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Mac Guru · Jun 23, 2003, 03:23 AM

Ok so what's got you steaming about Apple's GUI?

Mac Guru

mac15 · Jun 23, 2003, 04:35 AM

I love it, take a peak here

phillryu · Jun 23, 2003, 06:27 AM

Just to dispell any confusion, that is the Panther THEME, for 10.2, not Panther.

The theme can be downloaded here:

http://www.execulink.com/~dewey99/Panther.sit

mrtew · Jun 23, 2003, 06:54 AM

I liked the unOfficial WWDC Panther GUI Rants Thread a lot better.

bbxstudio · Jun 23, 2003, 10:37 AM

To summarize (based on leaked shots, prior to WWDC unveiling):

1.relative proportions are even wonkier than they were before, simply nasty in terms of balance
2.text is too big (and why is menu text 1 point-size larger than it is everywhere else?) blecchh. I also hate LucidaGrande with great passion - could a font choice be less commital than that?
3.too much blank space doin' SweetFA
4.brushed metal is so 1995 and WEAK, even with the sunken widgets, etc... why does it have borders a la Quicktime in the finder? Was Safari a departure from everything else (I thought the borderless brushed was a step towards consistency - silly me).
5.the new Aqua is pure shite - the tone of the titlebar is off (as are it's lighting and surfacing)... looks like a totally unrelated material from everything else
6. new stripes - again, nasty... either keep 'em or kill 'em - Apple should know better than anybody that when you get into grays that light they'll go 'tinted' pink or salmon or whatever depending on the end-user's calibration (or lack thereof). Really sad.
7. label colors - GAK... c'mon, how many hypersaturated colors do we have to look at to use the freaking Finder? We got traffic light primary's, that blue I've grown to hate, and now these neon Fisher-Price labels. Pure garbage.
8. overall inconsistency - any given shot of the entire screen looks like a visit to the museum of discarded interface elements... it looks like an OS engineered by the Little Rascals for Pete's sake

Jobs and company should be ashamed if this is what's going to be shipping in September. At least we'll see users flocking to themes in droves.

UNTeMac · Jun 23, 2003, 11:17 AM

If that theme screenshot is anything like the panther then:

Menubar stripes

Titlebars

And I think a lot of us are sick of brushed metal.

ambush · Jun 23, 2003, 11:36 AM

http://www.mac.com/1/pantherpreview.html

gdiddy · Jun 23, 2003, 11:38 AM

http://www.mac.com/1/pantherpreview.html

Ozmodiar · Jun 23, 2003, 11:43 AM

Originally posted by gdiddy:
http://www.mac.com/1/pantherpreview.html

Gross. How long until a Jaguar theme for Panther?

FB Eye · Jun 23, 2003, 03:31 PM

I HATE brushed metal mixed with Aqua elements (buttons and stuff)... ick

Apple damn it!!!

It's either Aqua or Brushed Metal, not both at the same time... what a mess

n8x · Jun 23, 2003, 04:04 PM

I think they're keeping the stripes and grey title bars just so they don't look like they're copying off max.

quandarry · Jun 23, 2003, 04:10 PM

that's one uglyass logo for panther...a nice glossy black X would be more logical...

bamburg dunes · Jun 23, 2003, 04:13 PM

BBxstudio has knocked it bang on the head. Panther looks awful, a kludge and about as appealign as a sweaty vest. What is Apple doing? They seem to be focusing on specs and icky features and lost all sense of design.
The GUI is a mish-mash of disperate elements; half metal, half horrible new stripe look. Some windows have sunken buttons (safari type), some don't, the font manager thing has some weird looking new silver/metal type button, others have another type, bloody awful.

Where on earth is the consistency? Where's all the logic? Where is the design aesthetic? I would have thought by now Apple would have known what they were going for after 'treating' us to all these different looks over the last few yearrs, seems like they still haven;'t a clue after all this time.

bbxstudio · Jun 23, 2003, 04:26 PM

Well, WWDC has come and gone and YES - the leaked shots were of Panther. Apple has officially lost it. The only good thing that can be said about this is the fact that themes have now become about a thousand times more appealing to the average user then the were before. I'm just so embarassed for Apple's GUI design team - what a mess.

bOOzo · Jun 23, 2003, 04:40 PM

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
Well, WWDC has come and gone and YES - the leaked shots were of Panther. Apple has officially lost it. The only good thing that can be said about this is the fact that themes have now become about a thousand times more appealing to the average user then the were before. I'm just so embarassed for Apple's GUI design team - what a mess.

