The thing about back then that was so amazing is the amount of personalization you had with your desktop environment. Windows 95/98 had different skins/themes you could use. Winamp and many other apps allowed skins. You used to be able to make your computing experience your own. We've lost that and really need to get it back. There's the ability to do this with Linux DE's of course, but that's not enough.
One of the great things about Winamp 2 skins in particular is how simple the format is - basically just a bunch of BMPs in a zip file. Pretty much anyone could make one. You didn't need any special software or code knowledge to inspect an existing skin and see how the pieces fit together. You could make one in MSPaint if that's all you had, as I did for my first couple skins.
(There were also a few INI-style config files, mainly to define colors of dynamic things like text. For most skins you would just need to copy the defaults and maybe change a few color hex codes.)
It was really wild, out of the box you would get: sound themes, color themes, icon themes, startup sounds, wallpaper themes, different loading animations, am I forgetting something? :-D
I wrote a blog on this focusing on the frutiger aero style and how/why we moved from making the desktop look like a real/character-filled space to the whole "best ui is no ui" and flat design thinking. Fortunately, it seems like style is coming back in... style.
I always though the skin model would be a great UX paradigm for an OS to follow. Pity we have gone the opposite direction and it is turtlenecks and "user delight" all the way down.
I'll have to spend some time trying to find it if it's on there, but I had one at one point called "Pimeer" where the text was rendered in such a way to look like a Pioneer stereo. Fooled me at the time.
If someone is looking for an insane project, please make Winamp player as a tactile real world physical device, with all the same features. Maybe with a little E-ink display too.
The thing about back then that was so amazing is the amount of personalization you had with your desktop environment. Windows 95/98 had different skins/themes you could use. Winamp and many other apps allowed skins. You used to be able to make your computing experience your own. We've lost that and really need to get it back. There's the ability to do this with Linux DE's of course, but that's not enough.
One of the great things about Winamp 2 skins in particular is how simple the format is - basically just a bunch of BMPs in a zip file. Pretty much anyone could make one. You didn't need any special software or code knowledge to inspect an existing skin and see how the pieces fit together. You could make one in MSPaint if that's all you had, as I did for my first couple skins.
(There were also a few INI-style config files, mainly to define colors of dynamic things like text. For most skins you would just need to copy the defaults and maybe change a few color hex codes.)
It was really wild, out of the box you would get: sound themes, color themes, icon themes, startup sounds, wallpaper themes, different loading animations, am I forgetting something? :-D
I like the customization of the OS but I hate when the app developers are feeling creative and can't fit into (my OS of choice) Look&Feel :/
The thing is, back then, it worked, because every app looked completely different from each other, and so it was a clusterfuck anyway :-D
I wrote a blog on this focusing on the frutiger aero style and how/why we moved from making the desktop look like a real/character-filled space to the whole "best ui is no ui" and flat design thinking. Fortunately, it seems like style is coming back in... style.
The blog post: https://decodingvibes.com/blog/genz-and-frutiger-aero/
I don't want to use it, but I would laugh if someone made Visual Studio Code look like Winamp...
I always though the skin model would be a great UX paradigm for an OS to follow. Pity we have gone the opposite direction and it is turtlenecks and "user delight" all the way down.
I'll have to spend some time trying to find it if it's on there, but I had one at one point called "Pimeer" where the text was rendered in such a way to look like a Pioneer stereo. Fooled me at the time.
Yesterday someone put a Winamp-vibe radio player on a Waveshare ESP32-S3 1.54 LCD. Now if only these skins can be ported to that too. I’m in awe!
If someone is looking for an insane project, please make Winamp player as a tactile real world physical device, with all the same features. Maybe with a little E-ink display too.
It took me a while to realize that they are fully working if you click on it.
OMG, you just catapulted me back to being 12 again!
Similar experience here. I almost cried a little.
The first internet memes were just winamp skins
something something slaps llama something
"It really whips the llama's ass"
Archived soundbite: https://archive.org/details/youtube-LWKxtWEkS1c