Windows Start Menu Creator Story

If I had a LinkedIn bio, I'd definitely mention that I wrote the Windows Start Menu. Well, the non-resume version is that I wrote the code that custom-paints the Start menu, draws the sideways text, background gradient, and so on. It had been done with a Bitmap in Windows 95, but for Windows NT that would mean doing it in N languages for V variants of server, workstation, and so on. That would be a lot of bitmaps with text in them. I wanted to render it live. There's probably a way to render text sideways now, but there wasn't at the time. Fortunately, with NT, unlike 9x, you could rotate the device context itself. I'd only been coding for Windows a few months at that point, so it was cool to discover it was even possible. I tried a quick test and it worked! I used standard GDI calls to render the background gradient, which fades blue-black like the sky on the NT box, then fill anything past that with solid black. And now you know how the start menu draws :-)

A screenshot of a post by Dave Plummer explains how he coded the classic Windows Start menu, including its sideways text and gradient background. The joke is a self-deprecating, overly detailed résumé flex: instead of listing an ordinary achievement, he proudly claims responsibility for a familiar piece of Windows history. People share it as a reaction to someone explaining an unexpectedly niche technical accomplishment. EN: A screenshot of a post by Dave Plummer explains how he coded the classic Windows Start menu, including its sideways text and gradient background. The joke is a self-deprecating, overly detailed résumé flex: instead of listing an ordinary achievement, he proudly claims responsibility for a familiar piece of Windows history. People share it as a reaction to someone explaining an unexpectedly niche technical accomplishment.

• @gentoomemes / 12450 2024-07-22