It explains how to combine anti-aliasing with sub-pixel rendering to get rid of the colour fringes. The result looks be-au-ti-ful.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If you're talking about filtered sub pixel rendering, then that is what Apple (and MS and Adobe) use, and the colored edges are still visible for some of us.
<strong>If you're talking about filtered sub pixel rendering, then that is what Apple (and MS and Adobe) use, and the colored edges are still visible for some of us.</strong><hr></blockquote>
How do you know what technique Apple is using? I can clearly see coloured fringes in the Jagwire screenshots, but none whatsoever in the demo on grc.com.
If you have an LCD screen then look at the bottom half of the dialog on:
You can experiment with Cleartype style technology on your Mac. Acrobat Reader 5 has it built in - just switch it on in preferences. Remember to configure it (hit the configure cooltype button) or it will look gash.
You can then use Pixie from the developers tools to see exactly what is going on.
Personally, I think it looks better on my LCD iMac even though I can detect occasional colour-fringing.
ClearType and CoolType are really meant for LCD monitors, where the cells allow for true sub-pixel rendering, unlike a CRT cathode tube. The problem I have with the technology is that it's supposed to be most benefitial for properly rendering stems of characters -- the verticals. This brings up another reason why Clear- and CoolType don't look good on CRTs -- their sub-pixel geometry is different and it's made for the grid of pixels LCDs have. Anti-aliasing will often just blur or thin verticals and even horizontals, which means at small text sizes, the stems especially can disappear. Sub-pixel rendering is supposed to maintain more of the stem width, but of course in the process produces the colro shift you see since it will render the adjacent color (red, green or blue depending on the character position -- usually red I think) to try to thicken the vertical stroke.
I'm no fan of it either, but if they simply add an option for it, like a checkbox, I certainly won't complain. It's hard to tell due to the compression of those screenshots, but it looks better than XP's ClearType which doesn't anti-alias nearly as aggressively as Quartz 2D's .pdf algorithms. I imagine it tobe roughly equivalent of what I can produce in Acrobat Reader in OS X. But I can still see it a bit in either case. Ideally, proper anti-aliasing with sub-pixel rendering should produce the best result together.
<strong>Did anyone notice in the personal screenshot showing the Cocoa Font Panel that the fonts are displayed in their respective fonts?
Is this a Jaguar thing, or can i get a tool to do this now?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, it's a Jaguar thing, and a former NeXTstep thing. The NeXT font panel had this, then they took it away in OS X. I imagine it's an "extra" like the combined slider and point size column in that screenshot. I'm not aware of any font panel add-ons like this at the moment.
Apple should offer both themes instead of switching from one to another. Or the elements should be individually customizable in a way that makes sense. I like the flatter tabbed area of the windows for example...the thinner drop shadows. I don't like the shiny, flat new widgets though.
Also, the system has anti-aliasing options sort of like Photoshop's scheme. You can have Standard anti-aliasing, light, medium and strong. Standard is recommended for CRTs and medium for LCDs. There is apparently sub-pixel rendering too on LCDs but no option to control it AKAIK.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Did anyone notice that they took out the small hint of shadow behind text in the menubar and titlebars of windows? Is that just a trick of the compression format?
If it isn't, then OH GOD, WHY! It used to look so awesome...now it looks like cheap rip-off CRAP!
[Edit: Looks like its just the menubar. I think I can see where Apple is going with this...Think Themes? )
One of the cool things about Jaguar is when an app crashes (spinning blob similar to the disk burning icon in iTunes), the dock updates that app's icon with a small error symbol. Jaguar is full of the little things that makes using Macs a pleasure. Oh, it feels as fast as 10.1 on a Ti 667 (not the new ones, the previous high end) on an old school blue 300MHz iBook with 384 megs of RAM. Just thought I'd share.
I was thinking this earlier. I was suprised at the new look, and i wouldn't be suprised if this became an option; it would be great. My initial gut reaction was "urgh" (see above post), but it is now growing on me.
If Apple offers "Glass" and "Plastic", they would be great. What about a "brushed aluminium" look?
one thing I did noticed in the last build is that minimize windows on the desktop is no more and idem for closing windows within the dock ! Hope that these new toys will return in the FC.
How do you know what technique Apple is using? I can clearly see coloured fringes in the Jagwire screenshots, but none whatsoever in the demo on grc.com.<hr></blockquote>
Then you must be colorblind. The colored edges in the grc screenshot make my eyes go all fuzzy - I'd rather Apple sticks with the oldfashioned grey blur.
<strong>one thing I did noticed in the last build is that minimize windows on the desktop is no more and idem for closing windows within the dock ! Hope that these new toys will return in the FC.
They're probably still playing with their options here. They might have something else entirely in the works. Anyway, this kind of thing happens all the time in test builds.
<strong>They're probably still playing with their options here. They might have something else entirely in the works. Anyway, this kind of thing happens all the time in test builds.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Exactly. You might recall that one of the selling points in MacOS X originally was the ability to have single window mode (an idea I loved, by the way) and that never made it past third developer's preview.
