
GitHub XP – GitHub Windows XP Theme - vlucas
https://github.com/martenbjork/github-xp
======
INTPenis
I had hoped for something more like this
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/De17PIKXUAE27W6.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/De17PIKXUAE27W6.jpg:large)

~~~
setquk
You know I really miss the classic Windows UI. It was easy to work out what to
click and what doesn’t do anything.

~~~
edejong
Yes, you would expect the armies of UX experts to be able to figure out basic
consistency and discovery of components. Seems all the good UI research (using
actual user experience testing) in the late 20th century has been largely
forgotten.

~~~
bonyt
[http://prior.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/...](http://prior.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/kds_txt.htm)
is a fun read. At the time, the very concept of a UI on a computer was itself
alien to many of Microsoft's target users - they did a lot of user testing to
come up with what ended up in Windows 95.

------
ourmandave
The only thing missing is the warning at the top that says not all features
will work with your old version of Chrome.

How do I know? Because I'm still one of the last people on Win XP at work.
FML.

~~~
ld00d
We have to use it sometimes because nobody can figure out how to get our
Delphi 7 environment running on Windows 7.

I feel your pain.

~~~
nunobrito
I've installed Delphi 7 on my Windows 7 at the time, ran really good and kept
developing code as normal.

Then eventually that same laptop got upgraded to Windows 10 and this same
Delphi kept working as expected (compile, edit, ..).

Maybe your colleagues can try to install it with the UAC disabled?

~~~
ld00d
I think it has something to do with the 3rd party libs we're using.

------
jrs95
This is the best take on the GitHub / Microsoft hysteria that I have seen.
Thank you.

------
tomc1985
Fun idea. I hated that color scheme back in the day. Fischer-Price computing
anyone?

~~~
kalleboo
At the time it seemed like a really poor and ugly attempt to rip-off Apple's
OS X Aqua design. IIRC the betas had a really nice theme called "Watercolor"
that I still miss.

Although looking back at both designs now in 2018, those OS X pinstripes and
heavy drop shadows feel way more dated than Luna's Fisher-Priceness.

------
zerr
Off-topic question about VSCode - it is Electron based, which was released in
2013. Now, Microsoft had/has team in Zurich, Switzerland - they've specially
opened the office to hire Erich Gamma (of Eclipse and DP fame). The team led
by Gamma was working on VSCode predecessor (I think), in 2011... So what
happened there? Did they abandon most of the stuff and switched over Electron
later?

~~~
rhencke
The project was called Monaco.

It was a massive success, and has since been open sourced here:
[https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-
editor](https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-editor)

Visual Studio Code joins the Monaco editor with an Electron-based environment
to provide desktop text editing. That's about as opposite as abandoned as you
can get.

~~~
WorldMaker
Plus, Monaco powers more than just Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio Team
Services and the Azure portal uses Monaco as editor of choice in a large
number of places. Monaco powers online REPL/sandboxes such as Typescript's
playground [1]. IE10+ and Edge Dev Tools are powered by Monaco (and the
minimized gunk of the average random webpage sources was an early impetus for
Monaco to have much of the performance we see in VS Code today).

[1]
[https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/index.html](https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/index.html)

~~~
saagarjha
I think godbolt.org uses it as well.

------
pathartl
The spacing is all off. I get it's in jest, but it's really just not quite
there. Especially the search.

------
mappu
Looks great! Love the idea.

I'll buy the extension off you for $5/install count? I promise to wait at
least a day before bundling malware, since you hit front page of HN there
should be some great targets.

/Sarcasm obviously.

But there's just no way i'm installing something that can "read and change my
data on github.com". Chrome extension permission granularity is just not
sufficient. Especially since data exfiltration is possible using CSS only
(e.g. [https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/05/28/large-scale-analysis-
of-...](https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/05/28/large-scale-analysis-of-style-
injection-by-relative-path-overwrite/) )

~~~
creatonez
>permission granularity is just not sufficient

This is a careful balance between extensions being almost completely useless
and extensions being able to take over the whole browser...

Just read the source code if you don't trust it.

Edit: it seems this extension has no javascript code, just stylesheets that
get applied by manifest.json. Seems this actually could be a good spot for
more granular permissions. "change style information on *.github.com"

~~~
mappu
_> Just read the source code if you don't trust it._

No, that doesn't really work for Chrome extensions - they can silently auto-
update, and will no longer match the published source.

It's just barely possible to run the extension directly from the source code -
you either need to put up with popup warnings every single time you open the
browser, or, need to install an entirely separate developer version of Chrome.

Certainly most people here aren't doing that.

 _> change style information on .github.com_

It would be an improvement, but it turns out stylesheets can be used for
malicious data exfiltration anyway (see parent).

~~~
creatonez
>No, that doesn't really work for Chrome extensions - they can silently auto-
update, and will no longer match the published source.

As much as I hate Google, this is exactly how most people use free software
linux distributions. The only difference is the barrier of entry for
new/updated software.

>need to install an entirely separate developer version of Chrome

Heh, I'd probably expect anyone who audits all of the software they use to
already be using chromium.

~~~
mappu
The salient difference is that bribing Google or Red Hat is practically
impossible (a hypothetical billion-dollar exercise reserved for state actors);
whereas bribing Chrome extension developers is definitely not hypothetical,
maybe even commonplace (e.g. some friends were hit by
[https://www.ghacks.net/2013/12/26/hoverzooms-malware-
controv...](https://www.ghacks.net/2013/12/26/hoverzooms-malware-controversy-
imagus-alternative/) ).

For high-value targets, like full access to a software developer's private
github repos, there's definitely an economic incentive to do this.

