from Hacker News

ClassicKit – A collection of UI components for iOS influenced by Windows 95

by prithvi24 on 5/16/18, 4:41 AM with 58 comments

• by 2ion on 5/16/18, 7:58 AM

  Reverting to the classic Win9x/2000 style is what I do still immediately when using a Windows computer.

  As opposed to the horrible flat/white/modern design that govers Windows 10 and the web, it makes using the UI easier: Elements have clear boundaries; it is immediately obvious what role an UI component has (link? label? button? text field?); there is very little ambiguity; typography is simple and inobstrusive.

  The Luna and Aero styles were actually not much worse than the classic Windows style but interesting and usable evolutions of it as they retained the properties listed above.

  I am not entirely sure whether this perception stems from the fact that the classic style is objectively "better" suited for a GUI or from the fact that the Windows UIs were so predominant in the PC market at the time and left a lasting impression on people's understanding of what a GUI is/was. Perhaps it goes both ways.

• by jordansmithnz on 5/16/18, 7:27 AM

  Nice, there’s some great stuff here in something that originated as a fun/joke project:

  - it might not look ‘pretty’, but heck, the Windows 95 UI sure is intuitive. Buttons are very apparent, icons make sense, and what was never meant as a touch UI translates across to one incredibly well.

  - at a glance, code looks clean and pretty readable. @IBDesignable support too (if only Xcode wasn’t so sluggish compiling/rendering IBDesignables...). Well done to the author for not only making a fun/cool project, but for doing it well.

• by speps on 5/16/18, 7:06 AM

  Mods please remove "Came Across", this isn't Reddit. The guideline is to use the page title or the project name and a short explanation.

• by userbinator on 5/16/18, 11:34 AM

  I like the fact that it's drawing the edges as vectors, just like how Windows itself renders classic style:

  https://github.com/Baddaboo/ClassicKit/blob/master/Component...

  IMHO much better than the trend of making every single UI element a huge bitmap image (in multiple resolutions), such that a simple app contains dozens of images of buttons and the like which consume more space than an entire Win95 installation...

• by ksherlock on 5/16/18, 12:31 PM

  Story time... when NeXT pivoted away from hardware, they ported OpenStep to Windows NT 4. Since they needed to look like Windows NT, they included MS Windows UI images. Those images are gone now but were still present in OS X as of Snow Leopard.

  (And now the show is on the other foot with Microsoft/WinObjC)

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/

• by jgtrosh on 5/16/18, 6:39 AM

  The IE copycat is really asking for an MSN/Yahoo toolbar.

• by zydeco on 5/16/18, 7:12 AM

  I did something similar as an easter egg, but with classic black and white Mac UI, but I never thought to publish it as a library.

• by asbc on 5/16/18, 11:35 AM

  Is there an equivalent for Android? Asking for a friend...

• by petilon on 5/16/18, 1:02 PM

  Keep in mind that the distinctive 3D look of Windows 95 UI was inspired by NeXT. If you like how controls look in Windows 95 then what you really like is NeXT.

• by StavrosK on 5/16/18, 1:27 PM

  Oh man, this gives me fuzzy feelings. I remember developing my first applications in VB 4 back in 97 or so, I had so much fun. I remember when IE 4 came along, with its flat icons and Active Desktop and things. My 100 MHz Pentium couldn't even run it well, what with the 16 MB of RAM.

• by mhd on 5/16/18, 12:18 PM

  That could be a good basis for a NeXt-alike, which is after all a direct ancestor.

• by zokier on 5/16/18, 6:51 PM

  > The assets and design metrics were (for the most part) taken from an actual installation of Windows 95

  DMCA pulldown in 3.. 2..

  If you are thinking of using this, consider the fact that any assets ripped from Windows are copyright infringements.

• by digi_owl on 5/16/18, 11:43 AM

  Windows PocketPC comes to mind...

• by evo_9 on 5/16/18, 1:50 PM

  Pretty cool, is there a 90's era Mac pre-OSX version somewhere? Would be pretty rad (ha) to do a UI in both and allow the user to pick their 'platform'. Nifty stuff.

• by panic on 5/16/18, 8:04 AM

  If you could get this working with the Win32 API and Wine, you'd have a true cross-platform app solution!

• by apazgo on 5/16/18, 11:34 AM

  But does it support iPhone X notch? :)

• by gwbas1c on 5/16/18, 1:53 PM

  Back when I had Windows 95 I was obsessed with text mode.

• by gjmacd on 5/16/18, 11:27 AM

  why...