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The Dock "floor" is the worst UI idea Apple has ever had - Page 3

post #81 of 195
6/14/07 at 6:59pm
The Dock floor is gonna be horrible if it's still visible while the Dock is on the side. On the bottom, I can't say I'm too offended about how it looks.. but the Finder needs major reworking and is not getting it as far as I can see. All I'd fix about Dock graphics would be to make it better visible which app is running and which one is not. It would be even better if users truly didn't have to care which apps are running, but I guess it's too late for that now. Maybe in OS 11...

I have this feeling it might be time to try DragThing again.

Quicksilver's been crashing on me once a day or so. It doesn't even have any special plugins installed. Still, it's a great app and if I can figure out how to get rid of the crashes (full uninstall and reinstall maybe?) I'll depend on it even more in the future. With QS, Spotlight, Expose, Dashboard, Time Machine, etc. things are getting crowded. There will probably be trouble with software like Eclipse if I use up all the function keys for global stuff. I might even be interested in fixing Expose and Spotlight to run via QS to save the keys.
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post #82 of 195
6/14/07 at 7:15pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by AISI View Post

Looking Glass is not theoretical, you can download the installers for Linux and Solaris. Requirements: 1.4 GHz or faster CPU, 512MB RAM, 3D accelerated GPU with at least 32MB VRAM and driver support for OpenGL 1.3 or greater.

Right, bad choice of words, I meant something more along the lines of "non-mainstream".
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They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.
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post #83 of 195
6/14/07 at 7:30pm
Sorry guys but I think it looks cool! And I think it just serves to underscore how the look is better than say Vista. I'm sorry Adda but I just don't see anything wrong with this look for the dock. And generally I welcome the 3D look.
Without the need for difference or a need to always follow the herd breeds complacency, mediocrity, and a lack of imagination
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Without the need for difference or a need to always follow the herd breeds complacency, mediocrity, and a lack of imagination
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post #84 of 195
6/14/07 at 8:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

Ok here are some new ones:

...

I added a drop shadow on the menu so that it shows up no matter what background it's on (hence the image with the white square). It's not great on white but I doubt many people will have a pure white backdrop. Outlined fonts don't look very good.

I like your dark dock a lot better. I don't like your white lettered menu: it would die in light backgrounds and doesn't look that good even here. Light lettering on dark background is more strain to the eye. In fact I think Apple's menu works better with your dark dock.

You did need the 50% reflection, that was an important improvement. If I could choose between Apple's dock and yours (dark version), I'd choose yours hands down.

BUT, I gotta say, I'm not crazy about the 3D dock. I think it's lame and lacks a useful metaphor. I thought so while watching Jobs show it. Change for the sake of change, and not even very pretty with the icons so far from the screen border.

Stacks are a good thing though. I'll give them that.
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post #85 of 195
6/14/07 at 8:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alonso Perez View Post

I like your dark dock a lot better. I don't like your white lettered menu: it would die in light backgrounds and doesn't look that good even here. Light lettering on dark background is more strain to the eye. In fact I think Apple's menu works better with your dark dock.

You did need the 50% reflection, that was an important improvement. If I could choose between Apple's dock and yours (dark version), I'd choose yours hands down.

BUT, I gotta say, I'm not crazy about the 3D dock. I think it's lame and lacks a useful metaphor. I thought so while watching Jobs show it. Change for the sake of change, and not even very pretty with the icons so far from the screen border.

Stacks are a good thing though. I'll give them that.

A dark dock would be a UI inconsistency. I think the way they have it is close to right, they just need to drop the icons back down and make the trapezoid flatter. This is still a beta, and all features are subject to change (check out Apple's disclaimer on every page in their Leapord website). Other than that, I have no issues with the new UI. Its fresh and lick-able. More customizability to the look would be welcome(color/transparency/reflection), but being able to easily change UI behaviors can lead to confusion.
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post #86 of 195
6/14/07 at 10:39pm
Null.
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Þ & þ are called "Thorn" & þey represent þe sound you've associated "th" wiþ since þe 13þ or 14þ century. I'm bringing it back.
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post #87 of 195
6/14/07 at 11:34pm
Thread Starter 
I think "the dark dock" should a kind of legend of 10.5, often rumored but rarely seen, and said to wander the desktop under cover of night, casting strange, disturbing reflections of terrified apps.
They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.
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post #88 of 195
6/15/07 at 12:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

I think "the dark dock" should a kind of legend of 10.5, often rumored but rarely seen, and said to wander the desktop under cover of night, casting strange, disturbing reflections of terrified apps.

