How dark is "dark"? And is "light" too light?
17/11/06 23:53
I spent some time converting the entire UI to a more
"unified" look and feel. However there appear to be a
number of "unified" L&Fs when you take the time
to look. iTunes differs from XCode, which differs
from RapidWeaver, etc etc. The best way of describing
"Unified" that I can think of (after seeing all the
variations) is the word "shading". Simply put, it
appears that Apple's new UI of choice (for toolbars,
bottom button bars at least) is a simple shaded area
(that's a bit of a generalisation, but I'm not
writing a detailed analysis of everything UI here).
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.
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.
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