Lol I like that analogy … but I don’t see why exactly Haiku-tan wouldn’t be friends with Linux-tan ?
How about KDE apps? … you forgot that lol
Lemme correct ya … Macky-tan is the most popular girl in class and everybody is trying to ‘be like her’, but she refuses to make any friends (because she’s ‘too good’ and the rest are ‘underdogs’), while in reality, she’s just a sad and lonely girl that has some serious inferiority complex (Steve Jobs would aprove if he could see what it’s like today).
Well, that qoute reffered to one macos version specifically, which the ui mockup above also looks somewhat similar too ;)
Macos has changed a lot indeed…
I think it is also from a time with less ported apps, but still the general attitude of devs towards linux or linuxes style of development isnt that flowery.
(also the qoute sais linux doesnt like haiku, not the other way around… and mostly because of the perception of moving slow, which is certainly an attitude i have heard before also)
Last Mac OS X editions I’ve used were Catalina (on my main machine, as hackintosh), Mojave and Big Sur (on MacBook before I sold it lol
Also … that is not a mockup, it’s an actual screenshot from another user (I also remember what it looked like the last time I’ve used it) … it hasn’t changed a bit.
The reason why I haven’t sent ss from my own PC is (like I said before), because I’ve got rid of it.
All that Apple does is ‘flashing’ their looks without fixing the core of the problem. It’s kinda like putting a 70’s VW Beetle engine into a latest Jaguar chasy lol
So yeah … I’ve used them a lot, for audio recording/production even more than I’ve used them for digital art (and that wasn’t a smooth experience at all).
I do have a latest iPad Air atm … that’s a totally different beast … but still. They’re going into a totally wrong direction in every possible way.
As for GUI, ‘cats period’ (Tiger, Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion etc) was the best GUI … EVER imo.
When you look at it … they’ve pretty much started as Haiku …and then the market/profit/monopoly happened and everything good was swallowed by greed, caused by too many ‘creative solutions’ and ‘opinions’.
Regarding the UI, I would just “alter” it in the following way:
1- allow deskbar leaf “button” increase its size according to deskbar icon size preferences (I mean, so the size of the button matches the size of the buttons of running apps)
2- allow deskbar menu icons increase their size according to deskbar icon size preferences
3- allow icons not shown on desktop (i like to see a clean slate when i look at the desktop )
4- get the workspaces replicant to hide until needed (same as 3)
5- fix dark theme quirks (this might need more research on my side though)
Those should be the things about the UI that “annoy?” me the most
With CRTs long gone, I don’t see the need for round corners anywhere
Forgot, one thing, having each thing in a single place. I mean, don’t have 10 different ways of doing the same thing.
I’m already working on that, for example TeamMonitor and AboutSystem have been fixed by me.
Still have DeskCalc and tracker list view after resize on my plate (aswell as exposing a simple accent color + dark mode switch in the appearence prefs)
What do you think of the idea to have it be an item under Tracker? That would give that item some use. (i think it may be possible to simply show that item and make the focus action do something)
I agree as well, but many people who don’t know Haiku well take one look at the GUI and automatically assume we’re one of the operating systems stuck in the 1990s (which is not true). It would be a good idea to introduce a more modern UI into Haiku to help dispel that “myth”.
Now, as you said, a massive change to the GUI isn’t something we need at the moment - I personally agree with that and that is what the statistics from the poll seem to reflect. It’s not a good idea to reinvent the wheel as it would take massive amounts of time, effort and resources to carry out a UI redesign. However, Haiku also has a theming system which is why FlatLook was brought up in the first place: it simply changes the look of the UI rather than completely reinventing the wheel, so it’s the quickest way to introduce a more modern look into Haiku. The good thing about themes is that they can be swapped out quickly as well, which means we can give the option in Installer to choose FlatLook, the current UI or maybe even a BeOS theme.
Unless there is an accesibility reason to do so the indtaller should not present more choices but less, the apparence prefs is already structured very logically (the only thing i might like to see added is some kind of link that opens HaikuDepot from the controlllook oreference dropdown woth a querry for controlllooks or so)
PulkoMandy once convinced me that this should not be our direction. This introduces another button “Get more…” in all kinds of places (colour themes, backgrounds, fonts, keymaps, screensavers, device drivers etc.).
Instead we should train the user from the start that to find more of anything, open HaikuDepot and query for the logical search term / category. All Haiku being nicely integrated, new componets will be picked up automatically and appear in the right place to be chosen as optional decorator etc.
Otherwise some users may rely on there being a “Get more…” button and are frustrated if there isn’t (in a 3rd party app for example).
We could just have a line in Installer saying: Don’t like the default themes? Get more themes, backgrounds, sounds, screensavers and more from HaikuDepot. Open HaikuDepot under the Applications menu.
However, we’d have to ensure things in HaikuDepot are well organised, for example, if someone searches with the keyword “themes” all the themes should pop up in the search results.
I don’t think we should add any more text to Installer’s “EULA”. Few people read it, and it should at least try to stick to the most essential information concerning the installation process itself. The relevant User Guide sections can mention it, though I assume few people read that either…
Obviously, this is true for any software in any repo on any platform.
Yeah, not to the EULA but maybe to a new “theme” selection screen where we could get users to select from two or three themes (i.e. FlatLook, the current theme or a BeOS style theme).
I was going to propose changing the EULA as well, since as you said, no one reads the EULA. I was thinking something like a series of tickboxes with summarised important points, and the user having to read and tick each box before proceeding - this will make the users read the important points.
The User Guide unfortunately is also something people don’t read - we could consider making a “Tips” app to summarise the most important points in the User Guide, based off the Windows 10 Tips app.
What is the point of this? You can’t force people to read an EULA, or an user manual. The information must be accesible for the ones that want read them, but can’t force them. Is up to the user to choose to do or not.
I mean, the EULA is not really an EULA by legal standards, but it does let people know what the current state of Haiku is like (i.e. some bugs, some hardware might not work etc.) hence it is still an important piece of information - by making it into a more interactive format we can let users know about the important points of using Haiku in a simpler way - and plus, if people still don’t want to read that then they can still tick all the boxes without reading them
)