Haha, good one addabox.
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post #89 of 195
6/15/07 at 2:19am
Now I quite like the new Dock, okay so making in reflective offers no benefits, but no drawbacks either! It's eye candy yes but there's no harm in that...

The see-through menu bar is another thing... it's eye candy gone perhaps a bit too far. First thing that went through my head when I saw it was "that's a bit Aero-esqe", now Aero has slight benefits of being able to see what's behind the current window... ish. But making the OS X menu bar transparent?.... what does that offer? I just don't get it, it will probably make the text on the menu harder to read if anything...

In conclusion, thumbs up for the Dock, and a confused thumbs down for the Aero-like menu bar
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post #90 of 195
6/15/07 at 2:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ActionJaxon View Post

But making the OS X menu bar transparent?.... what does that offer? I just don't get it, it will probably make the text on the menu harder to read if anything...

I cannot confirm if it is so or not, but there is word circulating and saying that the menu bar adjusts itself according to the background. FWIW.
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post #91 of 195
6/15/07 at 2:40am
I'm not an experienced Mac User myself, have a Dell XPS Desktop with Vista on it at home, and have just ordered a MBP for uni in October.

At first glance I like the new dock, but maybe thats my windows aero brain kicking in. In saying that I still like th ecurrent dock and will have no issues using it and Tiger from now until Leopard comes out.

Two questions I have about the dock.....

1. Is everyone certain the dock can't be reverted back to the 'old style' flat 2D dock?

2. On my friends MCP he scrolls along the tiger dock and all teh icons jump up and zoom to big size then shrik when you roll off them....is this feature still going to be in the 10.5 dock as I didn't see Steve Jobs using it during his KeyNote, it just stayed motionless......
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post #92 of 195
6/15/07 at 1:02pm
I'd have to agree. I think the new dock design is gaudy at best. One of the things that always irked me is the inordinately large translucent box surrounding the current dock. Fortunately, I was able to turn it off with a quick little hack called TransparentDock. (Installation of Safari 3 irritatingly did away with this hack, reminding me of how annoying said box was in the first place.) Now it seems that Apple has made this pointless box even larger and more obtrusive. I don't need a box to point out where my icons are located...I have the icons themselves for that.

The most frustrating thing about the Dock seems to be it's lack of OS supported customizability. I'm fine with reflections and genie effects and icons that do the Macarena as long as I can TURN them OFF when they start to interfere with my workflow. Now, I'll have this stupid pointy trapezoidal box to duel with when I upgrade to Leopard, which sort of kills my buzz a bit. Hopefully, the cool kids that write hacks will pick up Apple's slack and come up with a way for me to turn it off. Heck, I'd even pay for that feature.
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post #93 of 195
6/15/07 at 1:32pm
This thread is comedy.

A huge discussion about a trivial feature of the Dock. Amazing. Apple will likely make changes to the Dock a bit and scale things back due to customer comments. This is a "Beta" of Leopard...not the final.

In the end it won't bother me much because human nature makes it easy to block out many things and the "Floor" of the Dock certainly qualifies.
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post #94 of 195
6/15/07 at 1:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post

I'm a sideDocker too, but I dunno...

I'm a side docker as well. Reason. It gives you the most vertical screen real estate. As a MBP user it comes in handy to have as much vertical screen as possible to work with. With Apple having widescreen displays across the product line, I wish they'd come up with a dock that is made to be on the side. That's the best place for it IMO.
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post #95 of 195
6/15/07 at 2:03pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post

This thread is comedy.

A huge discussion about a trivial feature of the Dock. Amazing. Apple will likely make changes to the Dock a bit and scale things back due to customer comments. This is a "Beta" of Leopard...not the final.

In the end it won't bother me much because human nature makes it easy to block out many things and the "Floor" of the Dock certainly qualifies.

I disagree (obviously, since I started the thing )

Giving the dock a different background color or new animated behaviors or making icons look different are "trivial" changes. I have aesthetic opinions about stuff like that ("like it", "don't like it") and that's that.

Hinting 3D space on the desktop is not trivial. The Dock floor is not just a new shape and color for the Dock background-- if it were I would care less, beyond finding it awkward.

Adding an axis to the desktop is decidedly not trivial. No, it doesn't "confuse" me or damage my productivity, but:

--Either this is just decorative, in which case Apple considers 3D space nothing more than a way to "pop" the interface a bit, which is pretty scary, in my book, or

--Apple plans to build on this and create some kind of 3D work space, in which case they are deploying parts randomly without any concern for function, which is pretty scary, in my book.

