again, as it's a good balance between the current ultra-flat trend and the previous "gradients and transparency everywhere" of Vista/7. The same sort of cycle appears earlier if you look at Win1.x/2.x(flat) -> 3.x(exaggerated 3D) -> 4.x/9x/2k(more subtle 3D) -> XP(pseudorealistic 3D, bitmapped UI) -> Vista/7(extravagant 3D) -> 8/10(flat). Whether the rest of the software will be less user-hostile, however, is still quite uncertain...

That'd be awesome. Heck after a lot of mobile use recently I've decided I'd be willing to start using a stylus instead of my finger again so that some of those gigantic [ w h i t e s p a c e ] buttons could give way to tight groups of actually helpful buttons.

I've seen this look achieved with the Classic95 icon pack and Mate, if you search for 'Mate95' something should come up.

Maybe if you picked the right browser and set up some user style sheets you could get things just right.

There was a window manager for RedHat that copied the look of 95:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FVWM95

There's a certain timelessness in the simplicity and purity of these old designs.

oh man. as the author of BOOTSTRA.386 you're giving me ideas ...

I'd be going for 1997 windows 95 style... make it truly tasteless like their advertising at the time (http://www-sbras.nsc.ru/docs/ms/vbsdoc/tagline.gif) might be fun

hell yeah, just do it!

A bit OOT: During my early days of programming back in high school, I found Visual Basic 5 CCE (http://www.thevbzone.com/vbcce.htm). Having previously used Turbo Pascal, I was quite mesmerized by the UI designer/drag-n-drop. I spent countless of hours making pretty UIs, and I just love clicking buttons (esp. watching the "sunken" effect).

Of course, since I was an idiot, I didn't know that I can't produce .EXE using VB5 CCE.

I think the biggest reveal here is this was built for a browser based version of Napster linked on the site. Now that's nostalgia.

Looks like whatever was their has been taken down "sry, too much traffic was slowing my local testing down.".

Any insight into what was there?

I'm building Napster v2 BETA 7 (or 10) in the browser, using the OP theme. Didn't expect all this traffic though and it's clogging up my end.

I know this is probably mostly meant as a joke, but it could be rather useful in business applications. You're able to give the users an interface they recognise and feel safe in.

.bg-yuck

That is the best selector name I have ever seen

Oh, I was working on something like this, but for Windows 95. I didn't finish it, unfortunately.

On a related note: http://win95.ajf.me/

(And http://cloudnt4.ajf.me/, but the VM isn't running for now)

A fun project. Here's another, a lost version of Windows from a parallel universe: http://www.windows93.net/

Windows 93 is fun, but the visual inaccuracy always bothered me. It resembles the Win9x/Classic look but only just.

Similar idea, but focused much more on comedy.

Introducing Windows RG (Really Good Edition) [1] Warning for some: This requires the Adobe Flash plugin.

[1] http://windowsreallygoodedition.com/

The use of page-wide nearest-neighbour scaling makes this look horrid on mobile browsers. I'm not sure it's even necessary anyway, treating 9x-style Windows UI as vector looks great.

what do you mean "page-wide nearest-neighour"? it looked good on ios safari/chrome

http://i.imgur.com/b1nigvx.jpg

Text areas seems to have some issue in Firefox, but work fine in anything webkit based.

Great to see a cool Basscss (basscss.com) remix.

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