[openbeos] Re: (G)UI design, round 2 (split from: Patch: Prettifying the default decorator)

  • From: "Ryan Leavengood" <leavengood@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:33:24 -0500

On 2/26/07, Thomas Winwood <ketsuban@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Does that imply there is a good argument for initially making Haiku
resemble BeOS R5 and only considering divergence - carving our own
furrow, if you will - at a later date?


I certainly appreciate your passion for this topic, but frankly I
think you are being a bit pedantic about just how close Haiku's
resemblence to R5 needs to be.

The current look and feel of the window decor is clearly inspired by
and indicative of BeOS R5. Anyone who boots up Haiku will immediately
be reminded of BeOS. Those yellow tabs are a pretty big giveaway, even
if the close and zoom boxes have diagonal gradients instead of the
BeOS 3D look (which I think it dated now.)

I also find it interesting how you seem so insistent on having
IDENTICAL window decor to BeOS, yet you insult the look and feel of
Haiku's GUI controls, which is also very close to BeOS's look and
feel. It seems as if you just decided what you liked and you are
demanding Haiku do that.

While myself and most of the other developers certainly appreciate new
insights and new developers, don't expect us to drop everything and do
what you ask after you simply submit a patch and send several emails.
It takes a bit more than that to earn enough respect for people to
seriously listen. This is a meritocracy not a squeakywheelocracy ;) <-
(Smiley inserted to remove the edge of this paragraph...I'm not trying
to chase you away, just providing perspective.)


This point seems to be a bone of contention among those with an interest
in UI matters - and we've also seen some Torvalds-esque insertions from
those occupied with other areas of the project. ;)


I'm not sure if you are referring to Axel here, but he alone probably
has a better understanding of more parts of Haiku than any other
person on Earth, and therefore deserves to have his view considered
and respected. In fact he is frequently the more level-headed
responder in any of the more "heated" threads.

The fact that he is "just a kernel hacker" in your mind doesn't mean
his input on UI design is irrelevent.


We have an excellent
opportunity here to decide exactly where we're taking this in terms of
the large-scale GUI (window decor and widgets) before the time really
comes to do anything about it, and I'd like to make full use of that
rather than dilly-dallying and arguing about silly things as we seem to
have been doing thus far.


This is a contradictory statement in my mind because whether you like
it or not, coming to a "decision" will require much more arguing and
dilly-dallying. UI is just one of those topics that spawns endless
debate.

What may be best is to put together a team of experienced BeOS/Haiku
developers with decent UI experience to fine tune the UI guidelines
and the look and feel. Maybe some things could be debated, but in
general experienced people just need to make a decision and stick with
it. The commitee mentality has hurt way too many open source projects
in my mind.

Ryan

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