Why scary instead of "meh, not my cup of tea, so what"?

Because I care about the future of the UI, and anything that suggests that Apple has stopped thinking seriously about the ramifications of their design decisions bodes ill.

A couple of years from now I don't want to be using a computer where stuff "sort of" wanders around in "sort of" 3D space because, bit at a time, stuff was added cause it looked cool.
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post #96 of 195
6/15/07 at 3:12pm
This is a very interesting thread. Really surprised about the comments. Personally, I'll take a wait and see approach to see how the Dock works with the rest of Leopard. I recall seeing another link (cannot remember where) - had to do with some of the developers that had a chance to see the functionality of the Dock in more detail. Their comments were all positive - including how the Dock looked on the side. That link was pulled, but before so - that is what they said. So maybe there is something there none of us are seeing. Oh well, October is not that far off - at least the pre-order of Leopard from Amazon appears to say bring it on - Dock and all.
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post #97 of 195
6/16/07 at 3:24am
In my opinion the new Leopard desktop is an absolute disgrace.

It looks like somebody has downloaded every haxie they could find, and the result is GUI that looks as though it has been cobbled together with no consideration as to how the various components work together as a system.

The Leopard GUI that was demo'd has to be some kind of ill-conceived joke.
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post #98 of 195
6/16/07 at 11:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

OK.

So: the translucent menu bar doesn't bother me that much, I'll wait and see if it works for me.

The reflective floor on the Dock, on the other hand, is a grotesque aberration that must be done away with.

I realize Apple gets accused of functionless "eye candy" from time to time, but in fact there is almost always at least some kind of functional or work flow motivation for things morphing, bouncing, fading or zooming.

The Dock floor has no earthly reason to be, beyond a little flash. Worse, it's a particularly clunky, poorly thought out kind of flash that just kind of sits there and says "Hey! I'm vaguely 3D! And reflective! Whatever!"

Or so it seems to me. Can anyone think of an actual reason to do this to the Dock? I was a little unnerved by the TimeMachine interface-- mainly because it also features a very poorly implemented "3D" lower plane, one that does nothing but make the text there harder to read.

But at least that can make some kind of claim to being part of a "receding in time" metaphor, arbitrary though it may be.

But this? It must stop.

I don't even care for the dock as it is now. Apple should have taken taskmenubar's method of operation and morphed it into a mini dock that resides in the menubar (and then kill off the dock.)

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post #99 of 195
6/16/07 at 7:33pm
I'm one of those people who never liked the dock from the first time I used the public beta. After using it all these years, I still really dislike it. I've always seen it as an inefficient UI that tricks people into mistaking flashy graphics for functionality. The 3D dock just takes that illusion a step further.
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post #100 of 195
6/16/07 at 9:24pm
god get over it

steve jobs gave it a seconds notice... it is not a feature he just said hey look, this is kinda cool, and it is. An operating system should also have the potential for fun. how boring would the thing be if it is purely about efficiency and getting work done... that is what makes a mac a mac. They are fun computers.

They are the only computer company that makes buying a computer fun.
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post #101 of 195
6/17/07 at 2:06am
Long time lurker, first time poster, wooh!

Just adding my two cents. At first I didn't like the new dock, but now I'm growing kinda fond of it. Now all my icons 'rest' on this glass slide, which almost extends my physical space into my virtual space. While this metaphor may not be that necessary, I still think the new 3D look serves a purpose. In a similar way to the iPhone, the dock seems to now be more 'real' - more 'physical', in a same way how the iPhone's scroll feature emulates the real world.

And to the argument about the inconsistency of the use of 3D in Leopard, don't these 3D elements serve different purposes? Time Machine takes an endless 3D approach as it is a metaphor for going back in time itself - an endless thing. The dock, on the other-hand, has a contained 3D space used for 'resting' icons on.

The 3D approach of the dock does have a metaphor behind it, but the real question in my opinion is is it necessary?
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post #102 of 195
6/17/07 at 2:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

OK.
Or so it seems to me. Can anyone think of an actual reason to do this to the Dock? I was a little unnerved by the TimeMachine interface-- mainly because it also features a very poorly implemented "3D" lower plane, one that does nothing but make the text there harder to read.

