Thanks for creating this, it fit perfect for a tiny web site I made[0]. Hits just the right mix of usability and nostalgia and makes me want to use it for more projects.

[0]: https://www.mathsheets.net/

I used 98.css as starting point for the Winamp theme in https://chiptune.app. It was very easy to modify and extend, thanks!

Firefox (Nightly) on Android: tabs don't work: when clicking on a tab, the URL changes, there's a slight jump in content, but the new tab is not selected. Hope this helps

Thank you so much for your project! I have spent the last few months working on my own retro computing CSS library, but instead inspired by BeOS https://beta.mtechnic.me

PS: while doing research on my project, I found your portfolio site as well. Was shocked to see we had the exact same taste in music, and genuinely made me curious if everyone whose doing retro throwbacks libraries did as well.

> I no longer work on 98.css and I haven’t in a really long time. My only contribution to the project is monitoring the repo for high-quality pull requests. If I get one, I briefly scan through the author’s profile to make sure they’re not going to mine cryptocurrency on my user’s machines, and then I give them full commit access. “Looks good, go ahead and merge this yourself.”

Very nice!

I've also once experienced burnout, a book called Pedram Shojai: The Urban Monk has kept it away since. It's practical, not religious. Highly recommend it!

You have brought back so many memories of mine through this one website. Thank you

I wrapped many projects in 98.css. And some in Aero and even XP. Thank you!

Great project. Thanks for making it! Brings back memories

This is even more impressive knowing that its artisanal code, or as we called it back then, code.

This is awesome. IMHO things like this were the whole point of CSS. Nice job!

I absolutely love this. Thank you for making it and sharing it!

You nailed it, I'm glad you had a good outlet for it.

If it takes longer to find stuff on a page, one of the most prized metrics goes up: time on page.

And here we are.

Multi-row tabs are the primary thing I dislike about old UIs. You never seem to see them anymore, for which I am immensely grateful. Not only do they take up valuable vertical space, but they way the rows jump around always confused more than it really should have - a button shouldn't move after I click it, especially if it is representing state.

We've been getting flatter over time. Win9x (and even 3.x) styles have subtle 3D cues, like the edges of buttons, window borders, tabs, and text boxes. There were gradients. Apparently, these are technologies that we've lost.

> Flat design is so ridiculous.

Flat, or quasi-flat (minimalistic/brutalist), design is fantastic if one makes use of appropriate visual discriminators, e. g. shadows, outlines, contrasts etc. Less is more here. Which makes this design philosophy clash with Apple's, Google's, or their imitators, oversaturated Fisher-Price playdough-UIs.

Not only flat design but also using less color. We have monitors and graphics cards that can display millions of colors now and we refuse to use it... Not that it has to look like a coloring book but sheez Windows 10 and 11 make me feel depressed.

last time this came up people appreciated my collection

https://alexbsoft.github.io/win95.css/ windows 95

https://bootstra386.com/ 1980's websites

https://botoxparty.github.io/XP.css/ windows xp

https://code.divshot.com/geo-bootstrap/ geocities

https://cs16.samke.me/ counter strike 1.6

https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte-css/ edward tufte

https://jdan.github.io/98.css/ windows 98

https://khang-nd.github.io/7.css/ windows 7

https://micah5.github.io/PSone.css/ playstation one

https://nostalgic-css.github.io/NES.css/ nes

https://sakofchit.github.io/system.css/ apple system

https://snes-css.sadlative.com/ snes

https://thesimscss.inbn.dev/ the sims

see you again in 2028

man, it's the internet. you don't need a fit. you just need to want to.

My gripe has always been that none of these xfce/gtk/etc. themes are ever actually pixel-perfect, even when they claim to be. Not sure if there is a legal concern there or not.

Microsoft had some excellent guidance[1] on this:

> Reconsider disabled controls. Disabled controls can be hard to use because users literally have to deduce why they are disabled. Disable a control when users expect it to apply and they can easily deduce why the control is disabled. Remove the control when there is no way for users to enable it or they don't expect it to apply, or leave it enabled, but provide an error message when it is used incorrectly.

> Tip: If you aren't sure whether you should disable a control or provide an error message, start by composing the error message that you might provide. If the error message contains helpful information that target users aren't likely to quickly deduce, leave the control enabled and provide the error. Otherwise, disable the control.

Unfortunately, that nuance has been lost in the modern version of the guidelines with no mention of disabled buttons at all [2]

[1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/top-...

[2]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/develop/ui/co...

I think the button shouldn't appear if the user doesn't have the access to do it (eg. not an admin, has view rights only, etc).

However, if the user can and they expect to do it, but is in a mode/state which doesn't allow them to do it, greyed out buttons absolutely.

In some cases, greyed out buttons should be clickable (eg. forms) and that should tell the user what is wrong. Looking at you, billion dollar airline, where I couldn't complete my checkin due to this annoyance.

Also, what happened to hover messages and little (?) marks? Every software behaves like it expects me to know what to do from Day 1.

> less faster

I suspect those UI designers have been working on your comment, too

I remember this behavior. I think it would be more historically accurate to omit pointer cursors on expandable treeview items, too

You may not have scrolled up. Much of that is included.

You are right, Windows 2000 was the peak of UI design. Since then everything is getting worse, the rounded corners and floating margins being one example. The MacOS and web-designer influences were detrimental to usability.

https://khang-nd.github.io/7.css/

XP? What with its Fischer-Price primary color scheme? You have got to be kidding me.

something like this? https://kristopolous.github.io/BOOTSTRA.386/v2.3.1/

lipgloss is pretty close: https://github.com/charmbracelet/lipgloss

Textual? https://textual.textualize.io/

To add to your list:

https://github.com/nielssp/classic-stylesheets

Thank you for the library. I was about to ask after 2 of these design spaces.

Hey I'm there. Thanks

Thanks !!!!!

Funny how nostalgia differs for different people. I hated all that so much at the time that I installed linux (RH 7.x) from a magazine cd and learned to program in C & perl.

That multirows tab UI thing was an utter abomination against usability, intelligence, good sense, decency, justice and obviously any and all aesthetics. Why bring it back? To fix it maybe?

Totally agree and I think the root cause are today's larger screen sizes, less constraints. Win95 was designed at a time when 800x600 and 1024x768 have been the standards to work with.

I wish modern operating systems were like that: simple, clean, with no wasted space for decorative purposes.

huh? it's clean basic HTML, for all the ones I checked...

Probably not.