Re: Look and Feel

[Björn Giesler]

Hi,

Am 14.02.2005 um 14:43 schrieb Jesse Ross:
> I hope that my screenshot doesn't make people think too much of the Mac
> interface. There are some similarities, but I would prefer the 
> interface
> feel simply "modern", and if compared against WinXP and OS X, would 
> feel
> like it was designed in a similar era, using similar design principles.

I find your mockup very beautiful, and it doesn't remind me of the Mac 
interface very much at all -- rounded corners do not Aqua make. And I 
hope somebody will implement it. It's very nice and clean and something 
I would love to use, and I say this as somebody who doesn't at all 
think changeable themes are a very good idea. But I'd be very happy 
with two or three exchangeable standard themes that come with the 
system by default, if they're well designed. One of them should be the 
standard NeXT theme, but I don't think it would have to be the default 
-- if they're equally well-designed, why is there a need for a default 
at all?

There is, however, one thing I'd like to add. Please remember that NeXT 
application development is based on the WYSIWYG paradigma, and some 
applications (like, to pick one at random, AddressManager) make rather 
heavy use of the contract that the look at run time is going to be 
precisely the same, or at least very close to, the look at design time. 
(And even if this were a bad design principle, which it isn't, the 
OpenStep APIs don't provide many tools to do it differently.) So theme 
design must be done very carefully indeed.

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,
Björn

PS Have you written some text about what one actually sees in the 
mock-up? If so, I must have missed it. I'm not sure I understand what 
the different areas in the "dock" at the right are. Care to explain? 
:-)
--
Dipl.-Inform. Björn Giesler <giesler@ira.uka.de>
Web: http://wwwiaim.ira.uka.de/users/giesler
Tel: +49-721-608-8308 Fax: +49-721-608-8270
Key: http://wwwiaim.ira.uka.de/users/giesler/bg.asc
Augmented Reality, 3D User Interfaces, Machine Vision, Robotics

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