Reason for the 3D effect: The stacks display a mixed icon which is composed of the icons/thumbnails of the individual items in the stack. As they are "stacked" upon each other, a 3D effect makes sense. In this context, the dock, containing the stacks, also has to be 3D.

Reason for the reflection: Think about a pool of clear water. As you approach with a stick, the sticks reflection appears. As you submerge the stick, the water keeps reflectig the remaining part.
This is exactly the behaviour of the new dock. It is a metaphor from nature and corresponds to the "submerging" of windows, when you push them through the bottom edge of your screen: Makes actually more sense than simply having them "disappear".

Does that answer your questions, addabox?
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post #103 of 195
6/17/07 at 3:23am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ak1808 View Post

Reason for the 3D effect: The stacks display a mixed icon which is composed of the icons/thumbnails of the individual items in the stack. As they are "stacked" upon each other, a 3D effect makes sense. In this context, the dock, containing the stacks, also has to be 3D.

Not unless a stack changes depth depending on how many items are in it. Otherwise, it doesn't make any more sense for the stack (and the Dock) to be 3D than the folders I keep in the dock right now, which can hold many items, the contents of which can be displayed with a two fingered tap on my track pad.

Quote:
Reason for the reflection: Think about a pool of clear water. As you approach with a stick, the sticks reflection appears. As you submerge the stick, the water keeps reflectig the remaining part.
This is exactly the behaviour of the new dock. It is a metaphor from nature and corresponds to the "submerging" of windows, when you push them through the bottom edge of your screen: Makes actually more sense than simply having them "disappear".

Does that answer your questions, addabox?

And if the Dock is on the side, it provides a metaphor for pushing a window through a wall of water, but only to one side at a time? Or if it is on the bottom, when I move a window off screen left or right I just assume it's, I dunno, headed out across the neighboring fields?

UI cues need to be consistent if they are to be of any use beyond amusement value.

Look at it this way: a UI is telling a story. To do a good job of telling the story, it has to be carefully crafted to maintain coherent tone, imagery and metaphor.

Adding elements like a 3D dock on a 2D desktop with a 1/2D menu bar is like writing a sentence that goes something along the lines of "The day was like a banquet, racing down the track on the broken wings yet another open meadow."

A lot of people in this thread are saying things like "I like meadows! What's wrong with meadows, they're pretty! Also, banquets, yum", and that just does an amazing job of missing the point. Good writing, like good UI design, isn't the sum of bits and pieces of individually pleasant things. It's entirely about the interaction of everything, throughout.
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post #104 of 195
6/17/07 at 3:50am
A number of things.

My understanding is that the menu bar transparency can be turned off. This according to somebody that has the developer preview discs, though they said that they actually tried both, transparent, then opaque and actually liked the transparent best. My take on this is: I'm going to wait till it is actually released and see for myself.

1. I will change to my preferred current Aqua desktop pic and see what that's like with transparent menubar
2. Turn off the transparent menubar and be just like Tiger (except for the Dock) and see what that's like.
3. Make up my mind on which I like best.

All in all I think I will get over any of the UI changes in time. All the new features and under the hood improvements will make up for any criticism I may have of what SJ shoved in our faces in terms of UI last Monday. And on that my observations.

The grass desktop pic actually looked good in terms of the keynote/demos on the Apple site. (Yes it is crap for everyday use/graphics. But, as SJ says himself you canchange that to your prefered choice.) The pic was good on at least two levels.

1. A change is as good as a rest from blue desktops.
2. Subtle resemblance to Windows wallpaper to hypnotize new converts over to the Apple camp.

The Dock.

1. I see that the divider line between apps and files/folders is gone.
2. Blue glowing spotty things instead of sharp triangle denoting launched apps.
3. How the heck will this look pined to the left of my screen where I like it.

You know what. I probably will become accustomed to it in time. I will probably dump the Drop Drawers launcher tab/drawer, with shortcuts to apps, from my setup and use a stack in the Dock instead. Thumbs up on that then.


All in all, I think it will all work out on the night
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post #105 of 195
6/17/07 at 5:33am
I wonder if the whole reflection thing is to stop the clone artists. In all the previous systems, people have managed to copy the theme of the OS X systems on Windows and Linux. Here's a new clone of Leopard:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-yPeGKqp8Uc

But notice they don't have a shiny reflective dock. I think a reflection is one thing that isn't quite so easy to achieve because it's not as easy as turning on a switch like in pre-rendered graphics because you can't feasibly do ray-tracing in hardware acceleration, it's all texture maps.

