[openbeos-cdt] Comments on Nicholas Blachford's Photoshop work

  • From: Ryan Leavengood <leavengood@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: openbeos-cdt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 21:18:35 -0500

Hello all,

In case you have not seen it Nicholas sent an email to the haiku
mailing list with the following URL:

http://blachford.info/computer/haiku/GUI/

Though the 3rd image isn't loading for some of us (I can't see it in
BeZilla nor ShowImage) I think in general we get the idea. I
personally like this sort of initiative as I think for many of us it
is easiest to communicate these ideas visually.

Now for my comments:

http://blachford.info/computer/haiku/GUI/2_with_curves.png

I have had thoughts of trying to add curves to the window tabs as an
experiment, and this is definitely in the direction I was thinking,
though I think a slightly bigger radius would be better. I also
suspect the Haiku drawing engine might do a better job on the
anti-aliasing of those curves than Photoshop (especially with subpixel
rendering.) I don't really like the curves on the other parts of the
window though. I think a square cornered window with curved tabs is a
nice evolution from the current interface.

I do like the curve on the bottom left of the Deskbar and I think that
would be nice to implement.

http://blachford.info/computer/haiku/GUI/3_with_shadows.png

As I said this one isn't loading, but I assume it is essentially the
fourth image minus the textures. Commenting on the shadows in the
fourth image: I think they are too big and diffused and in addition
they imply a light source which is completely different than that used
for the Haiku icons. I think the most logical approach for the shadows
is to mostly assume the lighting used for the icons, which is detailed
in the icon guidelines:

http://factory.haiku-os.org/documentation/icon_guidelines/

This would mean a sharp horizontal shadow going out to the right of
the windows and maybe a soft shadow toward the bottom and left from
the ambient light sort.

http://blachford.info/computer/haiku/GUI/4_with_textures.png

I just plain don't like the textures, at least this version. It makes
the whole GUI look blurry. Obviously the Photoshopping is imperfect
but I'm not sure I would like the texturing any more if it was just on
the panel backgrounds (which is what I assume it would normally be.)
This definitely is getting into the gratuitous non-functional area
that I don't like.

-- 
Regards,
Ryan

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