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