mostly nonsense
As much as it is a job and source of income, for me, building software is also a way to relax, a form of self-expression, play, and in the best moments – joy.
Today, I want to show off a project so far along the joy side of that spectrum that it blows past being silly and borders on pure ridiculousness.
Let’s reskin Notification Center on macOS.
And make it look like Winamp.
This is something I’ve long intuited based on my own web browsing habits but never really put into words. When I stop and think about it, modern web browsers drive me crazy by limiting tabs to a maximum width because that width is almost never enough to show the full page title.
Well, except one web browser: Safari.
If Safari on macOS Monterey is heading in a similar direction where web page titles are going to be even more truncated, that’s going to make me sad. I guess we should do something about it.
I’m trying very hard not to fall into the trap of being yet another old man yelling at kids to get off my lawn, but I struggle to find delight on a grand scale in modern software. Every incremental step, year over year (from all companies, this isn’t just about Apple), seems to be focused on removing emotion and affection from our devices rather than finding ways to strengthen that bond.
Eighteen hours later, I’m here to write about the dumb, little toy of an app I made this morning just for Big Sur. I honestly don’t expect other people to use it. I’m not even sure if I’ll keep using it. It was more of a “I hate this. I wonder if I can fix it?” type of thing.