My Best Haiku Design So Far

1

So ladies and gentlemen, I’ve spent numerous hours putting this together. Tell me what you think.

Here are two pictures the first is of the GUI itself and the second is the first but with the default Haiku background color.

So the look I was aiming for was sophistication meets classic. So i’ve added some darker softer blues to the menu, and some stylish scrolling bars. Also, an updated copy/paste metre, although I think I could do a bit more work with the progress bar… and the calculator was just something I added, changed and loved. So take a look, and feel free to tell me what you like, what you don’t like, and perhaps what I could change!

Cheers!

3

like the blue. However, I’m don’t care about the appearance to much but like the decorator stuff there should be a add-on interface for ui control customization. So people can experiment and provide their add-ons. And thanks to Stephan its easily possible to implement such a add-on:

Just derive a class from BControlLook:
http://haiku.it.su.se:8180/source/xref/headers/os/interface/ControlLook.h

Replace your implementation with the default BControlLook in:
http://haiku.it.su.se:8180/source/xref/src/kits/interface/InterfaceDefs.cpp
line 1148

To make it even better lookup your add-on dynamically in a add-on dir at this point…

4

“It reminds me of MacOS 9, which is the pinnacle of classic desktop computer user interfaces IMO”

Much as I hate to differ from YHO, nothing has ever matched the original NeXTStep for breathtaking visual appeal. IMHO of course.

5

[quote=el.tigre.20]Okay, so I hear quite a lot of negative feelings towards the change or idea of change regarding the Haiku’s user interface.

Come on guys we live in 2012, GUI’s that look like Windows 95 are just not going to be popular with the public and are not acceptable. (And don’t try to tell me that the Haiku GUI looks modern…it doesn’t). t think that the designers of the GUI must and I repeat must do THE Best job they can. Shadows, smooth animations, glossy buttons, are all things that the general public are looking for. And, of course I am bias on this topic, I think that a GUI needs to keep up with the times. Solid lines, boring gradients are all things of the late 20th century, we’ve moved on. Windows now has a sleek Aero theme, Mac OS X has Cocoa, these operating systems are designed by people who know that the public wants. If they didn’t, Windows 7 would still look like DOS 3.1

And I might add (and I mean no offence to anyone) but if you don’t care about the smallest details in a GUI then go back to using a CLI because a lot of people are going to look at Haiku and say “That looks like such an old OS” if you compared the design of say Ubuntu 11.10, to Haiku (they are both free operating systems) people are going to go for Ubuntu. It looks modern, sleek, and easy to use.

Of course, Haiku does have it’s trademark (and I say that loosely because it is a free OS) design, like the yellow menu bar, the blue background. All these things make it a good os, but if you can’t embelish and appreciate some changes to GUI, then just strip Haiku of its graphical environment, and use a CLI, after all if you think it’s that terrific of an OS, then a CLI should still be more than sufficient to you who don’t like design or design change the the GUI.

And I know that many of you were harping on the fact that my GUI doesn’t really accomplish anything…guess what… apart from making an OS function smoothly and logically, THE GUI DOESN’T IMPROVE ANYTHING (I apologize for all caps) but seriously, the GUI is to make the OS look nice, and attractive. And again, if you don’t like it, then use a CLI.

Sorry if this post makes you angry, I cannot and will not try to write a reply or a review objectively, that would be impossible.

And don’t worry, Haiku isn’t in a rush to change their GUI, but I am just warning you, it does need to be updated, even if its small and subtle changes. People like me notice and appreciate them!

Cheers![/quote]

You will NEVER, EVER, NEVER get some people to see this. There are even people who can’t see why the Aros GUI that is based on something almost 30 years old should be updated. They give the same arguments. Personally I think they just don’t want too many other people to come play in what they consider to be their sandbox.

6

I’m not overly concerned about the GUI at least initially, as long as it is functional and consistent. Hopefully once the OS is at least beta level usable, some focus can be put on functionality to allow skinning the GUI… then people can develop and package their own styles, and everyone can have what they want from a subjective look perspective.

7

I like it. But do we even stand a chance of this being implemented? I know that the visual aspect of haiku is not a priority right now. But would love to see some things done. I like the way this looks and would love to see it in Haiku. I do know there have been some small things done here and there. but, I don’t have much hope of see haiku look like this anytime soon.

8

Thanks for taking a look!

I do understand that right now Haiku’s API design is low priority, but when developing an OS, design is so important, and can in some ways “make or break” it. I wonder if there is a way to contact then with my work…perhaps even just suggesting to them that some minor design changes (as seen in my work) could be added perhaps in a beta release…? If you know anyone who is involved with development, give me a shout-out.

