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Independent Human Interface Guidelines
An anonymous reader alerts us to the IndieHIG Wiki, which is an independent effort to pick up the ball that Apple has dropped on human interface guidelines (can you spell FTFF?). From the wiki: "The IndieHIG project is an initiative created out of the necessity to document the new look and feel aspects of the Mac OS X experience, outside of the supervision of Apple itself. The project is not intended to replace, but rather to supplement the somewhat dated Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HIG). There are many instances of Apple using new and experimental interface styles, spurring developers to emulate these styles in their own applications. Unfortunately, because Apple provides neither guidelines nor code for developers to work with, the implementation of these interface styles and features by third parties can be lopsided and directionless. The IndieHIG intends to change this by providing a comprehensive set of guidelines governing the use and appearance of new, undocumented interface elements so that their implementation by third party developers adheres to the unwritten standards that Apple has set."
Human Interface Guidelines have been languishing for far too long at Apple (basically since OS 9 if not a little before).
This is sorely needed for the OS X platform, and Microsoft, all of the Linux Manager projects and the web as a whole could stand to take a few notes.
This is pretty interesting. I think that developers could use this as guidelines for developing UIs for other platforms.
If the rumors are true, new unified interface standards will be debuted with Leopard. I think we may well see major developments on that front. There's a new unified grey theme that is going to replace Metal. Resolution independence is another big item, and we know that's coming. Hopefully Leopard will be the release to fix most, if not all, of the minor UI inconsistencies found in Apple's applications, which will in turn spur developers to follow suit.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
The underlying toolkits for KDE and Gnome are garbage compared to OS X's UI toolkit. I'm sure there are people who point out stuff OS X can't do compared to KDE/Gnome or some other argument, but the fact remains that the results of how OS X desktop apps look and feel speak for themselves.
When I throw together something in IB with the auto alignment I am always amazed at what took me five minutes and almost no skill looks and acts better than almost everything I've ever used under Linux desktop apps.
Honestly, there is stuff I do on my own when I write custom UIs that looks an feels better than KDE/Gnome. The only favorable, other than the developers just stink, rational is that the division of labor between the various parts of KDE/Gnome lead to no one ever being able to make the hard choices that lead to over amazing polish OS X has.
Every time I try to switch to Linux the amateur quality of the UI tech is a shocking wakeup to just how far Linux desktops are from commercial versions.
Where you see inconsistency, I see useful visual cues. Regular windows are for single documents. Brushed metal is for utilities and goal-directed tools. There are gray areas that demand individual judgment, of course, but the general guideline is there.
Make Slashdot readable! See journal.
On my Mac, Finder, Address Book, and iCal are brushed metal, whereas Mail and iTunes are uniform grey. Preview is different again. What the hell?!? Over the last 3 years, MacOS has become _less_ consistent, whereas Gnome has become much more so.
l y.png
g gy.png
Duh. That's the entire point of this story... independent Apple fans are attempting to document Apple's horrible slide into UI mediocrity so third-party apps can at least be consistent with the system, since Apple doesn't feel the need to actually document any of these stupid themes on their own. This is the kind of thing that makes people remember the unstable, quirky Mac OS 7 with tears forming in their eyes... Apple used to give half-a-shit, they don't anymore.
I'm not saying Gnome is perfect (I haven't used KDE much for a while) - I doubt anyone would say that - but it's certainly not as inferior as you're making out.
Welcome to my favorite screenshots:
http://schend.net/images/screenshots/gaim_2_is_ug
http://schend.net/images/screenshots/gaim_2_is_bu
GAIM is a GNOME app, is it not? It's so hideous, it makes Microsoft's Luna theme look beautiful by comparison. You seriously think that competes even slightly with what Apple's putting out? Even the crummy stuff Apple's put out recently?
(BTW, your example about changing colors is particularly apt, since you can see that GNOME apps on Windows completely and utterly ignore the Windows theme and do their own thing.)
Comment of the year
Actually, the Close button used to be on the other side of the window. Remember? Far away from the others so you wouldn't click it by accident while trying to Zoom? That's the kind of detail Apple used to get right.
