A few days ago there was a call for us to come up with suggestions for a new defult look. For what it's worth, in the absence of others, I've included a couple of pictures of the look I have put together myself when I've been bored with my 'real' job, mostly to play around with translucency. There is not really any conscious design behind this, except to keep it simple, I guess. I don't like things that are flashy at first but become too much in the long run.
I've included two images here that I've tried to keep small. One puts together most of the look's elements in a small space, so it looks rather messy to get it all into a small space. (And yes, it shows the general problem with tranlucency as well.)
The other, really tiny one, shows what the 'window resizing dot' looks like, here I have placed the arrow on the line between two panes in a browser. (The dot is normally yellow.) I did it as an experiment with translucent gradients.
I've placed a bigger, less cramped image on the web, which should give a better impression of what it actually looks like to work with (220k):
http://www.lucs.lu.se/people/Henrik.Gedenryd/Squeak/bigedit.jpg
A second one looks pretty much the same, but with more menus to illustrate how well the translucency works for text on text:
http://www.lucs.lu.se/people/Henrik.Gedenryd/Squeak/largewmenu.jpg
Speaking in general (and I'm not sure my ad hoc toying around is a good example of this), I think an interface should exploit the unique capabilities of Squeak, and not try to imitate something else (and imitations are only either bad, or at best similar to the original, which isn't very exciting anyway). Perhaps the translucency (& when combined with gradients) are examples of this. Oh, yeah, morphs & windows should be translucent when dragged--but I haven't quite figured the best way to do that yet.
To digress a little, to improve also the quality (and not merely apply lipstick), Squeak should become more object- and less window/widget-oriented also in the interface, towards Direct Manipulation. Eg. today's menus are mostly merely lightly glorified typed commands--and in some confused arrangement, (help menu->preferences, projects in at lest 3 places, etc.) For instance, instead of a change set browser (two in fact) where you can see the sets, there should be change set morphs that _are_ the sets, and so on.
But back to the issue at hand. If people would like this included in the distribution, I'll package it up as a change set. (It's quite simple in fact, to 95% some changed color parameters in various places.) The font is the only thing that can't be expected to work generally (yet), and (as usual) it is intended for LCD screens anyway. I can browse the X11 fonts et al and see what I find.
Secondly, the window titles are an unrelated feature, which I nevertheless can include. They merely describe what's in the window (good when it's collapsed or partially covered) instead of writing "System Browser" etc. in five places on the screen. If you want that, I can include it as well. (I'll leave the close box on the left as well, it just ended up on the right at one point).
Henrik
Henrik Gedenryd wrote: [snip]
Speaking in general (and I'm not sure my ad hoc toying around is a good example of this), I think an interface should exploit the unique capabilities of Squeak, and not try to imitate something else (and imitations are only either bad, or at best similar to the original, which isn't very exciting anyway).
I agree - the realm of possible interfaces has barely been touched upon so far. Copying what is out there now is rather like messing around in a tide pool when there's a whole ocean waiting to be explored.
Perhaps the translucency (& when combined with
gradients) are examples of this. Oh, yeah, morphs & windows should be translucent when dragged--but I haven't quite figured the best way to do that yet.
I like the idea of having windows and morphs go translucent when dragged; but I think translucence is a Bad Idea for popup menus and such - indeed for anything that needs to be read.
[some ideas worth trying snipped]
Secondly, the window titles are an unrelated feature, which I nevertheless can include. They merely describe what's in the window (good when it's collapsed or partially covered) instead of writing "System Browser" etc. in five places on the screen. If you want that, I can include it as well. (I'll leave the close box on the left as well, it just ended up on the right at one point).
The translucent scroolbar background is OK (but still just decoration) by itself, but there is a good idea lurking here. How about making the whole scrollbar translucent? That way it could be brought inboard without actually obscuring text or requiring a footprint in the pane -- indeed it would be "there but not there" -- taking zero actual screen real estate away from the pane contents. I'm actually a big fan of the flopout scrollbars for this very reason, but this might be another practical way to have your content and navigation too.
I like the window titles - add it in. Another notion -- make use of different colors in the window title bars for different types of windows (and perhaps in the outer window border too), matching the "standard" Squeak colors (well, sort of -- I always use the pastel color set myself - that or a similar color scheme would be fine). A critical advantage of Squeak's "rainbow" windows is the instant recoginition of what types of windows are available, and the instant visual classification it gives. But let the window background be consistent (or at least customizable) for all the windows instead of making the window background and title bar the same color.
And yes, please remember to get the close box away from the minimize and window menu "buttons" (which _should_ be together) - I don't care if Windoze does do it, boneheaded is boneheaded.
-- Dwight
Here is a first attempt at releasing the 'blue look' for Morphic.
Besides the core change set, there are 4 other change sets of which 2 are optional. Note however (and this goes to sma in particular) that each of these 4 are really general enhancements that might be included in the general image on their own merits. They concern smarter window labeling, reduced unnecessary use of the 'unsaved edits' red line, refactore beveled edge drawing methods for BorderedMorph (+ improvements that allow you to use bevels for eg. black and white objects), and fixes for various color mixing methods to handle translucency. The first 2 are optional wrt the bluelook cs.
There are also two desktop patterns that I cooked up today for the more daring souls, if you see what I mean.
I've added permanent shadows to SystemWindows, let me know if you like them, they're brand spanking new so I don't know what I think myself yet. But you almost expect the small windows to budge when you click on them :-)
Unfortunately, the font is quite a big part of the impression, I'll see if I can find something that's free and suitable. Oh, by the way, where can I get the X11 fonts without dl'ing a 10M archive (or five) over my modem?
Henrik
Sorry,
one method had slipped out of the change set.
A couple of notes:
Tim Rowledge wrote:
This I like; simple (possibly a bit less of the translucency, hmm?) clean and your fonts stuff is looking good.
The small image was more or less a worst case, but I've toned it down. I think the menus work fine; it may vary between monitors though--try using it for a while and let me know what you think. On my LCD screen the finer nuances look slightly different depending on the angle, so my body posture may have made the settings inappropriate for others ;)
Torsten.Bergmann@phaidros.com wrote:
Would be nice if you could include the buttons from my look (I like them more than the normal X and O and they are closer to the ones used in MVC).
I am thinking about good replacements, including the menu icon; the issue I have with yours is that the collapse icon is in fact really a resize icon.
Steffen.Mueller@phaidros.com wrote:
But I hate the "fight" with little yellow resizing dots. I am using the following changeset and I hope you found a good solution for this.
Hmm, I don't have a big problem with this--in any case this look is less intruding when the dot appears when you don't want it. To me it seems I don't have to aim at that 1 pixel; sliding over the edge will do the job. Doesn't this work for you?
Henrik
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