Nina KalininaSep 21, 2024

~Project Orihime: buttons and system font~

Project Orihime is a concept of a modern user interface for EGA and VGA displays running in 16 colours, aimed primarily at FreeGEOS.

The goal here is to bring an eye-candy interface and good UX to the 1984 IBM PC clones.

This is not a real UI (yet), but it gets more and more fleshed out, and I think it looks great on both CRTs and LCDs of the era.

I want to try and document some of my progress for your enjoyment. It also helps me to make better sense of design decisions I am taking on the go. Thread!

🧵 1/10

Show threadNina KalininaSep 21, 2024

For those of you who never thought about old computers and modern interfaces, I want to remind you that "simple" and "flat" interfaces of modern operating systems rely on high resolutions and 24-bit colours a lot.

Take Gnome 46, for example.

1920x1080 in VGA palette looks somewhat okay, but

640x480 in modern 24-bit colour looks like it's losing quite a lot of details, and

640x480x4bpp VGA 16 of the said interface is simply unusable. Perhaps this is why modern OSes demand at least 800x600 in True colour.

So, uh, do you know what you usually end up when you try to make your interfaces look OK in default palette and resolutions of 640x350 or 640x480?

🧵 2/10

Show threadNina KalininaSep 21, 2024

At best, you end up with things that look a lot like Windows 95. This is FreeGEOS, which I am aiming my UI/UX upgrade for, but you could take any OS that officially supports 640x480 in 16 colours, and it will look more or less like that.

The palette is very limited, and if you try to add custom drop shadows with dithering, you run out of resolution very quickly.

That means eye-candy and smooth corners can only take a few pixels at best. In the previous thread, I've explored my approach to making Windows and Titlebars, and this time I want to show you how I took a stab at making the next UI staple - The Button.

Previous thread btw: https://tech.lgbt/@nina_kali_nina/112518604838598161

🧵 3/10

Nina Kalinina (@[email protected])

Attached: 4 images ~Project Orihime: Windows~ Arguably, the most important abstraction of any windowing system is a window. And in most windowing systems, the most important part is the title bar. Let's say we want to make a windowing system that will look nice and modern while working in 640x480 16 colours mode. It shouldn't be too much of a challenge, because modern windowing systems are all using simple flat colours instead of gradients or textures that used to be popular just a decade ago, right? Let's start with drawing a window title bar like that, and then compare it with popular modern systems. Huh! It is missing something... But what? 🧵 1/6

LGBTQIA+ and Tech
Show threadNot a Spring OnionSep 21, 2024
@nina_kali_nina
IMHO: Rounded corners are a waste of space and an insult to developers and users alike 
Show threadR. L. Dane  

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Sep 21, 2024 at 3:38pmWeb