From: Mark Fowler Date: 11:00 on 06 Jul 2004 Subject: Return of the Lozenge Remember http://trelane.hates-software.com/2004/04/23/a13b7744.html ? Remember when I said the lozenge was a bad idea. I found something worse: Not having one. Having been forced into accepting the worst GUI design in the world, I've at least learnt the convention and can actually deal with it. Which is why I was so surprised to find that when I recently started to use Safari - one of Apple's own applications, nay not a little app but a flagship application that ships with the OS itself - that it doesn't have a lozenge. Oh no, you now turn the toolbars and off from the menubar. Hello? Nice standard Apple. So I was wrong, there is something worse that bad GUI design. It's inconstant GUI design. Bah.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 11:32 on 06 Jul 2004 Subject: Re: Return of the Lozenge > why I was so surprised to find that when I recently started to use Safari > - one of Apple's own applications, nay not a little app but a flagship > application that ships with the OS itself - that it doesn't have a > lozenge. Oh no, you now turn the toolbars and off from the menubar. I assume that's because it's Metal, and in Metal apps the lozenge is now supposed to switch you between the Metal 'browser' interface and the Aqua 'positional' interface. Safari doesn't have a positional interface so it doesn't have a lozenge. It's like playing Calvinball. Metal Delenda Est.
From: Foofy Date: 16:41 on 06 Jul 2004 Subject: Re: Return of the Lozenge On Tue, 6 Jul 2004 05:32:56 -0500 (CDT), Peter da Silva <peter@xxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > I assume that's because it's Metal, and in Metal apps the lozenge is now > supposed to switch you between the Metal 'browser' interface and the Aqua > 'positional' interface. Safari doesn't have a positional interface so it > doesn't have a lozenge. > > It's like playing Calvinball. > > Metal Delenda Est. I don't use a Mac, but I've always wondered why some apps in Mac have brushed metal, some are smooth white-ness, and GarageBand has that weird wooden interface? I saw in screenshots of Tiger what looked like the update to the brushed interface, but it's just white, shiny and smooth (no pinstripes). What are the reasons for different interface styles? I'm guessing "looks cool" but I was wondering if there was some kind of purpose, like the windows behave differently or such.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 17:19 on 06 Jul 2004 Subject: Re: Return of the Lozenge > I don't use a Mac, but I've always wondered why some apps in Mac have > brushed metal, some are smooth white-ness, and GarageBand has that weird > wooden interface? The Metal apps were originally going to be "multimedia" or "real-world analog" applications, with Aqua for applications that were more browser or editor like. Now that Safari and Finder are Metal, of course, they've clearly completely lost the plot. > What are the reasons for different interface styles? I'm guessing "looks > cool" I think it looks stupid, myself. I use tools that disable as much of the metal as possible... for properly written Cocoa apps it's easy: it's just a flag in a property list. For Carbon apps that emulate the metal look you're pretty much out of luck. > but I was wondering if there was some kind of purpose, like the > windows behave differently or such. Metal windows can be dragged from any point that isn't in an active widget, Aqua windows can only be dragged by the title bar.
From: Foofy Date: 16:59 on 07 Jul 2004 Subject: Re: Return of the Lozenge On Tue, 6 Jul 2004 11:19:26 -0500 (CDT), Peter da Silva <peter@xxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: >> What are the reasons for different interface styles? I'm guessing "looks >> cool" > > I think it looks stupid, myself. I use tools that disable as much of the > metal as possible... for properly written Cocoa apps it's easy: it's just > a flag in a property list. For Carbon apps that emulate the metal look > you're pretty much out of luck. OS UIs should avoid "style" because these things aren't fashion shows, and they end up looking old and silly after a while (even the aqua buttons in OS X are looking old-hat now!). Kinda like when Windows 95 came out, everything had gray 3D buttons and such, even Windows 3.1 apps which were starting to look REALLY cluttered. Microsoft started flattening the toolbars to avoid visual clutter, lightened up the gray, made things a bit flatter (screens are flat, I think too much 3D in an interface just distracts). Around Windows 2000 everything started to get a bit of elegence to it. No way in hell elegent as OS X, but kinda refined and starting to look sensible, like BeOS. But then they go and blow it all to hell with the XP Luna look...
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 17:24 on 07 Jul 2004 Subject: Re: Return of the Lozenge > OS UIs should avoid "style" because these things aren't fashion shows, and > they end up looking old and silly after a while (even the aqua buttons in > OS X are looking old-hat now!). Kinda like when Windows 95 came out, > everything had gray 3D buttons and such, even Windows 3.1 apps which were > starting to look REALLY cluttered. The thing is that on OS X all of that is handled by a theme in the OS, so you can completely change the look of the OS and all applications just by sticking different image files in the right place... EXCEPT for the damned metal-emulating Carbon applications like iTunes. I have my desktop set to Milk, which is much flatter and less overpowering. Problem is, Apple refuses to make the theming mechanism public so you need third-party hacks to set it up, and each new release requires a new theme engine. Why? Because they think the OS theme is an important part of the brand. :-P
From: David Champion Date: 20:04 on 07 Jul 2004 Subject: Re: Return of the Lozenge * On 2004.07.07, in <20040707162444.ABE49413C6@xxxxxxx.xx.xxxxxxx.xxx>, * "Peter da Silva" <peter@xxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > you need third-party hacks to set it up, and each new release > requires a new theme engine. Why? Because they think the OS theme > is an important part of the brand. :-P This isn't so so bad -- ShapeShifter has been good for me. But I hates that my theme (a nicer-looking derivative of NeXT 2.0) is not complete or perfect, yet the only theming application I've gotten to work (ThemePark) is very difficult to use. It has no built-in image editor; it requires clipboarded or dragged-and-dropped transfers from an external editor. That's bad enough, but worse: all I have is Photoshop.
Generated at 10:27 on 16 Apr 2008 by mariachi