Maybe some of these developments are a way to say look what we can do that you can't do (yet) i.e we got there first irrespective of how useful they will actually be.
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post #106 of 195
6/17/07 at 5:34am
I also thought their choice of a green/grass wallpaper was deliberate because:

1. People like green...it's the most popular shuffle colour apparentl
2. Perhaps subtle reference to Apple's new "green" ethos
3. Not boring...shows off the screens better.


Quote:
Originally Posted by iGrouch View Post

A number of things.

My understanding is that the menu bar transparency can be turned off. This according to somebody that has the developer preview discs, though they said that they actually tried both, transparent, then opaque and actually liked the transparent best. My take on this is: I'm going to wait till it is actually released and see for myself.

1. I will change to my preferred current Aqua desktop pic and see what that's like with transparent menubar
2. Turn off the transparent menubar and be just like Tiger (except for the Dock) and see what that's like.
3. Make up my mind on which I like best.

All in all I think I will get over any of the UI changes in time. All the new features and under the hood improvements will make up for any criticism I may have of what SJ shoved in our faces in terms of UI last Monday. And on that my observations.

The grass desktop pic actually looked good in terms of the keynote/demos on the Apple site. (Yes it is crap for everyday use/graphics. But, as SJ says himself you canchange that to your prefered choice.) The pic was good on at least two levels.

1. A change is as good as a rest from blue desktops.
2. Subtle resemblance to Windows wallpaper to hypnotize new converts over to the Apple camp.

The Dock.

1. I see that the divider line between apps and files/folders is gone.
2. Blue glowing spotty things instead of sharp triangle denoting launched apps.
3. How the heck will this look pined to the left of my screen where I like it.

You know what. I probably will become accustomed to it in time. I will probably dump the Drop Drawers launcher tab/drawer, with shortcuts to apps, from my setup and use a stack in the Dock instead. Thumbs up on that then.


All in all, I think it will all work out on the night
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post #107 of 195
6/17/07 at 5:39am
That's a clone???? Holy crap! Why don't they just buy a Mac if they're that obsessed with Leopard

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

I wonder if the whole reflection thing is to stop the clone artists. In all the previous systems, people have managed to copy the theme of the OS X systems on Windows and Linux. Here's a new clone of Leopard:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-yPeGKqp8Uc

But notice they don't have a shiny reflective dock. I think a reflection is one thing that isn't quite so easy to achieve because it's not as easy as turning on a switch like in pre-rendered graphics because you can't feasibly do ray-tracing in hardware acceleration, it's all texture maps.

Maybe some of these developments are a way to say look what we can do that you can't do (yet) i.e we got there first irrespective of how useful they will actually be.
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post #108 of 195
6/17/07 at 8:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

Not unless a stack changes depth depending on how many items are in it.

It does.


Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

[...] 3D than the folders I keep in the dock right now, which can hold many items, the contents of which can be displayed with a two fingered tap on my track pad.

As I said, the stacks give you a preview of the actual content, so they are very differet from the old-school folders. Now maybe it doesn't make so much sense to compose icons like this. Maybe its more confusing/unnessecary/etc. But you asked: Why is the Dock 3D? And this is the answer. Stacks are 3D, and very naturally so.

Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

And if the Dock is on the side, it provides a metaphor for pushing a window through a wall of water, but only to one side at a time?

Yes, exactly. It's not perfect. The target is a Dock at the bottom, but it is not worth to sacrifice the dock's freedom for this metaphor.

Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

Or if it is on the bottom, when I move a window off screen left or right I just assume it's, I dunno, headed out across the neighboring fields?

As you do today. It's not perfect, but it's an improvement.

Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

UI cues need to be consistent if they are to be of any use beyond amusement value.

This metaphor is targeted for amusement value. It is simply a small, beautiful detail. It has its reasons for existing. You can say its not perfect. I'll say it's not perfect. But it's not brainless, and it's nice.

Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

Adding elements like a 3D dock on a 2D desktop with a 1/2D menu bar is like writing a sentence that goes something along the lines of "The day was like a banquet, racing down the track on the broken wings yet another open meadow."

It depends... look at the logo for the Olympic Games in London. If you are an artist in your field, you may break the rules. In your example, a poet is free to write such a sentence - and a greek-drama purist is free to disagree ;-)


Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

Good writing, like good UI design, isn't the sum of bits and pieces of individually pleasant things. It's entirely about the interaction of everything, throughout.

