[binaryturtle]

I may have missed one by looking at this huge dump, but NONE of the "buttons" I saw there actually looked/felt like a button. Something I can feel that I press it down and it gives proper visual feedback, like a little 3D effect.

I'm old-school. :)

[nielssp]

You might like this: https://nielssp.dk/guis/buttons

[phatskat]

I really enjoyed Motif and the general flat clean look that came with eg TWM and co. I do have a soft spot for the candy Mac styles, and win2k is still my favorite windows release

[jsrcout]

Ooh, nice! This very much appeals to the historian and former GUI developer in me.

Update: The Pixel Perfect checkbox makes a noticeable difference in appearance. I presume this is because older systems were developed before the advent of anti-aliasing, and were designed pixel by pixel.

[wolpoli]

I have always felt that the button in the last couple version of Windows was a bit off. This page confirms it: Old school buttons used to stay in a "selected" state after being pressed, but that was not implemented in Windows 8's new UI.

[reaperducer]

So interesting to see the contrast between OSX and Windows in 2001.

No wonder OSX felt like the future.

I miss the future.

[bhaak]

For me the 2001 OSX looks wishy washy and does not have a professional look.

[RattlesnakeJake]

Conversely, I want those old candy Aqua buttons back. They were kitschy, but I loved them.

I'd say the same for the scrollbars, but these days I'd settle for reverting to them being visible at all times.

[customguy]

I believe in the KDE / Magic User Interface way, users should decide what they want a button or a checkbox etc. to look like, and then everything should conform to that.

And if you really wanted to, maybe made some concessions, and were clever about it, you could maybe find a way so that users define shapes and functionality and a default light/dark color scheme, but applications could still use the "user style" with their own color scheme, and allow the user to switch between that and the user defined colors.

It would also have the side effect of ejecting the people who just change things to make their mark. There is no more mark to make! Except making the "style configurator" for the user better, collaborating on expanding the protocol shared between it and websites/applications. You can invent a new type of button, put it on the pile, and hope it becomes one of the higher rated ones that gets downloaded and used a lot, on any OS, in any application or website. That will be a lot less interesting for hack frauds, and software interfaces can finally become awesome and then just better from there.

[luismedel]

For me, Windows 3.x era buttons are the pinnacle of buttons.

[jprd]

Oh wow, that was so cathartic. Thank you for sharing.

[binaryturtle]

A few really nice buttons there, indeed. :)

[Kuyawa]

Ubuntu 2020 wins, only one dark themed

[inigyou]

Dark themes are for people who can't lower their screen brightness.

[ReactiveJelly]

GUI design, just like music and film, peaked when I was about 15.

[pimlottc]

What, no BeOS?! :)

[makapuf]

Does Haiku count ?

[hmry]

Awesome, the Haiku one is my favorite

[makapuf]

Indeed, 2000s are my fav globally

[Exoristos]

KDE 3.1 *chef's kiss*

[duxup]

I unironically prefer the UI of old Bootstrap:

https://getbootstrap.com/1.0.0/

They may have peaked with 2.0:

https://getbootstrap.com/2.0.2/

[hollowturtle]

Wow I totally forgot how great 2 was, how did we regressed from that? The buttons are so satisfying

[duxup]

I want to eat those buttons.

[ricardonunez]

I love those versions, they were really innovative at the time.

[QuantumNomad_]

I see a couple that look like buttons to me, like a yellow Donate button and a green Learn More button.

I agree that most of the other ones don’t look very button like to me either. But even so I would probably understand that most of them were buttons when I saw them in context on a page.

The flat style has been around for a while now, so I’ve gotten used to it even though when I started using computers it was on Windows 95 with the grey rectangular buttons with shaded sides that give them the “3d effect”.

And even flat style buttons often have changes when you hover and click, but it seems that they didn’t copy that part on this button collection page.

[harpiaharpyja]

They didn't copy any hold/hover states which is too bad, those are an integral part of a button IMO

[madibo3156]

It sounds like you're talking about the "gloss" era with "juicy" buttons, which some people are retroactively referring to as Frutiger Aero. Yes, things definitely look more 3D in that design. It's currently considered out of mainstream fashion, which explains the lack. Will it resurge?

[DonHopkins]

Enter "Lickable Pixels" -- the phrase that described the Aqua era.

Introducing Mac OS X's Aqua interface, Steve Jobs said at Macworld in January 2000: "We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_(user_interface)

[binaryturtle]

Earlier era for me actually. I'm a 90s person. :)

[RobotToaster]

Also more generally called skeuomorphism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph

[makapuf]

Exactly, and more broadly ALL of them are a variation of bgcolor + border-radius + padding + font (type, size). No funky shape, borders, FX, 3D / relief or even shadow, pixels... Every single one is a flat, round borders.

[whynotmaybe]

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

[jsrcout]

Nice! That Windows 95/98 GUI design wasn't the most beautiful ever made, but it was quite usable. You never had trouble telling what was what.

[waynecochran]

Apple and Jony Ive killed skeuomorph design a long time ago.

[winwang]

This is a big part of why I am in love in Posthog's design (though personally I have little belief in my own current ability to replicate it)

[overfeed]

I suspect the best buttons - like the best music - are those from one's youth

[jonwinstanley]

Web 2.0 was fun :-)