Platinum Theme (Mail.app) - "The one with Susan..."

Hell yeah... I'm starting to believe that this will be the new, smoother look of Tiger. OS X 10.0/10.1 was too "striped" -- Jaguar toned that down a lot and made the buttons a little less "jelly-like" and Panther came along and REALLY smoothed out the interface. This seems like the next logical step.

I've heard a lot of people say that Tiger is too soon, and that they wouldn't buy it the second it came out. Rest assured, though, on the contrary, that my copy of Tiger will be pre-ordered and installed the minute it arrives at my doorstep.
 
Spot on dude.

ElDiabloConCaca said:
It looks good -- I've always preferred the "membrane"-style buttons to the aqua buttons, and the "aluplinum" theme looks good so far. I like the fact that Mail will sport a single window, instead of a window and a drawer.

Soulseek: AppleInsider never called the new look a "platinum theme." Nor did they say that it was definitely platinum, and not aluminum or silver. They simply said that it sports a "platinum gradient," but never calls the new looks specifically "platinum." In fact, they don't call it anything except "the new look":

"An apparent blending of two themes, the new look lifts interface elements from both of the company's existing themes and embeds them inside a sleek platinum gradient."

Let's all make sure we actually read the story before we start name-calling, getting upset and getting in a tiffy about what it's called. The point isn't what the hell the theme most resembles, nor is it about what it's called, nor is it meant to start a war between the aluminum people and platinum people. As far as I'm concerned (and the story, as well), there isn't a name for it at all, and if you prefer platinum to aluminum, by golly, that's your right. No need to bash people who insist on calling it aluminum -- you know what they're talking about when they refer to "the new aluminum" theme, and no amount of yelling at them or getting upset at them is going to make them adopt your name for it, nor should it even matter.

Sheesh.
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;)
 
Yes! I love that look. Mail has always seemed a little too unprofessional looking to me, although I think its an awesome program. The drawer needed to go, everyone has it open all the time anyways, and it looks dumb just sitting there. Drawers are meant to be closed (usually).
I think it might be a good idea to do 2 columns for the messages and the actual message, instead of two rows, how entourage does it. I really liked that when I used it, it seemed like you got a lot more functionality. I dont know? Overall really cool, I hope this goes all over Tiger.
 
It's odd to me that Apple has established a GUI element called the Source menu, as seen in iLife. yet Mail, where you're clearly viewing certain sources, has never (and seemingly will never) implemented it!

I'd like Mail to implement wide-screen viewing like NetNewsWire, since all the Apple displays are now wide-screen, and a three-pane interface looks great in Outlook on Windows. I'd like it in XCode too, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
I missed the link, the picture was removed. From the posts here is sounds nice. Can't wait to see it, and get Tiger....
 
Will_Richo: Please do NOT quote an entire post and comment just half-a-line. If you want to comment on something, quote the PART you want to comment on. Or if you really want to comment a whole post, just say the _name_ of the poster and what you think about his/her post.

powermac: There's a newer link in this thread. http://www.ckelley.co.uk/neowin/tigershots/1.gif is the first picture, you can rename the '1' to '2' up until '4' in your browser, too, to get directly to the pix.
 
meh

i like this "susan" but apple really needs to get rid of either "susan" or brushed metal and go with one consistent theme



(please?)
 
Doesn't anyone else feel that not having a clearly defined title bar is bad usability? In GUI design it's important to visually separate components from each other, and the title bar and toolbar are clearly totally different things. In contrast with BM, other parts of the Susan-style interface do seem to have separating lines, so not having one below the title bar is even worse than in the case of BM. Just wondering... I certainly like the design otherwise, and second Jason on the fact that Apple should stick to one style - hopefully Susan or Aqua, not Brushed metal, which is clunky and completely unsuited for apps with more than one window. AND, if Susan does replace Aqua, BM will be so similar to Susan that there wouldn't seem to be much point in having two very similar interface styles.
 
I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Apple does, since they have many bright heads that know about UI design, and they probably don't want to listen to 'user-criticism' (albeit criticism that's founded on UI design principles) even _before_ the UI is released and used by users.

Must say: I was a foe of BM for a long time and then kinda adopted it. I still didn't like it in Finder, which is a perfect NON single-window application. And yet: I've gotten used to it, somehow.