The Ars article "About the Finder" describes exactly how Apple could have expanded what it can offer us without losing any consistency. Apple just plain didn't try.
But forget the interface consistency, what about the blatant bugs? How about the crappy network support, so that if I have the audacity to open my iBook somewhere other than "the network its used to" it literally freezes Finder for minutes at a time. Then you go to open something on your (offline) iDisk, and you're frozen for another minute. It's ridiculous. How about when I drag a file from my FTP program to the desktop, Finder seizes up and I have to force-quit it? How about the fact that it takes over three hours to delete 1,000 files from iDisk? Or that iDisk bookmark syncing will suddenly and unexplainably stop working, requiring you to turn the feature off and back on before it works again?
Apple has seriously lost their way since OS X comes back. I want the old Apple back.
Comment of the year
In programs where the display of the content depends on the size of the window, that button resizes the window between two sizes that the user can set.
Yes, and to add to this: Where the content doesn't have a set size, such as in a web browser, the zoom (resize) button actually maximizes the window to fill the screen. This is confusing to Windows users, as it is very context dependent and an attempt to direct the use of the window. Some developers don't seem to grasp this, either, and so there is occasional deviance from this very useful feature.
Windows users complain about the window not maximizing because they don't get the notion of overlapping and interleaved (between apps) windows; I go nuts using windows because for once I would just like a window to snap-to-content.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Actually, if you want to share your photos with someone else, you must have the app running. Of course I can hide the app, but it still shows that the application is inconsistent with the spec, due to the spec being too ambiguous.
By default, windows do "fit to content" when resized, like I said. That is, unless you've clicked the button to "fit to content" and then resized that window. In that case, it remembers the size you set.
In order to demonstrate this(and what I said in the last post), open some folders you haven't opened before(There are probably a bunch in ~/Library). Each window should be the same size.
Now resize one of those windows, and click the resize button. It should "fit to content". Now resize the window and click the resize button again. It resizes to whatever size you set after first opening the window.
Now click the resize button again. It resizes to the custom size you set.
iTunes is a special case in that it has two different modes, but sure enough, it remembers the size of the window in both modes. Try resizing the window in either mode and then switch modes and switch back. The window will be the custom size you had set.
WRONG!
This is a very good reason to keep iPhoto running after you close its main window. iPhoto also acts as a photo server allowing others to access photos on that machine.
I wish iPhoto allowed me to close its Window (freeing up considerable memory, I am sure) so that I could leave it running without the window open on our media server at home.
iTunes does!
Cheers,
Ashley.
--
Ashley Aitken
Perth, Western Australia
mrhatken at mac dot com
Well, for one, users do react better to a UI that's visually appealing (but non-invasive). Although I personally think that Apple's Mail.app shown in the grandparent post violates this principle, OS X on a whole conforms to it pretty well.
As far as "amateurish UI element spacing and layouts", I refer you to this KDE Print Settins dialogue. Although the screenshot's somewhat dated (2004), I came across a similar dialogue this past week when using my University's linux cluster. Although the font configuration doesn't appear to have been borked like in the screenshot I linked to, the element spacing was the same, despite the smaller fonts (ie. huge window, small fonts).
There are a few examples of good UIs on KDE/GTK apps, but for the most part, they tend to look very sloppy. Win32 apps tend to look neutral and professional. OS X apps are a bit more flashy, but are on a similar level of "neatness".
I would doubt that it's even an issue with "open-sourceness". Adium, a (free) GAIM-based multi-platform IM client for OS X has what is easily one of the best UIs I've seen on an application regardless of license or platform.
Another complaint I have is that FOSS GUIs tend to rely a lot on toolbars and icons. Although this isn't necessarily a terrible thing in and of itself, It is more often than not the case that WAY too many icons are presented, and that the design of said icons gives very few visual cues as to the function of the button. Konqueror is a terrible offender of this crime. Although virtually every other browser on the planet gets by just fine with 4 or 5 buttons in the toolbar, Konqueror somehow feels that it's perfectly acceptable to put 17 buttons in the default toolbar.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose