Metal "tweak"
okay, anyone notice after installing QT 6.4 that metal has now been "tweaked"? much less pronounced "brush" texture, and there's a few extra pixels in between the window widgets.
is this a common tweaking among all metallized apps in panther (for those of you with access to panther)?
one funny thing i noticed: open iphoto, safari 1.0, and a quicktime 6.4 player under jaguar, and stack them on top of each other, so you can see the window widgets and their amazing expanding spacing... i take it the gui toolbox for metal apps isn't exactly set in stone, huh?
is this a common tweaking among all metallized apps in panther (for those of you with access to panther)?
one funny thing i noticed: open iphoto, safari 1.0, and a quicktime 6.4 player under jaguar, and stack them on top of each other, so you can see the window widgets and their amazing expanding spacing... i take it the gui toolbox for metal apps isn't exactly set in stone, huh?
Comments
Originally posted by rok
okay, anyone notice after installing QT 6.4 that metal has now been "tweaked"? much less pronounced "brush" texture, and there's a few extra pixels in between the window widgets.
is this a common tweaking among all metallized apps in panther (for those of you with access to panther)?
one funny thing i noticed: open iphoto, safari 1.0, and a quicktime 6.4 player under jaguar, and stack them on top of each other, so you can see the window widgets and their amazing expanding spacing... i take it the gui toolbox for metal apps isn't exactly set in stone, huh?
From what I know, QT Player, iPhoto, iTunes all use a "hacked" (non-standard) brushed metal for technical reasons and maybe so they can run on pre-Jaguar systems. Apps like iCal, Safari, Address Book all use the standard brushed metal provided by the OS. That's why there's a discrepancy.
I find iFix to very helpful for making sure brushed metal looks consistent in iTunes, QT Player, etc.
iFix
Notice how the title text on iTunes is bold whereas the one on QuickTime isn't. Also notice how the entire window upper area is darker (and non-metallifized) in iTunes but not in QuickTime. Lastly notice the absence in consistency in the three upper area buttons for the two applications. It just looks wierd I think.
Kirk
What's funny is that this shows pure laziness on Apple's part. If you open the right NIB in IB, switch to NSWindow, do some minor rearranging -- poof! It's using the "proper" metal window.
One of my first reactions to iPhoto 2 was a bit of confusion regarding it's look... it actually looked less like a "real" metal window than iPhoto 1 had.
It would be nice to see them move in that direction.
It seems that iCal, Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, QuickTime Player, Finder, Address Book, etc. should all have identical brushed metal looks, UI components, etc.
I understand that from a "feature perspective", this may not be very high on the list of priorities. But it seems it would make things a bit more productive for future development.
Nearly all other metal apps use the standard appearance, so the exceptions are left in only a few very prominent places.
One Freaky one that is very individual is Quicktime Player-It is built in and looks pretty rough.
The second is the iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD metal which is also built in and while similar to the default metal it has "texture differences". Lets call it fake System
Third is system metal used by AddressBook, Safari, iChat and iSync. It is the default system metal. Each app has different widgets in the interface but basically it is the same This is the true System Metal.
The fourth is iTunes Metal. It is very different. The texture is different but the main difference is that it uses a different well style to the other metal apps. It has a grey line round all the wells for the source list and track listing etc. It is original to iTunes and has had it since iTunes 1 on MacOs9. This is also the only carbon app here.
Now the freakiest app is iCal. What it is is a dead ringer for the carbon iTunes but it is a nib based 10.2 only cocoa app. It is tricky to tell the interface apart from iTunes but the foundation is completely different. It is not using the default elements in the brushed metal apps but it IS a standard cocoa 10.2 brushed metal window. Wierd or what?
The best brushed metal apps are iTunes and iCal. Why Apple has not implemented a standard based on both of these apps elements is beyond me and why iPhoto, iChat, Safari, iSync, QT Player and iMovie don't adopt this same look. Nearly every app is different it is time they standardised then built the interface elements into the system. Then the flat buttons wouldn't vary from app to app etc. It is messy and the details should be fixed since they are all pretty good apps.