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Comment by g947o | Hacker News Reader

I empathize with many of the complaints, but some are a bit ridiculous. Using custom fonts in software UI is completely reasonable and normal, even if you don't like it.

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I remember a time when UIs looked consistent, instead of custom-branded, and I still think the "completely reasonable and normal" state is the former, not the latter.

As I remember, that was before the rise of multi-platform, web-based and mobile apps.

You'd get Office 2003 and it'd follow the Windows XP style with lots of blue [1] and you'd get Office 2004 for Mac with the brushed metal styling [2] - and many applications only targeted a single platform.

Whereas in the modern age you get Slack for Web, Slack for Windows, Slack for Mac, Slack for Linux, Slack for iOS and Slack for Android - and it tries to be consistent across different platforms, instead of being consistent with different platforms.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2003 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2004_for_Mac

Windows apps that skinned everything have existed since at least Windows 95. But they were an exception rather than a rule.

We never pushed back on it when we could, because we thought WinAmp was sooooo cool, and now every application you run on your machine has a different look and feel and does not respect your desktop themes or customizations.

Oh, longer: http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/shame.htm

When, Windows 3.1?

Each version up thru Win8 had a style guide. If you wanted the windows sticker on your box you made it consistent. Why would you want that sticker? If you did not have it it was much harder to get floor space at many of the big box stores.

It was at win8 where everyone just noped out and just started doing whatever they wanted. XP/2000 was the last era where anyone really cared.

3.0 to server 2008 which makes that period 18 years.

Microsoft Office abandoned the normal Win32 UI conventions for the Ribbon interface before 2008.

Office 2007 introduced it, then it was implemented in Windows Live Essentials suite and in W7 applications. If I'm not mistaken LibreOffice got it not so long ago but with a different name to avoid any problems.

That is why I cheated a bit, they were introduced with Windows Server 2012... ;)

For me, Windows 2000 was peak Microsoft UI.

Reasonable? That's subjective. I don't think it is, personally. Normal? Unfortunately, yes.

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