However, UI changes like this bring up the question of "why hasn't Apple given OS X native support for system themes?"
Apple likes to stay on top of style, and in order to do this they are going to have to revise Aqua every year since Aqua is not a neutral UI. For the sake of end usersm I think such frequent UI revisions demand the assistance of a theme manager.
Comments
<strong>Subpixel rendering...People like this? Am I the only person who sees multicoloured text?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Maybe the girls and boys at Apple need to take a look at this site:
<a href="http://grc.com/cleartype.htm"; target="_blank">grc.com</a>
It explains how to combine anti-aliasing with sub-pixel rendering to get rid of the colour fringes. The result looks be-au-ti-ful.
Is this a Jaguar thing, or can i get a tool to do this now?
<strong>
Maybe the girls and boys at Apple need to take a look at this site:
<a href="http://grc.com/cleartype.htm"; target="_blank">grc.com</a>
It explains how to combine anti-aliasing with sub-pixel rendering to get rid of the colour fringes. The result looks be-au-ti-ful.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If you're talking about filtered sub pixel rendering, then that is what Apple (and MS and Adobe) use, and the colored edges are still visible for some of us.
<strong>If you're talking about filtered sub pixel rendering, then that is what Apple (and MS and Adobe) use, and the colored edges are still visible for some of us.</strong><hr></blockquote>
How do you know what technique Apple is using? I can clearly see coloured fringes in the Jagwire screenshots, but none whatsoever in the demo on grc.com.
If you have an LCD screen then look at the bottom half of the dialog on:
<a href="http://grc.com/freeandclear.htm"; target="_blank">grc.com</a>
I can see no colour edges at all. This is what I want to see in Mac OS X.
You can then use Pixie from the developers tools to see exactly what is going on.
Personally, I think it looks better on my LCD iMac even though I can detect occasional colour-fringing.
<strong>
How do you know what technique Apple is using?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Because it's very easy to see the difference between filtered and non filtered - noone use non filtered rendering.
[quote]<strong>I can clearly see coloured fringes in the Jagwire screenshots, but none whatsoever in the demo on grc.com.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If you look carefully you'll see that all the Think Secret screenshots are in 256 colors.
I'm no fan of it either, but if they simply add an option for it, like a checkbox, I certainly won't complain.
<strong>Did anyone notice in the personal screenshot showing the Cocoa Font Panel that the fonts are displayed in their respective fonts?
Is this a Jaguar thing, or can i get a tool to do this now?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, it's a Jaguar thing, and a former NeXTstep thing. The NeXT font panel had this, then they took it away in OS X. I imagine it's an "extra" like the combined slider and point size column in that screenshot. I'm not aware of any font panel add-ons like this at the moment.
<strong>
<snip>
Also, the system has anti-aliasing options sort of like Photoshop's scheme. You can have Standard anti-aliasing, light, medium and strong. Standard is recommended for CRTs and medium for LCDs. There is apparently sub-pixel rendering too on LCDs but no option to control it AKAIK.</strong><hr></blockquote>
YES! Finally! No more blurry text!
If it isn't, then OH GOD, WHY! It used to look so awesome...now it looks like cheap rip-off CRAP!
[Edit: Looks like its just the menubar. I think I can see where Apple is going with this...Think Themes?
[ 07-01-2002: Message edited by: Spart ]</p>
<strong>
[Edit: Looks like its just the menubar. I think I can see where Apple is going with this...Think Themes?
[ 07-01-2002: Message edited by: Spart ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I was thinking this earlier. I was suprised at the new look, and i wouldn't be suprised if this became an option; it would be great. My initial gut reaction was "urgh" (see above post), but it is now growing on me.
If Apple offers "Glass" and "Plastic", they would be great. What about a "brushed aluminium" look?
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
low-fi
[ 07-01-2002: Message edited by: low-fi ]</p>
[ 07-01-2002: Message edited by: jeromba ]</p>
[quote]
How do you know what technique Apple is using? I can clearly see coloured fringes in the Jagwire screenshots, but none whatsoever in the demo on grc.com.<hr></blockquote>
Then you must be colorblind. The colored edges in the grc screenshot make my eyes go all fuzzy - I'd rather Apple sticks with the oldfashioned grey blur.
<strong>one thing I did noticed in the last build is that minimize windows on the desktop is no more and idem for closing windows within the dock !
[ 07-01-2002: Message edited by: jeromba ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
They're probably still playing with their options here. They might have something else entirely in the works. Anyway, this kind of thing happens all the time in test builds.
<strong>They're probably still playing with their options here. They might have something else entirely in the works. Anyway, this kind of thing happens all the time in test builds.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Exactly. You might recall that one of the selling points in MacOS X originally was the ability to have single window mode (an idea I loved, by the way) and that never made it past third developer's preview.
Apple likes to stay on top of style, and in order to do this they are going to have to revise Aqua every year since Aqua is not a neutral UI. For the sake of end usersm I think such frequent UI revisions demand the assistance of a theme manager.