zlacker

>>ray__+(OP)
I see we're heading back to the days of MDI web browsers, slowly but surely. It's really strange to me how web browsers used to allow so much configuration (like the option to use MDI tab/window management or just generic tiling) but don't anymore. I've been hoping a browser comes out that is just Opera 8/9 but with the ability to browse the modern web so maybe with the advent of all these new browsers I should start taking a look.

>>GaryBl+dd
To reply to a comment that was deleted by the time I finished writing:

"I've been experimenting with old UNIX systems recently and have come to somewhat similar conclusions. (Regarding software like window managers becoming more simplistic and some programs having to poorly attempt to pick up the slack themselves)

It feels like open source software projects shifted from making 'program' and instead tried to make "alternative version of windows program". Looking at these old systems I see all these options and intuitive ideas, even down the metaphors used to describe actions. Last time I used a modern UNIX desktop environment it felt like everything was just trying to be a simplistic Windows alternative instead of a good operating system."

>>GaryBl+jg
It's painful how good WindowMaker could've been

>>SSLy+vn
I've spent decades being unclear about what the WindowMaker value proposition is.

Is there something deeper here? Because on the surface it primarily looks like some desktop widgets/dock-apps. Which isn't bad, it's more than the irrelevancy of the desktop today! widgets are great!

But I always feel like there was something more weird & implied with WindowMaker. Maybe just that it was taken as heir apparent to NeXTSTEP. But did it actually have interesting data systems, could apps talk? Or was it still lots of isolated micro-apps/desktop widgets?