You are absolutely right. And at the same time, you will never archieve a true masterpiece without the dissonance, the contrast, the daring, the dangerous. This is what gets peoples emotions up. Look at the iPod shuffle: An mp3 player without a screen? Outrageous. I hate it and love it at the same time. That is the best of works. You need some rough edges so that critics and normal folk alike can scrub themselves against them.
Of course, if you argue from a "usability above all" standpoint, you are right. But I'll argue from a "create products that inspire passion" standpoint. From this one, Apple has -already- archieved exactly this effect, with exactly the new dock, with exactly this thread.
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post #109 of 195
6/17/07 at 9:23am
ok. i know that you think that this dock is inconsistant but really listen if there was no new visual affects you would say that is so boring. apple doesnt care anymore . right. Right
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post #110 of 195
6/17/07 at 11:55am
I agree with addabox and Kickaha--it's very relevant to interpret these little things to know where Apple is headed in its thinking, and these things add up and become relevant by themselves in the overall intuitiveness of the system, which has implications in everyday use, in how welcoming it is to new users, how they influence third-party (and other first-party) developers, ...

I would guess the Leopard Dock (and menubar) are a way to at the same time 1. get up to date in flashiness, and 2. try to do it in a way that's seriously benefiting. The 3Dness of the Dock is just a small auxiliary one--Mac OS has for a long time not really been absolutely 2D: the "texture" and shadows you mentioned, but also windows stacking atop each other (with shadows), Dashboard and Exposé, etc. The 3Dness of the Dock could presumably separate it effectively from windows, and make it less distracting if well implemented. Jobs said more than one time during the keynote (refering to other things) "this really is useful," which at least suggests that he is aware of this whole bigger issue even as he gives the presentation.

Before the 11th, I was a little worried that the "new UI" would be too aggressively flashy, but I am glad to see that the new Desktop and Finder seem to have streamlining and unification as principles. They could easily have leveraged Quartz and Core Animation and gone full flash, but instead what they did is get rid of brushed metal, make the Finder more like iTunes (which is subtracting), reduce borders, not add flashy features to Safari (I don't get my MBP yet, so I'm using it in Windows) but instead keep it simple and pretty much borderless with resizable text boxes and simple but nice Find feature and speed as a selling point, etc.

I don't want a "new way to interact with your computer," and I think the probable costs outweigh the benefits, at least for now. As long as they use things like 3D sparingly and auxiliarly while keeping in mind what's really important, I think it's fine. The new menu bar could be a good thing in this regard (and apparently can already be easily turned off), and the Dock actually bothers me in Tiger, so I think I might like the new one (even in terms of all this).
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post #111 of 195
6/17/07 at 12:26pm
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Originally Posted by DoctorRobert View Post

I agree with addabox and Kickaha--it's very relevant to interpret these little things to know where Apple is headed in its thinking, and these things add up and become relevant by themselves in the overall intuitiveness of the system, which has implications in everyday use, in how welcoming it is to new users, how they influence third-party (and other first-party) developers, ...

I would guess the Leopard Dock (and menubar) are a way to at the same time 1. get up to date in flashiness, and 2. try to do it in a way that's seriously benefiting. The 3Dness of the Dock is just a small auxiliary one--Mac OS has for a long time not really been absolutely 2D: the "texture" and shadows you mentioned, but also windows stacking atop each other (with shadows), Dashboard and Exposé, etc. The 3Dness of the Dock could presumably separate it effectively from windows, and make it less distracting if well implemented. Jobs said more than one time during the keynote (refering to other things) "this really is useful," which at least suggests that he is aware of this whole bigger issue even as he gives the presentation.

Before the 11th, I was a little worried that the "new UI" would be too aggressively flashy, but I am glad to see that the new Desktop and Finder seem to have streamlining and unification as principles. They could easily have leveraged Quartz and Core Animation and gone full flash, but instead what they did is get rid of brushed metal, make the Finder more like iTunes (which is subtracting), reduce borders, not add flashy features to Safari (I don't get my MBP yet, so I'm using it in Windows) but instead keep it simple and pretty much borderless with resizable text boxes and simple but nice Find feature and speed as a selling point, etc.

I don't want a "new way to interact with your computer," and I think the probable costs outweigh the benefits, at least for now. As long as they use things like 3D sparingly and auxiliarly while keeping in mind what's really important, I think it's fine. The new menu bar could be a good thing in this regard (and apparently can already be easily turned off), and the Dock actually bothers me in Tiger, so I think I might like the new one (even in terms of all this).

