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The anti-minimalist backlash is the bigger story behind Oxygen’s revival
(filipfila.wordpress.com)
this post was submitted on 12 May 2026
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Well, I'd encourage you to keep an eye out; I think you'll find that the majority of controls on the web behave as I described. And I think that's a good thing, too: it's far quicker and easier to be able to deduce behaviour from the control you're handling at the moment, than having to scan the complete context. And especially if e.g. you're visually impaired, the latter can be a major hassle.
(And indeed, the other controls you mention almost never apply instantly, so their behaviour is still predictable. When they do, they'll often still have some other affordances to indicate that they do apply instantly.)
GNOME settings pages don't have "apply" buttons. When do you think a selection from a drop-down or numerical selector takes effect?
Yes, most settings now take effect immediately, and that's great. (I think KDE still prefers a separate "apply" step though). That is (still) separate from the decision of how to style something which turns something on and off, which is what I'm complaining about. I don't take any issue with having things apply immediately.
You raise visual impairment, which is exactly why I'm complaining. Look at the image and tell me, which of the controls is on, and which is off?
True, there are exceptions (that's why I keep saying most), and I think the pattern is more common on web than on desktop. (Though I think Gnome also compensates a bit with their boxed lists as an additional affordance.)
Note that I am 100% on your side in saying that there are annoying toggle boxes that are unclear. In your image, I can only tell that the second is probably on because the right-hand side is usually used for the on state in LTR locales. But they can be better, e.g. with an on/off label integrated. Ironically, GNOME has a toggle to enable this:
So (unsurprisingly) I modified the image to make my point. I don't know whether you will find it convincing with this revealed: I flipped the image because I too understand now (I did not when these switches were first introduced) that right = on. And I also desaturated the image to mimic colourblindness (achromatopsia). (Indeed, when they were first introduced I remember them being two shades of grey...)
No, I was already convinced that relying on colour alone is insufficient. I still think they can be useful helpful if they don't rely on colour alone.