[haiku-development] Re: RoundRect ButtonFrame
- From: lodewijk andré de la porte <lodewijkadlp@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:57:19 +0200
I agree rounded buttons are a very common thing amoung modern os's. The
reason Haiku feels old is because it's designed after Be's contemporary
design. In the Be days it was still form over function, that's nice.
To the point: Haiku's design is old but was perfect then. We can update to
trends but we'll be a step behind.
Square is the new round. Windows 8, Android 4.0; we want squares again.
What's new is (multiple) flat colors, transparancy, gradients, dynamic
shadows and animations. This is mostly due to processing power.
If we put those advanced features and break our heads over simplifying and
cleaning up the interface, not just copying others but working on our own
interface, we can look modern. Even futuristic. And all without changing
the useability aspects.
For example the ridged windows, used to enhance window contrast back then,
now we can easily do without.
On Mar 26, 2012 10:33 PM, "John Scipione" <jscipione@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 2:45 PM, Humdinger <humdingerb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> > On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 15:47:32 -0400 John Scipione wrote:
> >> I don't see how buttons with rounded corners on Haiku need a high DPI
> >> display but their counterparts on Windows and Mac OS X and Linux and
> >> Zeta do not…
> >
> > I didn't say that those other OSs wouldn't benefit from high DPI. They
> > most probably do too, but since I'm using Haiku...
> > I dislike using those OSs, so any possible round-GUI-issue are drowned
> > by the general mediocre experience. :)
>
> Let me explain where I am coming from on this. I implemented roundrect
> buttons specifically for Deskcalc and Keymap. Rounded rectangles
> definitely fit there. That is what the feature is for.
>
> To make the feature complete and to make sure I got all the bugs out
> of it I also implemented it for all BButtons. But the further along I
> got, the more I found that I really liked the look of the roundrect
> buttons.
>
> So I did a little research to see what other OS's use. And it turns
> out, almost exclusively the latest version of other OSs all feature
> buttons with rounded corners: Windows 7, Mac OS X Lion, Gnome 3,
> Unity, KDE 4, even BeOS Dano and Zeta all feature roundrect buttons.
> There must be a reason for this, whether it is purely cosmetic or has
> some more practical benefits I do not know. What I do know is that
> rectangular buttons are used more or less by OS's made at or before
> 2001 or so such as Windows 98, Mac OS 9, Gnome 2, KDE 3, and BeOS 5.
> Please don't argue with silly exceptions to this, I'm sure there are a
> few but the overall trend is clear.
>
> So, Haiku featuring rectangular buttons makes Haiku looks old by
> association even if rectangular buttons are more usable than roundrect
> ones and even if you prefer them.
>
> I would furthermore hope to make a few changes to the appearance of
> Haiku to make it appear "more modern" before R1A4. Visual changes
> demonstrate progress more readily than the under the hood changes, in
> other words visual changes have a lower barrier of recognition. I'm
> not saying that visual changes are more important than under the hood
> changes, I am saying that visual changes are more recognizable and
> therefore hint at under the hood changes.
>
> So, given that roundrect buttons make Haiku appear more modern
> clearly, and considering that they are a visual tweak, I vote to
> include them by default. But, I cannot act unilaterally on a change
> like this. That is why I asked for feedback.
>
> We could put the decision up to a vote as is our usual custom.
> However, I'd rather not do that as I'd rather not bother all the devs
> who don't care one way or the other. If they cared, they would have
> already chimed in by now.
>
> Since I am clearly biased, what I propose is to allow Stippi aka
> Stephan Aßmus to decide since he responsible for so much of the look
> and feel of Haiku, he is the best person to adjudicate this decision.
>
> John Scipione
>
>
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