Announcement to ya'll who are not familiar with Eugene: Do not get him started on tabs. That is all.
I'm perfectly fine with System Preferences / Control style tabs because they are used the right way. They're a standard size. They don't move. They're not spawned and destroyed. They are stationary and they are used to group different objects and not as bookmarks.
In fact, I prefer the Jaguar tab design to the current Panther one.
One of the reasons the original ones might look better is because they are actually composited from multiple layers of lighting and shadows. Mine is just a straight gradient
Also, I just quickly made the top bar identical to the bottom. It's slightly smaller than Merovingian's original mockup. If this bothers anyone I'll see if I can make a slightly larger one.
I prefer the bigger tabs because it cements the relationship between the rows of buttons. The big tabs are the main tabs. The little bar underneath is contextual info which depends on the big tab.
Two rows of equally sized buttons are distracting. You're almost fooled into checking both rows for the button you're looking for when you really only need to look at one or the other.
Two rows of equally sized buttons are distracting. You're almost fooled into checking both rows for the button you're looking for when you really only need to look at one or the other.
No reason to change it...
That reasoning is correct but it's the lower tabs that are too big (and/or given too much visual weight), rather than the upper row being too small (imho, and compared with the current apple.com).
Plus, the second row, in the current real apple.com version is a bit of an ugly hack, jamming text into a thin bar that overpowers the text. There is no need for that second bar since it is no longer part of the Panther tabs and is just a vestigial trace of the old design.
(I made a mockup based on the Merovigian's original Interface Builder, but with button width the same as apple.com's--well slightly larger but that was a mistake--and I thought it looked really good. I've got no idea how to host an image on .mac though)
Comments
Originally posted by DMBand0026
Oh geez.
Announcement to ya'll who are not familiar with Eugene: Do not get him started on tabs. That is all.
I'm perfectly fine with System Preferences / Control style tabs because they are used the right way. They're a standard size. They don't move. They're not spawned and destroyed. They are stationary and they are used to group different objects and not as bookmarks.
In fact, I prefer the Jaguar tab design to the current Panther one.
Originally posted by Synotic
I gave it a shot.
One of the reasons the original ones might look better is because they are actually composited from multiple layers of lighting and shadows. Mine is just a straight gradient
Also, I just quickly made the top bar identical to the bottom. It's slightly smaller than Merovingian's original mockup. If this bothers anyone I'll see if I can make a slightly larger one.
I prefer the bigger tabs because it cements the relationship between the rows of buttons. The big tabs are the main tabs. The little bar underneath is contextual info which depends on the big tab.
Two rows of equally sized buttons are distracting. You're almost fooled into checking both rows for the button you're looking for when you really only need to look at one or the other.
No reason to change it...
Boy that makes me a fence-sitter don't it?
Still, you get points for making Eugene talk about tabs!!!!
Originally posted by Eugene
Two rows of equally sized buttons are distracting. You're almost fooled into checking both rows for the button you're looking for when you really only need to look at one or the other.
No reason to change it...
That reasoning is correct but it's the lower tabs that are too big (and/or given too much visual weight), rather than the upper row being too small (imho, and compared with the current apple.com).
Plus, the second row, in the current real apple.com version is a bit of an ugly hack, jamming text into a thin bar that overpowers the text. There is no need for that second bar since it is no longer part of the Panther tabs and is just a vestigial trace of the old design.
i.e compare:
http://artemis.arstechnica.com/revie...abs-jaguar.png
and
http://artemis.arstechnica.com/revie...bs-panther.png
I'm not sure what would replace it though.
(I made a mockup based on the Merovigian's original Interface Builder, but with button width the same as apple.com's--well slightly larger but that was a mistake--and I thought it looked really good. I've got no idea how to host an image on .mac though)