I know that they [Haiku] encourages people to test and develop… so I hope that design will change…like I mean, they do have API guidelines, and whatnot so they do want new designs…

I just hope that they don’t ignore design, because that could be a huge downfall. Seriously!

Cheers!

9

The trick would be to have a design that does not require major work to the app sever in order to be implemented. Seeing as how you are interested, you might want to try talking to the devs about your design and see what about it can be done and what can’t. Then make changes based on what they say can be done. At least you can ask, it doesn’t hurt.

10

Why is it that people look at the HAIKU GUI and think it needs to be fixed and they can design a better one?

The HAIKU GUI is not broken. It does its job well and gets out of the way. Adding visual glitter that distracts from the use of the software one is running is not an improvement. Visual effects – colors – gradients – etc. need to add to the usability or they are just a distraction.

11

jimmy calm down. You should know that not all people have your opinion.

Also in my opinion haiku needs a much much better gui. But for that we need first hw acceleration.

Why are people making concept cars, when my old trabant does his job on bringing me to my job an back home.

Relate to the “design”:
It’s nearly worthless. Taking something and making small changes is really not a good job. Instead people should try to think about something completely new, a new way of interacting/organizing with the computer/GUI.

If you make just simple changes, most developers will not be interested, because it’s “similar”, and it’s not worth the effort.

But if you come up with some more or less revolutionary ideas/concepts… then you might find developers being interested. (S&T was a little example)

12

Yes i remember when stippi wrote about rewriting the deskbar, and taking the advantages of os x and win7 and create something better.
Soon he was attacked, and people saying how great the current deskbar ist and he should change nothing.

13

I have a high level of confidence in the developers. I believe that after a point there will be a focus on updating the user experience in Haiku. I am equally sure it will be very much in the BeOS spirit. They have updated a few things here and there already. The media player uses some new widgets that look very nice. So, there are new things here and there already, just nothing major.

14

I’m more or less with bbjimmy. If the people who place a lot of importance on the latest stylish interface run away when they see Haiku, I doubt we shall miss them. That said, it doesn’t hurt anything to work something like this up, and really it does look nice.

I find it interesting when people understand the issues around an UI design well enough that they can reason about it, not just prefer one thing over another as a matter of taste but explain why. (Unless “why” is a reason that isn’t interesting, like “that’s what I’m used to”.) If it’s just taste, it won’t matter either way after a while - it’s a tool, like a saw or something. After a long day of sawing stuff, you aren’t going to want to look at that saw any more no matter how tasteful its color scheme. A good design isn’t so much about taste, as function. How easily do you follow the information that’s presented? What’s most important, on the screen, and how does the UI reinforce those priorities? Often the functional problems are the same as the esthetic problems - a crummy font, for example, can be slower to read.

The first thing I notice about the present demo (unless it’s my monitor) is that value contrasts between colors are greater. Good? Bad? Why?

15

I like it. It reminds me of MacOS 9, which is the pinnacle of classic desktop computer user interfaces IMO. It’s not a big change, but not a subtle change either. (I’d probably try to find a better balance between the blue and the yellow.)

The problem with visual design is that everyone has an opinion. User interface has a lot of “bikeshed” potential. (The cost of change is sometimes higher than the benefits of a subtle change, since our community is so small and cross-functional. Upsetting changes involve everyone.)

Another problem, from a non-dev point of view, is that users have little say in the development of Haiku, including its visual design. (Visual design isn’t separated from functionality. It’s the same code. Any user interface changes have to be implemented in code, eventually.)

There is no process for visual design changes within Haiku separate from the regular development process. The subtle changes to Haikus user interface have generally come about, I think, through the work of Stephan Aßmus, and lots of community discussion, or sometimes none, and the icon contest a few years back.

So, don’t be discouraged by negative feedback, or too excited by positive feedback, but please do keep making designs! Haiku will need to evolve, and even though accelerated 3D graphics is a key technical milestone that we still have to reach to be able to pull Haikus interface up to the forefront, a gentle, tasteful makeover in the meantime is a good thing, IMO, to lessen the impression that Haiku is all static. It’s bad enough that people think we’re in perpetual alpha.

Anyway. Just my 2 cents.

/slumbering dev Jonas Sundström

16

Just FYI: adding color or gradients to some widgets etc. is NOT user interface design (and certainly has nothing to do with API [0] design). Please read the Wikipedia article on the subject for a start [1].

