[haiku] Re: Haiku UI Redesign.

Overall this looks pretty reasonable to me -- it keeps the R5 feel
but makes some enough changes to make it something other than a
direct clone.

There are some changes which I would've preferred though. Bear in
mind these are entirely my own opinion, others will surely disagree:

- The scrollbar seems to be a bit lacking in contrast; it isn't too
  obvious at first glance where the scroll control is.
  R5 wasn't too great here either (Mac OS 8/9 did much better) but it
  did use quite a different background colour compared to the actual
  scroll control.
  Also, I think users are going to expect up/down control groups on
  each end of the scrollbar, or at least retain R5-style settings.

- The tab looks good; I like the rounded edges, and I doubt it's
  going to cause any slowdown even on a 20-year-old machine.
  I'm not so keen on the graduation though -- likewise on the
  scrollbar. Graduations look a bit dated to me, and make outlines
  (which is how the eye recognizes shapes) less distinct. This is
  the one of the problems with the scrollbar mentioned above, but
  in the case of the window tab, renders the title text less
  legible and the close/zoom buttons less clear.
  Flat-shading doesn't have to look dated with the right touches
  at the edges, and it's a lot more practical.

- Alpha-blending and shadows -- apart from the graduations mentioned
  above, I only saw a bit of this below the windows. Personally I
  would've liked to see a sharper drop-shadow, or no drop-shadow
  at all. The eye is particularly good at detecting sharp edges, but
  soft effects are actually filtered out by the retina itself,
  before it reaches the brain.
  Sharp drop-shadows can be used to give a sense of depth, e.g.
  around the edge of drop-down menus, or the edge of the active
  window (but not other windows -- it'll be overpowering otherwise).
  Depth is very important in a GUI, because it's all an illusion --
  giving the user the impression that there are physical objects on
  the screen which they can interact with. Hence why buttons tend
  to have a raised appearance to indicate they can be pressed, etc.

- On a similar line to the above, the menus seemed too flat and
  Vista-like to me. I would've liked to have seen some kind of
  way of raising it from the background as a distinct object --
  e.g. bevelled edges, drop-shadow, etc. These things aren't the
  sign of a "90s GUI" like some people would imply -- they're
  actually a critical part of the illusion!



Sean Healy <jalopeura@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> The simpler the better in my opinion. I turned off the animations
> and other bells and whistles in my XP. I liked BeOS's simplicity.
> I don't *want* Haiku to look "Mac-y". I don't think it needs to
> look "modern".

Totally agree. This is something some people tend to forget, but
it's critically important: our users are not expecting a Windows
clone or a Mac clone -- most likely, they're expecting the exact
opposite!

If I liked the appearance and functionality of Mac OS X, I would go
and buy a Mac tomorrow -- problem completely solved, no need to try
and survive using a niche OS by writing and porting every bit of
software I need, using specially-selected add-on hardware, etc.

Likewise if I liked Vista, I could install a copy of it on my PC
easily with only upgrades to the RAM and video card necessary.

As it happens I object to the methods that these companies use,
so in practice I wouldn't want to support their products. However
there's always Linux, and its multitude of Mac-like and Vista-like
desktop environments.


But I don't like any of these environments. I dislike the way
Mac OS X looks and feels, likewise with Vista. Same with most Linux
environments because they're drawing heavily from the former two OSs.

I use BeOS almost entirely because of its GUI and overall working
philosophy. It doesn't gouge my eyeballs out when I'm trying to get
something done, and it has a very straightforward operating
principle (e.g., "install" apps by unzipping and running them).

In order to be a true BeOS successor, Haiku should follow the same
principle. I would like to see Haiku R2's GUI bringing only minor
visual tweaks, instead putting all the design effort into improving
the way the GUI actually works, making little adjustments here and
there, rather than changing visuals for the sake of it.

If something's not broken, it shouldn't need redesigning on every
major new release, and if it's not commercial software, there's no
motive to do that to make the new version more saleable either.
The constant changes which mainstream desktop OSs undergo are
actually very off-putting for a lot of users.

Mac OS versions up to 9 were good examples of how to do it right --
avoid making drastic visual changes and just keep improving the
core GUI slightly on each release. Mac OS 8 was a bit of a shake-up,
but even that pales in comparison to what Microsoft did with 95,
XP, and Vista.


"Ari Haviv" <arielbhaviv@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I think the UI is still too flat and could stand out a bit more,
> like Mac OS 9.
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/
> Mac_OS_9_screenshot_2.png


This is actually a very good example of what I meant about "depth"
in GUIs. Although the overall appearance of Mac OS 9 looks a bit
dated now (it's mostly in the subtle edge details), it has a very
good "presence" -- every control practically sticks right out of
the screen and is impossible to miss, yet at the same time doesn't
actually gouge your eyes out.

No other OS I've seen has this level of clarity. BeOS R5 comes
close, but it doesn't really reach the same standards. It would
be nice to see Haiku gain a comparable level of clarity, rather than
going in the direction of most other OSs where things are getting
less and less clear, merging into a big pool of softened-edge fuzz!

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