I must say I agree. It's too bad really..

The only positive thing I have noticed is that they seem to have included the Finder View type buttons in the Extras.rsrc as these are videly used in the screenshots. That means if the buttons are available to app developers, themes will have more control of the interface. For example, Word now has it's own Aqua style navigation buttons, but if they are supplied from the Extras.rsrc they will also be changed with a new theme.

However, they seem to use these buttons wrong! In the Fax/Print dialog, why not just a Tab pane instead??

Or is this a new kind of tab pane??

Hopefully, they will tighten up the interface until the release..

tiffer17 · Jun 23, 2003, 05:05 PM

did anyone notice that in the panther preview on the apple website, the OK and cancel buttons on the dialog boxes look different?? or is that just me??? actually they dont look to bad but everything else is simply awful. i really dont even think that apples designers WERE thinking when they came up with it. im just praying desperately that we will still be able to use themes on panther.....i dont know what ill do if i dont have my smoothstripes.....

SwarmyCurve · Jun 23, 2003, 06:06 PM

Once again I think everyone is too critical for something largely unfinished. Even if it was finished, it isn't half as bad as some of you are making it out to be.

The only thing I don't like is the continuation of the This Is Brushed, That Is Aqua (for no particular reason). The new aqua is an improvement from 10.2's, but still its not as pulled together as the aqua from Max's themes. As I said in another thread, the subtle stripes are a good idea because it doesn't look barren altogether like pure-white, but it isn't distracting like the harsh (current) stripes.

bOOzo · Jun 23, 2003, 06:38 PM

Originally posted by tiffer17:
im just praying desperately that we will still be able to use themes on panther.....i dont know what ill do if i dont have my smoothstripes.....

I'm sure we'll be able to use themes in 10.3. It seems to me that Apples doesn't mind themes, even though they are not willing to support them. And I don't think they are trying to make it harder to theme the OS either, any changes are probably due to optimizations and new GUI objects. Well know as soon as someone gets their hands on a Extras.rsrc from the beta...

NetworkShadow · Jun 23, 2003, 06:53 PM

Originally posted by SwarmyCurve:
Once again I think everyone is too critical for something largely unfinished. Even if it was finished, it isn't half as bad as some of you are making it out to be.

Well the final of jag wasn't much different from the preview... So I wouldn't count on it looking any better latter.
From what I've seen I hate the new aqua... So themes better work with panther.

bbxstudio · Jun 23, 2003, 06:58 PM

Originally posted by bOOzo:
Well know as soon as someone gets their hands on a Extras.rsrc from the beta...

Good idea - Apple has given everyone in attendance at WWDC a developer's preview release... we should put the word out that we're dying to get a peek inside and see if any kindly developers might oblige. Does anybody (smeger, goMac) subscribe to that ADC thing? Perhaps a preview release isn't so hard to come by...

mrtew · Jun 23, 2003, 07:25 PM

Originally posted by quandarry:
that's one uglyass logo for panther...a nice glossy black X would be more logical...

What the heck is going on with the bottom of the X where it looks like the inside serifs of the feet are lifting up or broken or reflecting a square light source or something? I can't figure that out at ALL?

And what is that supposed to be made of? Glossy plastic with a brushed print? And aluminum and glass sandwich? It doesn't make any sense.

bbxstudio · Jun 23, 2003, 07:40 PM

Originally posted by mrtew:
What the heck is going on with the bottom of the X where it looks like the inside serifs of the feet are lifting up or broken or reflecting a square light source or something? I can't figure that out at ALL?

And what is that supposed to be made of? Glossy plastic with a brushed print? And aluminum and glass sandwich? It doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, Apple's design team should lay off the kool-aid... they're either being headed by a new (clueless) individual or they're collectively so drunk on previous success that they feel they can do no wrong. Whatever the case, this release has so far screams 'sloppy, sloppy, sloppy'... let's hope they get a clue (really) soon. At this rate, Longhorn is going to make Ocelot (or whatever OS 10.5 is called) look like it was slapped together by homeless one-armed circus clowns on glue.

bbxstudio · Jun 23, 2003, 07:47 PM

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
At this rate, Longhorn is going to make Ocelot (or whatever OS 10.5 is called) look like it was slapped together by homeless one-armed circus clowns on glue.

