I really just put a bunch of pieces together. Forked from Reactionary Plus, but swapped out the icons, cursors, window decorations, color scheme, and made some slight tweaks to the layout.
More screenshots here: https://store.kde.org/p/2330858
To install this, open System Settings, go to Colors & Themes -> Global Theme. In the top right there’s a button for “Get New…”, wait for it to load (it’s very slow) then search for reactionary, and wait again, then install Reactionary 98.
This is my first time messing with any of this stuff, it was a bit janky lol.
For some unexplained reason this is making me unreasonably angry…
tbh it doesn’t really accurately look 98, especially the taskbar, but it still looks great. nice functional unix desktop.
Agreed on the taskbar. If they added ‘bevels’ to the edges to give it that depth that Win98 had then maybe, but this taskbar looks flatter than Windows 8.1 as is.
Honestly as a whole it kinda just looks like Windows 10 with all the visuals turned off in the performance settings, which is fine, but its not what OP was going for.
If it were me, I’d spend some time in Gimp to make a custom start icon with the text on it, then go for a smaller taskbar, about 3/4 this height. I’d add a line of shading around the top and side of the taskbar and the buttons, and figure out how to retheme the notification panel to be the same shaded color so it appears depressed into the bar.
Windows 95/98 had a design philosophy which was meant to emulate the office, the literal desktop. Desks are 3D and have features, even the simplest ones usually at least have trim at the edges to break up the color. Its too flat. Too sterile.
I’d spend some time in Gimp to make a custom start icon with the text on it
Yea you can’t add text to that button, but embedding the text into the icon image is a good idea, maybe I’ll do that today (if it can handle non-square images)
and I gotta figure out a proper size for the taskbar, just need to compare the padding size relative to the text size
I’d add a line of shading around the top and side of the taskbar and the buttons, and figure out how to retheme the notification panel to be the same shaded color so it appears depressed into the bar.
idk if this is possible from a theme
That intern*t expl*rer icon is actually very triggering
Am I weird for actually wanting to use this out of nostalgia? I distinctly remember thinking at the time that the gradients on the window bars were the coolest thing ever, especially because you could configure them to be whatever wacky colours you wanted.
I’ve tried a couple versions of this out of nostalgia a few times like using chicago95 and some other custom options. you can pretty much get it right to the classic feel of old Windows GUI’s but then you start using it and think “how did I ever use a PC like this?” especially when you’re so used to minimal tiling. it’s fun for a bit but I always just ended back to like sway or something.
I don’t personally have any nostalgia for the Mac interface, but I do wish Plasma 6 had a good latte-dock replacement.
Latte has been deprecated because its features are (afict) all now included in the base plasma panels.
You can make extra panels, have them float, have them dynamically change size, use panel colorizer to retheme only one (if desired).
On my ultraportable I’ve got a sidebar and a lower dock. The sidebar has actively running apps, my menu bar for open windows, a big honkin app launcher button, and my notification panel. My dock has all my frequently used apps, and some shortcuts to frequently used websites. All just minimal plasma-session + panel colorizer.
In my mind it’s weird to use any light theme at all now that dark themes are widely available, but if you are going to, this isn’t any weirder than any other.
Another disadvantage it seems to have over many other themes is that in tabbed interfaces there is no color bar on the currently active tab, so you can’t spot the currently active tab as quickly.
I was contemplating how to make a dark version of this lol
If you come up with one, I might start to use it. I generally like the classic Windows style because the first computer interfaces I ever used looked like that, but nowadays I definitely insist on dark mode.
In my mind it’s weird to use any light theme at all now that dark themes are widely available
Dude, preferences. And not everybody uses their computer in a dark room.
It isn’t any of my business whether other people use light themes… but IMHO dark themes are just so much easier on the eyes, no matter the surrounding light, that I don’t get why anyone would if they have the option.
For me, light themes are easier. Especially jarring, if a website forces a dark theme on me (theres’s a easy-to-use @prefers-color-scheme, use that, will ya). And syntax highlighting on dark just doesn’t work for me, no matter the scheme.
Thanks, I hate it.
This is really cool! But why?? I mean why win98 of all things?
Only has the functionality that you need, everything is obviously in its place. Runs incredibly quickly without using a lot of resources, and then gets out your way when you’re trying to do stuff. No settings hidden away because they might confuse novice users. No bullshit shoehorned in by managers.
Apart from the ugly font rendering, this might be as good as the Windows UI ever got. WinNT looks the same and has almost incomparable stability improvements, but only if you’ve the right hardware to run it. WinXP starts the downhill slide with ‘appearance over functionality’ and the hot mess of the control panel.
I could live with how OP has things set up here; my own copy of Plasma doesn’t look a million miles from this.
Lol I think it’s the best looking Windows
I agree. I used windows classic as long as it was supported. Sadly they stopped supporting it after windows 7.
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Now make Windows 7.
Someone already made it: https://github.com/WackyIdeas/aerothemeplasma
That’s really well done! It’s not crunchy or gross around the edges. It’s completely seamless and clean.
And a delightful way to screw with scammers. Bwahahaha!
What the hell? It looks insane. How have I not seen this before? Will need to check it out later. Thanks for sharing!
Uhm you know that the buttons on the taskbar supposed to be raised (unless active then lowered just like the notification area) and the entire strip to be not translucent? Also windows 98, unlike Me, was grey in colour and not creamy red.
IDK how to change the taskbar like that. But I am accepting pull requests if you have improvements. Maybe I’ll mess with it more tomorrow but I kinda like this. I autohide my taskbar anyways so I don’t really look at it.
What red color are you referring to?
Take a look at Windows Me scree shots and pull the colour from a 3d object (like a button or a panel) and you will see that the colour picked isn’t grey (all three RGB values are identical) but has a slight red tint.
Makes sense, I didn’t make the color scheme, it’s one of the linked dependencies. I like it.
And it’s absolutely great that you like it, it’s just a bit misleading as it’s not windows 98 :)
I did fix the gray (was a pain for the window decorations since those colors are embedded in the svg) and yea it’s more authentic, not entirely sure if I like it more or less
I’ll include both options and probably default to the more authentic theme
