The myth of the common Windows UI.
One computing myth we hear quite often is that of Microsoft Windows offering a “common UI”. That is, one toolkit or framework that is used by all applications, thus giving an experience that is well-integrated and shared. But anyone who has used Windows recently should know that this is clearly not the case.
Some programs offer theming of skinning support. Programs like Winamp, Mozilla Seamonkey and Mozilla Firefox fall into this category. Although they offer themes that mimic the appearance of other Windows applications, there are usually slight differences that aren’t always obvious, but are noticeable.
Then take programs from Apple, like iTunes and Safari. The Windows versions of these programs clearly draw much more from their Mac OS or Mac OS X heritage than from Windows. In the case of Safari, you might as well consider yourself as using a Mac. Not only are the UI components completely different from that of virtually all other Windows programs, but they even go so far as to override the title bar at the top of the window.
We can’t forget Java, specifically Swing. Although Sun has put a lot of effort into their Windows look-and-feel, a number of Swing-based Java applications use the cross-platform “Metal” look-and-feel. Thus they do not appear similar to other Windows applications in many cases.
Finally, we can’t forget that even Microsoft makes radical changes to the UI quite frequently. The appearance of Office 2007 clearly deviates from most other software available for Windows, especially past versions of Office. Likewise, the UI for Internet Explorer 7 changed quite significantly, compared to previous versions of IE. But even between IE7 and Office 2007, there’s relatively little UI commonality, especially when compared to past releases of those products.
So before suggesting that the Open Source community should decide on a single GUI toolkit to match the supposed “common UI experience” on Windows, realize that such an experience just doesn’t exist. Windows suffers from as much UI fragmentation today as does a typical Linux distribution. Some of this fragmentation has even been caused by Microsoft itself, with some of their most popular products. The idea that a common UI exists on Windows is nothing but a myth.