I can dig this. Personally I find it cleaner. My first attempt used ideas that Matt Gamell (http://mattgemmell.com/) had come up with, that I had seen quite some time ago. This is what I refer to as the "dark" series. Because, er, they are ... dark.
However if you create a standard window in Cocoa, and turn on the standard Unified Look, the overall effect is a much lighter window. XCode uses this, and it seems quite fine. RapidWeaver uses the "dark" approach, and that seems fine as well. iTunes is dark too. Man, where do you stop? How do you evaluate all this? Sigh - so much for a consistent UI (I'm not complaining here; I like Apple stuff, I've known about their UI inconsistency for some time). Hmm, side note to self: If I like using Apple stuff, then the experience is more about the software and general quality than the way that any specific UI "looks". I will however temper that and add that if a UI absolutely sucks I probably will never use the program.
What if the bottom button bars were also in a "light" Unified style? And what, dear reader are you supposed to do about it? Well I can answer the first question "real easy like". The second question is up to you! Leave feedback!
Aha! Great question! Let me answer that for you. Go here to see what I've been up to (some screenshots showing dark/light versions of a unified look). As usual, comments are more than welcome.
This version has the normal iShowU toolbar (or rather, lack of) and a shaded bottom button bar, with slight highlight between the body of the window and the bar itself. In addition, a highlight has been added to the +/- preset buttons. The level meter lighting has been corrected to be consistent with other controls on the form, and it's been flattened slightly. The shadings on this are much darker than the standard unified look (think iTunes).
So the question now is: This one? Or the previous one (shot number two, in the previous posting). Personally I prefer this one. I like the highlighted button bar at the bottom more than the straight light grey of the previous attempt. The rounded corners are nicer to look at, especially since the buttons on the inside have slightly rounded edges as well.
Here's a picture of a "first cut" Unified look. The icons will change. The biggest "yuk" that I can see is that the audio/video controls just don't look right sitting on a standard Aqua background. If you know of any Unified style apps that also sport many controls, please let me know - Im interested to see how they do their layout.
OK - so the Aqua background behind the controls doesn't
look that hot. What about a straight grey background,
lighter than the button bar at the bottom (in this shot
I have also fixed the fonts for the buttons at the
bottom)?
OK - so then I though, "What would it look like, in
standard Aqua trim?" - probably something like this:
Who wins? Picture one, two or three? My personal
favorite is number 2 (it was actually the last one I
did). I feel it's cleaner than the Aqua interface (I
never did like the horizontal lines), and I like having
the content flush with the left/right hand sides of the
window (to me this gives an uncluttered clean look).
Your opinion is welcomed!