If you want to get started with UI design, have a look at how other projects approach this, like Gnome for example [2] or Fedora [3] and look at some of their design documents. These are just examples, it doesn’t mean I’m pro or contra their solutions.

Again: UI design is NOT (primarily) about the widget toolkit. It’s about the workflow of applications, about usability. I honestly hope Haiku doesn’t fall into this lunatic theming madness, like everybody else. Themes don’t add a single bit of functionality to software. The development of a well designed theming engine uses precious developer resources though. I totally agree that Haiku’s look & feel is not broken. However, the interface designs of some applications are.

I am not a Haiku developer and I don’t know what they think of this topic, but if anybody could come up with a better interface e.g. for the Network Preflet, I for my part would be very happy. :wink:

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Api
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UI_design
[2] http://live.gnome.org/Design
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Design

17

Too bad, that stippi, ingo and axeld, seem now to be occupied with something else.
It’s a little pitty that the packagemanager is still not in a useable state.

18

The question I ask how does this IMPROVE using the GUI?

Not how to make the GUI cool looking.

To me the drop shadows on the menus are a waste, they do nothing to help use the system.\

The progress window also does nothing for me, I can’t even tell what the diffirence is.

The calculator however while functional the same has far better contrast of the keys. I LIKE IT!

19

Okay, so I hear quite a lot of negative feelings towards the change or idea of change regarding the Haiku’s user interface.

Come on guys we live in 2012, GUI’s that look like Windows 95 are just not going to be popular with the public and are not acceptable. (And don’t try to tell me that the Haiku GUI looks modern…it doesn’t). t think that the designers of the GUI must and I repeat must do THE Best job they can. Shadows, smooth animations, glossy buttons, are all things that the general public are looking for. And, of course I am bias on this topic, I think that a GUI needs to keep up with the times. Solid lines, boring gradients are all things of the late 20th century, we’ve moved on. Windows now has a sleek Aero theme, Mac OS X has Cocoa, these operating systems are designed by people who know that the public wants. If they didn’t, Windows 7 would still look like DOS 3.1

And I might add (and I mean no offence to anyone) but if you don’t care about the smallest details in a GUI then go back to using a CLI because a lot of people are going to look at Haiku and say “That looks like such an old OS” if you compared the design of say Ubuntu 11.10, to Haiku (they are both free operating systems) people are going to go for Ubuntu. It looks modern, sleek, and easy to use.

Of course, Haiku does have it’s trademark (and I say that loosely because it is a free OS) design, like the yellow menu bar, the blue background. All these things make it a good os, but if you can’t embelish and appreciate some changes to GUI, then just strip Haiku of its graphical environment, and use a CLI, after all if you think it’s that terrific of an OS, then a CLI should still be more than sufficient to you who don’t like design or design change the the GUI.

And I know that many of you were harping on the fact that my GUI doesn’t really accomplish anything…guess what… apart from making an OS function smoothly and logically, THE GUI DOESN’T IMPROVE ANYTHING (I apologize for all caps) but seriously, the GUI is to make the OS look nice, and attractive. And again, if you don’t like it, then use a CLI.

Sorry if this post makes you angry, I cannot and will not try to write a reply or a review objectively, that would be impossible.

And don’t worry, Haiku isn’t in a rush to change their GUI, but I am just warning you, it does need to be updated, even if its small and subtle changes. People like me notice and appreciate them!

Cheers!

20

Why does the GUI need to be updated in looks?

The purpose of Haiku is not to be cool as the mass market defines cool, it is to be cool as the developers and the people who like their style define cool.

The Tracker is how many years old now? Yet I still see people struggle to do in so-called modern GUIs what I do every day in Tracker.

Again if you want people to want your changes, they must be more than mass-market cool, they must IMPROVE the use of the GUI. Like I said in the last message I posted, the changes to calculator really made it easier to use because of the increase in contrast. The drop-shadows on the other hand did nothing to improve the interface. They just look cool.

Find changes that the people who are writing the code want, and you will get your changes in. Push for changes that that no-one wants who does work on this OS and you get nothing.

Few Haiku developers/users care for what the mass-market today thinks are cool, after-all by the time Release 1.0 comes out the definition of cool will change by then and all the old work would be a waste anyway.

21

Good point. And I kinda like the fact that Haiku developers are not just going for “what’s cool” as far as comparing Haiku with other Operating Systems. I guess I just see a new OS and want it to be able to compete against Windows and Mac. And don’t get me wrong, Haiku has a wonderful design, and I guess I just need to focus on providing for the programmers and developers and not the public. That will all come in time. I do have high hopes for Haiku. It is a wonderful OS.