My hope is: Susan all the way, replacing brushed metal for good. But I somehow guess that BM is Steve's 'baby' and that we won't see it disappear until he's beaten with the stick. ;-)
 
I initially wanted to add a note that this was irony but then I removed it from the post, because I thought we all would look at the ;)-smiley and comprehend the irony.
 
I like the fact that everyone is calling it susan. did ANYONE actually know what i meant (the reference i took it from), or listen to the wav to understand?
 
BM will be so similar to Susan that there wouldn't seem to be much point in having two very similar interface styles
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I have to agree here. The only advantage of brushed metal was, that that you could drag the windows by clicking on a "free", area. The next logical step (to me) was to create an similar theme which captures the "essence" of aqua and then get rid of the interface (BM) that doesn't share the aqua look.

Breaking the OS into three themes will only confuse new users and even take away of the "OSX experience", IMHO.
Thats something I really like about OSX. You have an consistant UI. Other OSes felt "thrown together" in that department.

In Windows XP you have: the default skin look, the MS Office 2003 look, the office XP look, the old pre XP style, the outlook style and countless other variations found in various third party programs.

In Linux you'll encounter various applications which doesn't use the same style as your current Window manager.

OSX (and Os9), BeOS were the only OSs I experienced which managed to provide an consistant interface with style. Its a bit sad to see that Apple doesn't follow its own GUI guide lines.

Personally I doesn't mind the look of BM to much, it just clashes with the sleek aqua interface. One technically apect is that I have trouble resizing BM windows on my old ibook G3 700MHz. The resizeing of the Safari main windows is still slow and jerky compared to resizing the Firefox (aqua) window.
 
I think brushed metal was the best change for the Finder ever. Well it was not that revolutionary but it keeps our focus on the content inside. For example, in iTunes I am more likely to pay attention to the source to the right and all my music to the left. I rarely look at the brushed metal because it has become familiar and invicible to me.

When the Finder was Aqua in 10.2, I had to squint my eyes to differentiate white space from white space. In 10.3 this has changed for the better and it is easier to tell the difference.

The new theme looks promising and might replace Aqua but only time will tell. If instead it replaces brushed metal than maybe people will be satisfied especially those professionals who said "Aqua is too distracting". I honestly think that is an excuse for not getting work done. Luna is distracting but I still manage to write all my essays in time.
 
I agree with Ifrit. It really does make a difference on OS X that to a large degree all applications look and feel the same. Even down to the organization of the menus with all the system stuff in the first (apple) menu, then application level items etc. etc. This means you always know where to go for preferences. This kind of stuff sucks on Windows and is partly why I only used Windows when forced to by my employer (and I'm working on that)! As a (pretty weak) example, I hate trying to work out how to turn the volume down on a work colleagues Win Amp player when it has some crazy skin applied.

Having one consistent UI is very important in my opinion.

Makes me wonder if Apple could have the three distinct looks (Aqua, Brushed metal, and this new 'smooth' one) as system wide themes that you would choose from within a preference pane. Whatever option you pick would then be applied to all applications across the board. No mix and match.

This would mean people that prefer one or the other can choose the one they are happy with yet you would still retain consistency across the OS. Limiting it to only three differences would mean it wouldn't become a massive overhead to application developers to test against.

As the differences between these looks would only be minor cosmetic stuff it shouldn't be a barrier to people picking up and using the OS if it wasn't in the look they were used to.

Would this not be a half way house between full-on custom themes (which people always tend to muck and make ugly and unusable as per Win Amp) and a rigid no user customization whatsoever rule. Or, would this just be the tip of the iceberg with people working out how to add in their own themes and chaos ensuing?
 
From the history of Mac OS X: No, Apple does _not_ want users to choose looks. (Detour: Rhapsody, OS X' predecessor, actually had a 'dark platinum' look that was completely customisable, i.e. you could choose _any_ highlight colour you wanted, even those making type unreadable, but that's not Apple's way...)

I _really_ hope that Susan will once and for all replace Aqua _AND_ BM. Aqua's contrast is too low, BM's is too high -> Susan looks right. Don't we like Susan? ;-)
 
I still can't get over the fact that you're all calling it susan...

what if i suggested we all call it "purple monkey dishwasher"? (this does not imply that it is in any way going to turn purple, or make your mac operate as a dishwasher. there were also no slave monkeys used ala Monty Burns to design the theme.)
 
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