When I grew up, we were “free range kids”.

“The day is ok and the sun can be fun, but I live to see those rays slip away”

From “I Love the Night” - Blue Oyster Cult

To me, buttons and icons provide the visual cue that “clicking here does something”, without having to mouse over them to discover that they’re clickable.

It’s the unadorned text strings that aren’t as obvious.

Yea, I agree that Office 2003 was the pinnacle of Office UI design. And I’d go so far as to say that about Windows 2000.

Having controls in predictable shapes and locations really contributed to “ease of use”. One of my pet peeves is the more recent trend where clickable elements aren’t obviously so. Such as a string of text that one has to hover across and see the cursor change shape to know that it’s clickable.

As others have said, I think a significant part of why the UIs have changed since then is to accommodate touch screens and “webification”.

'Glad to see your posting. I thought I was just being curmudgeonly :)

Beverly Hillbillies, I Dream of Jeannie, Mission Impossible

“Earschplittenloudenboomer”

I have the same question, mainly because it seems like the Plex interface is trying too hard to show stuff that’s not on my local server.

When I’d spend a summer week at my Grandma’s in the early '60s, my cousin would take me to Luke’s Store, where a dollar would buy a bag full of candies. Always included was a sleeve of Necco wafers.

I liked the flavors and would try to eat them slowly, but usually ended up crunching through them.

In 2018 when the Necco company went bankrupt, I was traveling a bit for work and would buy bags full wherever I found them. It was a relief when the Spangler company bought the brand and resumed production.

Necco wafers

I loved that scene

“Scream and Scream Again”, 1970.

Our parents dropped us off at the theater to see something else, like “The Love Bug”, but it had moved on and we randomly ended up seeing this horrifying film.

We were not ready for dismemberment and dissolving bodies in vats of acid…

“Faster than the Speed of Life” - Steppenwolf

I’ve been replaying FO4 lately on console and so happy to have it now on PC to carry on trips.