Comments on: A Rant About Application GUIs

By: jacobbrett

jacobbrett — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:57:27 +0000

I wish there was some kind of foobar2000 version of WLM – that thing needs some heavy customising, that would be awesome. I hate the Vista/WLM/WMP11 interface, bloated and unnecessary.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:26:02 +0000

I agree with you, however, I really like applications that have customizable GUIs. Programs like Winamp where you can choose from different GUIs or if you like, design your own for it. There ought to be more programs like that.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:52:59 +0000

I don’t know if you have noticed or not, but the new CS3 apps have stopped even pretending to use native ui elements and now are some awful hybrid, with grey slab buttons. So not only did they gimp there ‘icons’ with letters, but there interface too

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/ has a great couple of examples in OS X with blue gloss aqua buttons next to slab grey switches in Photoshop.

By: Philip Karpiak

Philip Karpiak — Mon, 07 May 2007 19:35:44 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. I think it’s great that companies want to brand their applications in some fashion. But at least have the courtesy to allow me to use the default Windows GUI if I choose.

I think the worse culprit I’ve seen is HP, and branding their printer applications using the default Windows XP “Fisher-Price” theme, but a lot bigger and uglier.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:01:25 +0000

If you think AIM Triton is bad, give AIM 6.0 a shot. They did some cleaning up in the new version: got rid of the Buddies / Contacts list tabs, made the Away options a submenu of the Set Away button, and some other nice touches. In addition, IM windiows are neater, without the long row of tabs for different messaging options and then the tiny IM conversation below.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Sun, 06 May 2007 18:54:52 +0000

Heh — I hear you here! Lucky for me, now I use a Mac, and everything generally has a pretty good sense of cohesion; but back in the days I was on Windows (little under a year now, not out of choice) it used to annoy the shit out of me!