Agree that Apple hasn't gone down the "let's go crazy with Core Animation" road that some of us feared. For the most part I like the Leopard UI changes-- unified windows, the Stacks animation , finder improvements (have to wait and see how Cover Flow works for disparate files), how they've handled the logistics of Space, Quick Look-- all very nice, IMO. The Time Machine UI is just inexplicably ugly and abuses the "3Dness" of that lower Dock area even more alarmingly by making actual text have to lie down like it was receding, which makes it harder to read. That's just insane, I can only hope cooler heads prevail before it ships.

If "shallow 3D" is to be part of the desktop metaphor, I wish we had more clues as to how Apple intends to use that, if they do. The emphasized drop shadow of the active window kind of suggest a shallow "working space" beyond the "bare minimum to indicate window layering" that we've had until now, but there doesn't seem to be anything happening in that space. There isn't any depth reordering possible beyond the usual window behavior-- if the Dashboard "ripple" is meant to suggest a layer "over" the desktop of a different order, I would think there could be a use, with attendant visual cues, for space "under" the top layer, possibly for use in Exposé or Spaces.

Of course, any of that would mean that Apple was thinking about 3D space in all over terms, which obviously I fear they are not.
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post #112 of 195
6/17/07 at 12:26pm
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Originally Posted by polarissucks View Post

ok. i know that you think that this dock is inconsistant but really listen if there was no new visual affects you would say that is so boring. apple doesnt care anymore . right. Right

Yeah, that's me. Constantly looking for some little flaw to bitch about. I do that all the time.
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post #113 of 195
6/18/07 at 6:54am
Null.
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Þ & þ are called "Thorn" & þey represent þe sound you've associated "th" wiþ since þe 13þ or 14þ century. I'm bringing it back.
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post #114 of 195
6/18/07 at 9:05am
Just a thought. Perhaps everyone is reading too much into the dock. Maybe its going to be made so that it can have skins, so you can actually make it look however you want.

Someone early in the thread said being obliged to disable a feature was a windows thing. Isn't customization however, the flexibility of the OS generally regarded as a Mac trait?
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post #115 of 195
6/18/07 at 10:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hal_Emmerich View Post

Just a thought. Perhaps everyone is reading too much into the dock. Maybe its going to be made so that it can have skins, so you can actually make it look however you want.

Someone early in the thread said being obliged to disable a feature was a windows thing. Isn't customization however, the flexibility of the OS generally regarded as a Mac trait?

We haven't had official theme support for over 7 years. I don't have my hopes up for Leopard. Apple likes to think that they have the best designers in the world and if any of the better designers in the world actually made something nicer, they'd probably feel a little embarrassed. At least if they disable that feature, they can hide away in their RDF.

This is a really sore point for me with Apple because Macs are big among artists and yet they don't allow these great artists to design their own interface styles. It doesn't even have to be much customization but all we get is blue or grey. What a choice.
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post #116 of 195
6/18/07 at 11:32am
who cares about the dock? I rarely use the dock anyway.. at least they sorted out finder etc.. and thats about all that I care about wrt UI.
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post #117 of 195
6/18/07 at 12:34pm
Null.
Þ & þ are called "Thorn" & þey represent þe sound you've associated "th" wiþ since þe 13þ or 14þ century. I'm bringing it back.
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Þ & þ are called "Thorn" & þey represent þe sound you've associated "th" wiþ since þe 13þ or 14þ century. I'm bringing it back.
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post #118 of 195
6/18/07 at 12:45pm
IDK what they're thinking. I don't like all the transparency crap at all. Why make the menu bar transparent? Why change the Dock? Stacks on the other hand, I do like. I think I will use that a lot. Time Machine, great idea I think. Those are the two features I will use for sure. I just hope you can turn all the other crap off, I think all the transparent stuff makes the OS look real cheap, and shows that they really ran dry of ideas, I'm disappointed in Steve and his geek squad.
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post #119 of 195
6/18/07 at 2:00pm
I disagree--I think that in fact the current 2D dock is far less consistent at the moment than the new 1-inch thick desktop. I'll tell you why:

At the moment we have a totally flat dock with no depth backward to it, until (optionally i admit) it suddenly protrudes outward when it magnifies. As a piece of UI philosophy surely we have a similar probem with this.

