Vista Devolves Further Still

mikuro said: "Remember what 10.0 looked like? Panther and Tiger look sooooo much nicer than older versions. It took Aqua years to look good, and it took brushed metal even more years. So I don't think it's fair to expect Microsoft to nail it with version 1."

I don't get this, though. It's _not_ a version 1. "Vista" already has it in its name. It's all about the look. ;) So they should get _that_ right at least. It's not as if they'd have to reinvent UI Design every time they slap a new theme on Win2K, although they _seem_ to be trying.

I must admit, I think UID wise, Apple *really* did some bad things with OS X initially, but it _did_ attract a lot of users. The lickable interface...
 
Mikuro said:
even I don't complain about OS X's look much anymore, but...translucent menus are still a dumb idea!)
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Well, try translucent window borders, title bars and menu bar. Try a default theme with so much translucency that you can see the title bar of the window behind through the semi-visible title of the current window.

The translucency levels on the menus in 10.0 were awful, but thankfully Apple reduced them and now they're barely noticeable.

One thing Microsoft needs to learn how to do is to hire designers to work out their interfaces, instead of leaving it up to programmers.
 
I don't quite get why Apple insists on keeping the menus a little translucent, though. It's not as if you could make out what's behind a big menu, you merely see that there _is_ something back there. I'd say they could get rid of the last translucency there, as well. But yeah: Toned down Aqua is _much_ better than earlier Aqua. I recently had to work on a computer running 10.1.x, and I almost screamed at how cheap Aqua looked compared to Tiger on my MacBook...
 
I think our menu translucency is just an aesthetic thing. I enjoy it... in fact, it's a vista!
 
fryke said:
It's not as if you could make out what's behind a big menu, you merely see that there _is_ something back there.
Click to expand...

I think that is exactly the point they were aiming for.
 
i like the translucent menus, and other such things (terminal, dock, and dashboard). i like being able to see what is in the back without having to move/close/size/minimize windows. they are also one thing that has has sold os x to windows users i know.

now i want to figure out what other image beside my desktop and other windows that is being reflected/viewed from behind in the vista title bars. i noticed it the other day and haven't figured it out yet. but it has some streaks in it.
 
Don't get me wrong, at this point I object to translucent menus mostly on principle. :) I don't find the appearance offensive in Tiger except in rare circumstances when there are some very high-contrast areas beneath it. Today, it works well, and I even kind of like it. On today's hardware, the cost is so small that it's justifiable.

However, nothing can ever change the fact that it was a terrible idea to begin with. Something like translucent menus should only be implemented if there's no reason not to, and there were many good reasons not to when Apple decided to do it, because the hardware to support it just wasn't there. Even the software to support it (Quartz Extreme) wasn't there until Jaguar. It was ridiculous to cripple the performance of something as basic and unavoidable as menus for a purpose so frivolous. It's a prime example of Apple's "style at the expense of everything else" philosophy when they made OS X. (If you want to spin it in a way more favorable to Apple, you could call it their willingness to write software that's several years ahead of its time. "To hell with the present day!")


I think Apple would have done well to have kept Aqua as we know it (with its dynamic shadows and transparency and genie effects and whatnot) under their hat until 10.2 or 10.3, and given the hardware a chance to catch up to their ideas. It would've made 10.0 and 10.1 usable (...maybe), and would've made Aqua jaw-droppingly awesome when it was unveiled. That's because an Aqua that runs well is much more impressive than an Aqua that's slow as a snail...in molasses...that's dead.

I've noticed that people who got onboard the X bandwagon with 10.2 or 10.3 tend to think more highly of OS X, because they didn't know it back when it wasn't at all justifiable. 10.0 made an impact on how I look at OS X, and that'll always exist to a degree.

So I actually think Microsoft's timing of such an interface is much better than Apple's. They didn't get carried away like little children and try to do it years ago, before the necessary hardware was widespread. Maybe that's by no real merit of MS, but hey, results are results.

Man I talk too much. :o
 
he has some points, i guess. but i'd never know it from his spin. i got on the os x bandwagon with 10.1 on my 7500 after 10.2 was out! so it was just slow to begin with. but it was so much more stable than 9.2.2, that i used it. then after i got 10.2 on my 7500, i never went back to 9.2.2. so i never really experienced the poor start of os x that everyone else seems to talk about because i started on crummy hardware to begin with, and just chalked it up to that instead of the software. maybe i should install 10.1 on my 466/g4 just to compare how bad it really was. ;)
 
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