At first - excuse me for a bad english. So… what’s all about - just a try to make a skin for Haiku, enough usable at a low screen resolution. It’s not a secret, that not everybody uses giant monitors with 1600x1200
That’s why i’ve tried to make a skin with look-and-feel of original BeOS. Of course, it’s not 100% original, but I wanted to compile many ideas together (maybe someone’ll find similarity with classic MacOS in headers)…
It looks great on LCD or at well-focused CRT with a matrox/3dlabs (wich have a good RAMDAC) even on a high resolution. But on a some old monitors this image may look blurry’cos it contains some pixel-sized details and it requires a sharp monitor.
Whatever, it’s just a first version… i’ll try to improve it and draw menus/radiobuttons and so on…
Please, keep in mind that I’m not a programmer 8)
But I’m drawing gui elements, icons and buttons for windows applications…
I like this better than some I’ve seen here lately. But whatever you do, don’t keep rounded edges where you have a button. That’s an XP trick that’s super annoying–especially when a window is almost maximized, if you whip up to the corner and click, you actually click through to something below the window you’re looking at, which is vile all around. Keep the roundedness on the bottom if you want, just make the top corners square.
the yellow arrow highlights of active scroll bar buttons, makes them really stand out.
the bumpy drag-able graphics in Tracker’s attribute display(name, size, modified).
dislike:
-the full length title bar. reason: BeOS’s short tabs go beyond novelty. They not only help to distinguish Be from other OS’s, but they (coupled with “slidey tab action” ) help application switching especially when several apps are maximized.
the file menu. reason: most of it is wasted screen space. Usually it’s 16pixels tall. This can be reclaimed by compacting the file menu into a drop down menu-item. Think Firefox’s “CompactMenu” extension. If you’ve never used it, look at this Net++ muckup by BeosFrance: http://beosfrance.com/muckups/Net++/net++03.jpg
Compare that image with an open window of Net+. IMHO, the extra mouse click that is added my a compact file menu is well worth gaining that screen space. Plus, IMO it is easier to navigate a menu vertically rather than horizontally.
Re: Kev’s square top for buttons:
if you’re sqauring the top edge, you might as well square the right-bottom corner for the window resizer.
then at that point, 3 out of 4 corners are square. so why bother with 1 round corner?
misc. ideas:
-either in previous versions of BeOS or in R5’s MacOS “hidden” decor, there are some GUI elements that i like. Specifically, non-active applications having their scroll bars and title bar reduced to very simple rectangles.
reasons: it reduces visual clutter, by abstracting inactive applications. This would be very handy with applications that have children window, such as graphics programs (think GIMP, Paint Shop Pro that have children windows for tool options, layer control, color selection, …,)
-the horizontal scroll bar placed under the compact menu|tool bar. This should help to improve mouse mileage. Ex, you are using buttons on the tool bar and then need to scroll horizontally. move the mouse about 16pixels down and you’re at the horizontal scroll bar.
I hate to be the odd one out. But this is too much like other OS’s. The parts of the Be interface that made it different and, to most people, special are missing. We have to keep the tab’s, at least for the “default” decor. The grip things on the column headers, menus and toolbars are way too windowsish. I like the rounded corners of the window, and if the title bar was cut back to a tab then the rounded corners would be fine. I think the lower corners could stay rounded if the roundness was a little shallower. I do like the indicators on the columns, I think thats being look at for opentracker. Please move the deskbar that position gives me stomach hurt. Always end on a happy note. I like the active window border being highlighted like that, perhaps if it was tinted a bit to keep the title bar distinguished. Overall I’d have to say it’s a bit too much like windows for my tastes but it’s good to see people finally working on this sort of thing.
… Ok… I’ll try to explain my opinion’bout this “skin” and why it looks as it looks… IMHO
I know that everythin’ concerning alpha-channel (transparency) always hurts programmers ‘cos this is hard to implement, but it’s a constant conflict between designer and programmer. They usually have absolutely different points of view. So… I’m designer - not programmer, that’s why, I don’t see anythin’ criminal in using transparency (and round corners).
Just take a look at the buttons at the top of the window (“Close” and “Minimise/Maximise”). If You’ll draw a square, which will contain a button - You’ll not see any transparent pixels in it. In other words - the button’s contour is a square - nothin’ criminal. Ok?.. And somethin’ else. Also I don’understand what’s a problem with click-thru pixels in rounded corners of the window. Hm…
'bout full-lenght title bar… I’ll try to make a version with usual BeOS tabs… but I never use “Sliding” feature of tabs… personally for me a full-length title is more comfortable thing 'cos it’s easier to seize a window and drag it to other location of the screen. Taste differs… I’ll think’bout this.
The idea of menu, hidden behind single button is good’ cos it “saves a pixels” on a screen, but this works good only if menu consists of 3-4 sub menus or else it’ll be a “tree” with too many “branches” to be useful. Maybe in a simple applications (like Net+) it’ll be good idea.
