IndieHIG Aims to Update Apple's HIG

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loulou
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=16794



Quote:

"The IndieHIG Wiki is a place where developers and UI designers can come together to create a new set of Human Interface Guidelines to supplement Apple's guidelines. Apple has neglected to update their HIG with modern UI designs and controls, so developers have been forced to replicate these UI elements on their own to keep their applications from looking dated. Since each developer has slightly different implementations of these elements, it has resulted in a fairly inconsistent look and feel for Mac OS users." Meanwhile, for the first time in over three months, Apple is asking its developer community to begin testing and providing feedback on a forthcoming update to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.



http://indiehig.com/blog/



Interesting...

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    macvaultmacvault Posts: 323member
    Would someone translate that into English for me? Is this suggesting Apple is working on a new or unified UI? If so, why would it be in OS X 10.4 as opposed to 10.5???
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  • Reply 2 of 8
    loulou Posts: 43member
    It seems to be a community project for 3rd party devs to work on a standard for the little nuances of OS X UI coding.
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  • Reply 3 of 8
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    I'm all for them making graphics available to all developers for controls and maybe defining some guidelines...I'm totally against code to implement "other UI elements" since it'll undoubtedly mean code for tabbed-documents which is a totally awkward developer fad started by Hyatt and friends that has long been supplanted by Exposé and soon Spaces.



    Why anyone would cripple their organization method by using tabs (and thus making it impossible to know where a document might be from just looking at the title of the window or by invoking Exposé) is beyond my comprehension.



    Anyways...sorry for that tangent.



    I'd rather see Apple making the UI elements that have been around since 10.3 and 10.4 as custom graphics inside Apple apps (and that have never been consistent) available to developers via InterfaceBuilder...instant consistency!!!
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  • Reply 4 of 8
    costiquecostique Posts: 1,084member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kim kap sol View Post


    I'd rather see Apple making the UI elements that have been around since 10.3 and 10.4 as custom graphics inside Apple apps (and that have never been consistent) available to developers via InterfaceBuilder...instant consistency!!!



    Yes, and Apple should also provide a set of images used for "Add", "Remove", "Lock", etc. buttons. That said, Leopard's IB does include a couple of de-facto standard controls, at long last.
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  • Reply 5 of 8
    apeirosapeiros Posts: 16member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kim kap sol View Post


    Why anyone would cripple their organization method by using tabs (and thus making it impossible to know where a document might be from just looking at the title of the window or by invoking Exposé) is beyond my comprehension.



    {Flame Removed - JL) Tabs are neither crippled nor is exposé or desktops a replacement for it.

    They have a different aim than exposé or desktops. When I develop I easily have 20 or more text files open at the same time. And no sir, exposé is pretty usless there as there is little visual difference between those windows since they all contain the same styled text (source code).

    Also exposé is slower e.g. when I do research using safari. I (4th mouse-button)-click "read on" links so they open in a new tab in the background. I don't need visual navigation there as I will just read them in order.

    Also exposé doesn't give the application any hint about what documents belong together (consider "bookmark all tabs", or when developing, running a script on all documents in the same window).

    {Flame Removed - JL)

    For the virtual desktops: I don't know how others use them, but I use it quite straight from the metaphor: different taskset = different virtual desktop. E.g. a) "reading news in a browser", b) "coding", c) "html stuff", d) "preview"

    Also notice that I'm not saying exposé wasn't useful. IMHO it is extremly useful in situations where you have rich visuals, such as windows with different websites, windows with images in it etc.



    greets

    apeiros
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  • Reply 6 of 8
    1337_5l4xx0r1337_5l4xx0r Posts: 1,558member
    Yeah. Exposé is more for like Photoshop users, Maya users, etc. "Screenhog" Apps, I call them.



    Navigating more than three source code windows becomes futile and frustrating pretty quickly. Oops, wrong one. Whups, that was the first one. Dammit, wrong one again.



    And tabbed browsing rules.
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  • Reply 7 of 8
    apeirosapeiros Posts: 16member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by apeiros View Post


    {Flame Removed - JL)



    Thank you JL, you make it look as if I called him an asshole or somesuch which I didn't. I said he was ignorant which he states himself that he was.

    You got a thesaurus with OS X, go, look the word up. It states exactly what kim kap says "why anybody would do ... is beyond me".

    Saying X is useless because "I don't know" IS ignorance. I sure hope we haven't reached the point where we can't call things by its name.



    greets

    apeiros
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  • Reply 8 of 8
    turnwriteturnwrite Posts: 372member
    This is good, the HIG are definitely dated. I don't think it necesarily means they are working on a new UI though. Just updating the HIG to reflect what they have already done.
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