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I has always assumed Program Manager's window decorations were inspired by Motif but apparently it was the other way around, regarding Presentation Manager; Pro

I has always assumed Program Manager's window decorations were inspired by Motif but apparently it was the other way around, regarding Presentation Manager; Program Manager's ancestor. "Motif was directly inspired by the look and feel of the Presentation Manager interface" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentation_Manager#Presentation_Manager_for_Unix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentation_Manager#Presentat...

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
In this day and age I think the mock-3d stuff in Motif looks gaudier than the classic look of both the Win 3.11 interface and the OS/2 Presentation Manager.
- jhbadger 3y ago
  i think the "mock 3d" stuff was ultimately inspired by NextStep (1988), although they did it in a classier way than Windows, Motif, or the Mac (either in the late classic (8 or 9) or OSX)
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Yeah I made this same point a few days ago on a similar topic about the use of the win95 style in SerenityOS, etc. I remember back when NeXTstep was new, really lusting over one, but all I had was my little Atari ST.. and spending many hours writing up pretend 3d relief widgets in GFA Basic on it. We were in love with our colour palettes and the illusions they could give :-) I loved the NeXT interface for years but it feels stylistically over the top to me now. Love the draggable menus tho. Another GUI that had 3d relief that I feel did it really nice was Sun's OpenLook style. I used olwm as my window manager for many years. Always preferred that over Motif.
    - LeFantome 3y ago
      I still love the look of NeXTstep. I never liked the scroll bars though even though they make logical sense. A surprising amount of the original UI survives into macOS.
TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago
There's a Computer Chronicles episode somewhere on YouTube (doubtless also on archive.org in higher quality) where a Microsoft rep shows off Windows 3's user interface, and they outright say it looks like Presentation Manager, so it'll prepare users for OS/2. Back when MS hadn't decided to kill OS/2!
- pjmlp 3y ago
  IBM was able to kill OS/2 all by itself, regardless of Microsoft's own doings.
LeFantome 3y ago
They all implement IBM’s Common User Access guidelines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

In this day and age I think the mock-3d stuff in Motif looks gaudier than the classic look of both the Win 3.11 interface and the OS/2 Presentation Manager.

jhbadger 3y ago
i think the "mock 3d" stuff was ultimately inspired by NextStep (1988), although they did it in a classier way than Windows, Motif, or the Mac (either in the late classic (8 or 9) or OSX)
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Yeah I made this same point a few days ago on a similar topic about the use of the win95 style in SerenityOS, etc. I remember back when NeXTstep was new, really lusting over one, but all I had was my little Atari ST.. and spending many hours writing up pretend 3d relief widgets in GFA Basic on it. We were in love with our colour palettes and the illusions they could give :-) I loved the NeXT interface for years but it feels stylistically over the top to me now. Love the draggable menus tho. Another GUI that had 3d relief that I feel did it really nice was Sun's OpenLook style. I used olwm as my window manager for many years. Always preferred that over Motif.
  - LeFantome 3y ago
    I still love the look of NeXTstep. I never liked the scroll bars though even though they make logical sense. A surprising amount of the original UI survives into macOS.

TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago

There's a Computer Chronicles episode somewhere on YouTube (doubtless also on archive.org in higher quality) where a Microsoft rep shows off Windows 3's user interface, and they outright say it looks like Presentation Manager, so it'll prepare users for OS/2. Back when MS hadn't decided to kill OS/2!

pjmlp 3y ago
IBM was able to kill OS/2 all by itself, regardless of Microsoft's own doings.

LeFantome 3y ago

They all implement IBM’s Common User Access guidelines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access