“Please move the deskbar that position gives me stomach hurt.” Does it bothers You?.. It’s just a scratch!.. I’ll draw version with a deskbar at the right top corner 8) Maybe it’s a reason of “windowsish”?..
this last one is great. only thing i don’t like is the grab bars on the menus and toolbars. other then that good job!
one suggestion. add shots of different window boarders. there are about 4 or 5 types, check the headers. i think the full title bar look from your first shot could work for the toolbar “miniture” title windows. but keep the tabs on standard.
Articulate writing, but it is damn difficult to read.
I like the sliding toolbar one, with few reservations. Overall I like it more than many other the other concepts and way more than the recent screenshots I have seen of Zeta. Those shiny, yellow tabs are awful!
Like:
*The textured tabs. Something just looks nice about them.
*The yellow slider arrows on the active window. Good use of color to alert the available control.
What would you do with the Deskbar? One thing I just can’t abide is that in its default position (upper-right) the arrows on the menus point to the right, even though they will open to the left. I hate that and always move it to the upper-left.
I think it’s a good thing for users to have the ability to place the deskbar where they feel comfortable with it, plus having a default and optional GUIs is another way the user can setup their workstation to be more “personal”.
That’s why its good to kick a few ideas around, some will like it, but there will always be someone who it’s not the best fit for. I think as long as we build in the customizations (which the Team are), then everything should be fine.
Articulate writing, but it is damn difficult to read.
… As I’ve wrote in the first message of this thread - my english is far for brilliant. The easiest way for me is to write in russian, but I’m afraid, no-one’ll understand me. Anyway I’ll try to write in correct english. Excuse me. :roll:
Quote:
I think they all suck. I like very clean minimalist lines. IMHO.
No problems! Draw Your own.
inseculous wrote:
add shots of different window boarders. there are about 4 or 5 types, check the headers. i think the full title bar look from your first shot could work for the toolbar "miniture" title windows. but keep the tabs on standard.
… It feels like You’re reading my mind The next thing, I plan to add to this sketch is a different windows with different size of headers (like an ICBM messenger window)… so here’s my plan:
Draw different types of headers with different size (little ones’ll be tabless - see above)
Redraw deskbar - it needs some improvements. Also I plan to draw vertical version of deskbar, enough popular here
Draw elements, still missed. I mean radiobuttons, checkboxes, text form fields, pull-down menus and so on. I’m not a programmer, that’s why I don’t have complete list of this GUI elements. But I need it! If someone can help me with this - It’ll be great!
And something, I want to know. This section of forum named “Creative Design Team” meant the existence of the team itself. Who’s this people? Who are in Team? Is there a way to join the team to work together?
At first - excuse me for a bad english. So… what’s all about - just a try to make a skin for Haiku, enough usable at a low screen resolution. It’s not a secret, that not everybody uses giant monitors with 1600x1200
That’s why i’ve tried to make a skin with look-and-feel of original BeOS. Of course, it’s not 100% original, but I wanted to compile many ideas together (maybe someone’ll find similarity with classic MacOS in headers)…
It looks great on LCD or at well-focused CRT with a matrox/3dlabs (wich have a good RAMDAC) even on a high resolution. But on a some old monitors this image may look blurry’cos it contains some pixel-sized details and it requires a sharp monitor.
Whatever, it’s just a first version… i’ll try to improve it and draw menus/radiobuttons and so on…
Please, keep in mind that I’m not a programmer 8)
But I’m drawing gui elements, icons and buttons for windows applications…
I hate that crap down this side. Not only does windows waste the top 1/3 of your screen with toolbars, but they steal the side as well for crap you never use. :evil:
I hate that crap down this side. Not only does windows waste the top 1/3 of your screen with toolbars, but they steal the side as well for crap you never use. :evil:
yes the toolbar is big, but the medium customer (on windows) uses the bar.
for haiku he would appeal to one lateral bar to me similar to that one of kde/gnome but with a beos style
I always have hated that toolbar in windows XP, please let’s not add it to BeOS.
I regularly have 4/5 tracker windows open in one workspace - runnning the same resolution in windows virtually forces you to use 1 maximised explorer window. Gah!
… I prefere GUI wich uses every possible pixel of the screen at 100%… maybe the best one (from this point of view) was in MacOS Classic, so the worst one’s in WinXP… current BeOS GUI is somewhere in the middle of it… for example - I own ancient PowerBook Duo 280. It’s screen (imagine!) works at 640x400 pixels and it’s enough comfortable to work with MacOS!.. Imagine WinXP running at this resolution! It’ll be a pure hell to work, because almost 30% of screen space will be filled with unusable GUI’s elements. The perfect solution (imho) is to use different themes, designed to use with different resolutions. 2 or 3 themes will be enough. I understand that GUI, made for low resolutions will be almost unusable at high resolutions due to small buttons, scrollbars etc. As I’ve wrote at the start of this discussion - I want to made a theme for low-res modes. When it’ll “polished” - I’ll made the one for hi-res with similar look’n’feel but with bigger tabs, buttons, scrollbars and so on…
Here’s 4 new additions. One more’ll be added today (It’s not finished yet). Please, take a look and say what You think about it!
I’ve made a windows with two sorts of little headers (wich was requested) - the last shot.