No offense to any one-armed homeless circus clowns who might be reading. Sorry if I've offended anyone.

ambush · Jun 23, 2003, 08:06 PM

Originally posted by mrtew:
What the heck is going on with the bottom of the X where it looks like the inside serifs of the feet are lifting up or broken or reflecting a square light source or something? I can't figure that out at ALL?

And what is that supposed to be made of? Glossy plastic with a brushed print? And aluminum and glass sandwich? It doesn't make any sense.

It looks like a missed Spymac.com mockup.

quandarry · Jun 23, 2003, 08:15 PM

what's really funny is that no matter what panther looked like we would have changed it anyways...

what peeps should be ranting about (from what i can tell so far) is the total lack of theming...support or just plain old handcuffing of constraints...they're just too friggin' tight for us artistic types...

delete · 09:16 PM

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
To summarize (based on leaked shots, prior to WWDC unveiling):

1.relative proportions are even wonkier than they were before, simply nasty in terms of balance
2.text is too big (and why is menu text 1 point-size larger than it is everywhere else?) blecchh. I also hate LucidaGrande with great passion - could a font choice be less commital than that?
3.too much blank space doin' SweetFA
4.brushed metal is so 1995 and WEAK, even with the sunken widgets, etc... why does it have borders a la Quicktime in the finder? Was Safari a departure from everything else (I thought the borderless brushed was a step towards consistency - silly me).
5.the new Aqua is pure shite - the tone of the titlebar is off (as are it's lighting and surfacing)... looks like a totally unrelated material from everything else
6. new stripes - again, nasty... either keep 'em or kill 'em - Apple should know better than anybody that when you get into grays that light they'll go 'tinted' pink or salmon or whatever depending on the end-user's calibration (or lack thereof). Really sad.
7. label colors - GAK... c'mon, how many hypersaturated colors do we have to look at to use the freaking Finder? We got traffic light primary's, that blue I've grown to hate, and now these neon Fisher-Price labels. Pure garbage.
8. overall inconsistency - any given shot of the entire screen looks like a visit to the museum of discarded interface elements... it looks like an OS engineered by the Little Rascals for Pete's sake

Jobs and company should be ashamed if this is what's going to be shipping in September. At least we'll see users flocking to themes in droves.

Complete agreement.
You should send these points to OSX Feedback .

What interests me is that the G5 case is an evolution in industrial design from the current boxes and ads a bit of sophistication (lack of a better adjective) while Panther actaully looks like a step backwards. Maybe the industrial design team should take a crack at the OS.

iOliverC · Jun 24, 2003, 03:28 PM

Not trying to disagree with everyone here but I like the new Aqua. It seems a logical step forward. The stripes on the title bar needed to be different to those on the menu bar, and we've got that. But a whole new style of title bar.

bbxstudio · Jun 24, 2003, 04:42 PM

Originally posted by iOliverC:
The stripes on the title bar needed to be different to those on the menu bar, and we've got that. But a whole new style of title bar.

Why do the stripes on one need to be different than the stripes on the other? Why introduce an entirely new material that exists nowhere else?

I'mDaMac · Jun 24, 2003, 05:02 PM

Originally posted by mrtew:
What the heck is going on with the bottom of the X where it looks like the inside serifs of the feet are lifting up or broken or reflecting a square light source or something? I can't figure that out at ALL?

And what is that supposed to be made of? Glossy plastic with a brushed print? And aluminum and glass sandwich? It doesn't make any sense.

The X is beveled and that is reflected/bounced light coming from the reflective surface it's sitting on. The surface looks like a metal material coated in a glossy silver paint. More industrial looking than candy coated like before.

NetworkShadow · Jun 25, 2003, 01:18 AM

Why is Panther's Aqua better than the Jag aqua? Other than the less annoying stripes, I think it looks messy. I always though the Jag Aqua was better than the 10.1 aqua by far. I have to agree that this would be a step backward.

Gatorzx2 · Jun 25, 2003, 02:34 AM

I won't pass judgement on the "new aqua" because they aren't finsihed with it yet. I will say I do like the direction they seem to be heading (except brushed Finder), with subtle stripes and more of a toned down look. More professional I think.