LisaGUI
Languages and libraries
web os
SHOW HN2025
516points
142comments
#66of 3,837 in 2025
Top 2%of 2025 by points
How HN took it
DebatedReal support and real criticism
28 positive, 16 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 24 critical, out of 71 comments about the project. Thread score +0.14.
Design: 10 for, 9 againstExecution: 3 for, 13 againstPerformance: 4 for, 1 againstIdea: 3 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Faithful, nostalgic recreation of the Lisa UI
From 3 comments
The shadow text style and fatbits editor in the Preferences app really took me back. Other than a lack of close buttons on windows, it's remarkable that you can strip away 40…
rgovostes on HNvery cool, plus so much tasty design and functional tips that spark inspiration. I really love that look of aliased type that still reaches for that calligraphic look that's…
fitsumbelay on HNThis is amazing! Thanks for the excellent memories!
JSR_FDED on HN
Fast and responsive performance in browser
From 3 comments
Works perfectly in Desktop Google Chrome. And on a 13 year old computer, running in Javascript, is lightning fast. Just shows how lean software can be and how responsive a…
MarkusWandel on HNamazing how fast and snappy this UI is, even though it is running inside a browser.
em3rgent0rdr on HNThis is awesome. It's actually pretty quick. Major kudos.
ww520 on HN
Consistent rendering across browsers via canvas
From 1 comment
Looks great! I love the choice to make it consistent across browsers through canvas rendering. Cool that it's a PWA.
DustinBrett on HN
Objections
Uneven or inconsistent font character widths
From 2 comments
Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, but the line widths in the characters are quite inconsistent. For example the two l's in "install" have different widths. This makes something…
smokel on HNThe font looks weird and uneven horizontally (some characters are "fatter" like if they were randomly bold). Is it supposed to look like that? Firefox + Windows.
kaoD on HN
Text selection highlights whole page on click
From 3 comments
Just clicking around I accidentally highlighted the background element or something, which caused the whole page to turn blue. Then no matter what I clicked I couldn't get it to…
subjectsigma on HNIt treats any of my clicks as an attempt to select text, and draws everything with blue selection overlay (Firefox on Windows). Otherwise, looks cool!
demetrius on HNWhy does the screen turn light blue like it's highlighted text a few seconds after the page loads? Firefox on Mac OS.
mlindner on HN
Clock shows wrong time
From 2 comments
What's up with the clock? Mine was two minutes off of local system time.
ceautery on HNhmmm https://i.imgur.com/uVpcRPz.png
fnord77 on HN
Poor mobile and small screen support
From 2 comments
Unfortunately it doesn’t work on my iPhone SE due to the small screen. I’ll have to upgrade my hardware if I want to use the latest OS I guess :)
shusaku on HNJust trying this out on iPhone on Firefox, and found something. If the phone is rotation locked in portrait mode (which mine normally is) I don't see buttons to install, try etc.…
djaychela on HN
Requests
Add games like breakout or solitaire
From 1 comment
These are the kinds of show hn I live for. Tasty vanilla js + learning about an esoteric "Lisa GUI" well before my time. Bravo! I would love to see a breakout style game or…
rustystump on HN
Make color palette editable
From 1 comment
Kind of an edge case here, but I love making 1-bit palettes and then testing them on old Apple UIs. This is just perfect. I hope you can make the color editable :)
muzani on HN
Disable FPS display
From 1 comment
The FPS display needs a way to be disabled. It rapidly “flickers” between several values on my iPhone due to what I’d assume is rounding or something. It’s a very annoying…
cruffle_duffle on HN
Questions
Is the source code available
From 1 comment
would love to see the source code for this, poked around but couldn't find anything :-)
spagoop on HN
Is keyboard navigation supported
From 1 comment
Is keyboard not supposed to work? E.g. tabbing through the widgets.
int_19h on HN
Alternatives named
Original Lisa hardware and LisaEm emulator
From 1 comment
Yes I do, a Lisa 2/10! LisaEm was also invaluable. Also, just a general obsession with vintage computers and UIs helped quite a bit!
ayaros on HN
Windows 3.1 and Mac OS System 6 style UIs
From 2 comments
Took me a minute to figure out how to close a window. (Had to remember it's the same way as closing a window in Win 3.1) I even scrolled through the help document and didn't see…
gwbas1c on HNYes, sticky menus arrived much later. I put the extra effort to add them here because everyone's so used to them now. Both options work - you can single-click to keep a menu…
ayaros on HN