How anyone could consider the second screenshot of gedit more functional than the first is beyond me, but that is probably why I'm on Xfce and not OS X.

The functionnalities are not lost, and using keyboard shortcut is more efficient/functionnal anyway, especially on basic functions like those on the menu of the first screenshot. I can understand that some users prefer icons, but describing the second screenshot as "horror" and "less functionnal" because it does not have pictures in the menu bar is simply wrong.

You're right, they're not lost. Instead, they're hidden and obfuscated behind multiple layers of menus instead of just being there.

I'm really interested in your use of the words 'modern' and 'old' in the above post.

The human perceptual system does not change much from millennium to millennium and that our understanding of how that system works becomes richer over decades.

Can you explain how one set of afordances can be considered more modern than another?

I'm not being snarky, I'd really like to understand your idea of modern/old in this context.

He probably means the word just in the sense that e.g. Wiktionary defines: Pertaining to a current or recent time and style; not ancient.[1]

[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/modern#Adjective

EDIT: And by old, he probably means "old-style".

So XFCE 4.12 is a modern UI according to your definition, having just been released.

Now you are being snarky.

Well perhaps I'll confess to a little licence with this last reply. I really find use of the M word strange in relation to UIs. The whole idea of a GUI is, what, 40 years old?

I mean old in the time-line of GUI, not human history.

The modern design trend is minimal widgets and minimal chrome, where as older design trend are heavier on buttons and chrome.

Did Microsoft miss that memo with Ribbon? Not only do they pack way more than your average toolbar in there, they also resort to packing even more buttons into your titlebar.

But I'm sure you know that trendiness is cyclical. I just want off the treadmill.

Is this essentially a fashion choice then? Is there an underlying reason for minimal widgets and chrome?

Yes. It's a pervasive attitude as of late that "users are stupid; so kill all the options for choice" and "older = worse; newer = better"

Think of it like learning Dvorak. Sure, in theory, by some arbitrary histrionics, these new UIs are 3% more "effective". There's no real objective proof of it, but people just feel like it is. And hell, maybe it really is! So to gain that 3% advantage, they want you to throw out 20 years of muscle memory and familiarity. They want you to throw away all that you're used to and retrain yourself again and again. And sure, maybe after enough time, you might actually like it a little bit more. But all of the time you've wasted relearning everything will never make up for the tiny, marginal increase in efficiency you gained. Nor for all you had to give up to get there.

But this attitude of eternal improvement never ends. You jump on Dvorak because it's such an improvement, and you spend months, maybe years, getting up to your native speed again ... and along comes Colemak, but now it has competition with Workman. Which do you choose? Colemak or Workman? Gnome 3 or Unity? Gotta throw away that Qwerty and Dvorak mechanical keyboard; gotta throw away all those old GTK2 UIs; and start over.

The infinitesimal, unscientific usability enhancements are so subjective as to be irrelevant. Change certainly favors the young, and is hardest on the older generations; but true positive change has historically been accomplished incrementally through evolution (Windows 3.1 - XP, parts of 7). Yet nowadays, it's trying for revolution. Choice is no longer en vogue. And this attitude is ... pervasive. And that is absolutely terrifying.

> How anyone could consider the first screenshot of gedit prettier than the second is beyond me

And I feel exactly the same in reverse. And it's perfectly okay that we are polar opposites, so long as we each continue to have access to our choices. Gnome has thrown us under the bus entirely lately. Thankfully mousepad is a good replacement for gedit 2.x now. I just hope the Gnome devs don't force GTK+ 3 library users into their UI guidelines (like the aforementioned common dialog question.) So far, the Xfce 4.12 screenshots are a lot more promising than I had expected.

> but that is probably why I'm on OSX and not XFCE.

And I really hope you'll stay away from the Xfce dev team in that case :D

Choice is apparently a "usability nightmare" for the unwashed masses...

Not everyone who uses XFCE prefers "old GUI-design," some people (myself included) are forced to run it on weaker machines, or on alternative CPU architectures ill-suited for more popular WMs. For instance, I run XFCE/Xubuntu on my Samsung ARM Chromebook because it's the only WM that runs clean for me in Crouton.