Furthermore all windows that you open lie on top of what is behind them. Surely this is 3D? The current nifty shadow effect around all open windows exaggerates this. With over 5 windows open on top certainly the desktop space cannot be considered a 2D space. This new 3D dock brings harmony to this gradually. It is not perfect but it is a step in the right direction. Instead of understanding the desktop as a 2D place separate from the windows on top of it, I think it is clearer to understand the desktop space as including all the windows that you place in it. All that is happening is that we are treating the desktop as though it were a tray that you might place pieces of paper in as opposed to a 2D surface that we are placing 3D objects on top of.
It is not an inconsistency in the metaphor--rather it is a slight modification to the metaphor. It is certainly an important step to make.

As for people objecting to the useless eye candy of the floor reflecting, I find this to be moaning for the sake of it. I hear nobody moaning about the current dock which is see-through, as though it were made of tracing paper. There can be no function in that.

As for the menu bar at the top, the reason behind it is obvious. Steve mentioned that as nobody uses the standard blue swirly desktop picture but in fact uses a customised picture, it made sense to reflect this in the UI of the desktop. They will have thought about using just the picture unchanged as the background for the menu bar like was done in the "improved" (sorry for the speech marks!! ) version, but the problem with this will have proved too obvious in development stages. The problem concerns having enough contrast to make the text readable. By making the background of the menu bar whiter (nice technical term!!) than the desktop picture it will make the text legible with any desktop picture even ones with varying colours at the top across the picture (which is of course the obvious practical reason against making the computer choose a text colour for the bar that is opposite to the colour of the picture). Also to be quite honest this is a really minor issue as the colour of the menu bar can be changed back to how it is in Tiger in the system preferences (certainly in the developers build), I am lead to believe.
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post #120 of 195
6/18/07 at 2:09pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tomikk View Post

I disagree--I think that in fact the current 2D dock is far less consistent at the moment than the new 1-inch thick desktop. I'll tell you why:

At the moment we have a totally flat dock with no depth backward to it, until (optionally i admit) it suddenly protrudes outward when it magnifies. As a piece of UI philosophy surely we have a similar probem with this.

Furthermore all windows that you open lie on top of what is behind them. Surely this is 3D? The current nifty shadow effect around all open windows exaggerates this. With over 5 windows open on top certainly the desktop space cannot be considered a 2D space. This new 3D dock brings harmony to this gradually. It is not perfect but it is a step in the right direction. Instead of understanding the desktop as a 2D place separate from the windows on top of it, I think it is clearer to understand the desktop space as including all the windows that you place in it. All that is happening is that we are treating the desktop as though it were a tray that you might place pieces of paper in as opposed to a 2D surface that we are placing 3D objects on top of.
It is not an inconsistency in the metaphor--rather it is a slight modification to the metaphor. It is certainly an important step to make.

As for people objecting to the useless eye candy of the floor reflecting, I find this to be moaning for the sake of it. I hear nobody moaning about the current dock which is see-through, as though it were made of tracing paper. There can be no function in that.

As for the menu bar at the top, the reason behind it is obvious. Steve mentioned that as nobody uses the standard blue swirly desktop picture but in fact uses a customised picture, it made sense to reflect this in the UI of the desktop. They will have thought about using just the picture unchanged as the background for the menu bar like was done in the "improved" (sorry for the speech marks!! ) version, but the problem with this will have proved too obvious in development stages. The problem concerns having enough contrast to make the text readable. By making the background of the menu bar whiter (nice technical term!!) than the desktop picture it will make the text legible with any desktop picture even ones with varying colours at the top across the picture (which is of course the obvious practical reason against making the computer choose a text colour for the bar that is opposite to the colour of the picture). Also to be quite honest this is a really minor issue as the colour of the menu bar can be changed back to how it is in Tiger in the system preferences (certainly in the developers build), I am lead to believe.

I understand what you're saying about windows on top of one another at least implying 3D space, and as I've said the new heavier active window drop shadow seems to take that a little deeper. But:

We've had the "implied" 3D of windows on top of one another for a long time now, and it's never been anything but "the least we can get away with and still indicate 'on top". Certainly it's never called for other desktop 3D cues to help us out with the concept.

Deepening the shadow of the active window changes that a little, but if all Apple is doing is declaring the desktop 2" deep instead of 1/16" deep and then continuing to deploy elements in exactly the same manner, than that's completely pointless.

As I keep saying, if they plan to do something with that, something that is actually useful, then I'm eager to see the plan.

But just "Oh, hey, you know those windows you've been layering one over another for the last 20 odd years? They actually go back into space a little more! K, bai" doesn't do anything for me at all.
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