[ericwass]

I'm always knocked out by Apple's attention to detail and the clever little UI tricks that make you go "wow" when you see them, but I gotta say the ripple effect on Dashboard borders on ridiculous. I've always thought that Apple had a guiding paradigm in this department: that the neat, little trick (such as the spinning cube in user switching or the genie effect in the dock) was meant to help the user visualize what was happening within the visual framework of the OS. But the ripple effect sort of comes out of nowhere. Is the analogy that my desktop is made of water? Or that the widget is so heavy that it's causing seismic waves on my screen? A small bounce I might understand. But this one just seems like an excuse to show off Core Image or something. Obviously, this is trivia. It won't ruin my day. But it looks distracting and sort of pointless. More importantly, it seems like a break in Apple's meticulous design standards for creating the OS.

My 2 cents. Anyone have other thoughts?

[Randman]

As long as it doesn't slow the system down, why not?

[JLL]

[QUOTE=ericwass]But the ripple effect sort of comes out of nowhere. Is the analogy that my desktop is made of water? Or that the widget is so heavy that it's causing seismic waves on my screen? A small bounce I might understand. But this one just seems like an excuse to show off Core Image or something. Obviously, this is trivia. It won't ruin my day. But it looks distracting and sort of pointless.[QUOTE]

Yes it's a show off and a way to tell you that something happened, but it only happens when you open a new widget - not when you activate Dashboard.

[Stradlater]

From the movies it doesn't look too overpowering, though I can see what you mean. Apple will probably tone it down in 10.5, anyway.

[chabig]

I think these effects are cool. And Apple tends to do them tastefully. Now Microsoft is fully in the catch-up mode (as their latest ad campaign aimed at Tiger's release shows) and you can be fairly certain that Microsoft will try to one-up Apple in the visual effects department. I predict they'll also fall flat on their faces doing it.

Chris

[Don Pickett]

I like the ripple. It's Apple showing off.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Randman

As long as it doesn't slow the system down, why not?

Yes, but won't it slow down older systems?

[mudzilla]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak

Yes, but won't it slow down older systems?

no, there's simply no effect if your card doesn't support Core Image... or so I've heard...

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by chabig

I think these effects are cool. And Apple tends to do them tastefully.

That's part of the problem. It's possible to do effects like this in a tasteful manner, but Apple has gone for big, bold, and ridiculously in-your-face with this particular implementation of the concept. It takes way too long to accomplish, and it distorts the size of the widget the whole time it's going on. Although the video-hardware acceleration will keep this from consuming much in the way of system resources, it wreaks havoc on the widget's readability until the effect is finished.

The least Apple could have done was not move the widget up and down; yes it's a neat feature, but it comes at significant expense in readability (not so much a problem for the iTunes widget, but can you imagine reading the Weather widget during that effect?). Toning down the height and range of the ripples would have also been a plus.

[jlgrandam]

So they should include an option to turn it off.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Millennium

That's part of the problem. It's possible to do effects like this in a tasteful manner, but Apple has gone for big, bold, and ridiculously in-your-face with this particular implementation of the concept. It takes way too long to accomplish, and it distorts the size of the widget the whole time it's going on. Although the video-hardware acceleration will keep this from consuming much in the way of system resources, it wreaks havoc on the widget's readability until the effect is finished.

The least Apple could have done was not move the widget up and down; yes it's a neat feature, but it comes at significant expense in readability (not so much a problem for the iTunes widget, but can you imagine reading the Weather widget during that effect?). Toning down the height and range of the ripples would have also been a plus.

Yeah, it seems a bit much judging by the video, and there should be an option to turn it off if there isn't. (Is there?)

However my understanding is that the ripple would happen only when you drag the widget out of the widget dock (or whatever you call it) and put it on the dashboard. So basically just once for each new widget.

Also, judging by that video, it doesn't seem to affect the widget that much in terms of readability, and the ripple is happening while the widget is loading data anyway.

P.S. Weren't they called "gadgets" at some point?

[Stradlater]

I agree with Millennium.

The ripple is fine, but I think a smaller, quicker effect would be better. Apple always tones things down with upgrades (pinstripes, anyone?), so this will probably see something similar in the future. For now, I think it will be usable.

[trip]

That's Apple! Even the name 'Apple' is controversial in the world of marketing. It's big risk. Controversy breeds attention, attention equates to exposure, exposure creates opportunity.

I remember when my company paid big bucks to come up with the new company name 'Monday'. It made the front page in major canadian newspapers. And IBM immediately wooshed in to pay big bucks for the big name.

Sex sells and so do effects if they catch your attention. After all they caught yours....

Edit- also - it's only when you first drop them on the desktop - the idea is to use them after you add them - not to continuously keep adding them.

[Kristoff]

yeah, it is overkill, and it's not even perfect.

In my mind, when you pull a stunt like that, it better be perfect.

If you've ever played with it, you'll notice a rectangle around the rippling widget that's not quite shaded right--it looks off.

[leperkuhn]

Yes, it hasn't reached the minimum standard of "perfect". Yeah ok...

[Socially Awkward Solo]

Originally Posted by ericwass

But the ripple effect sort of comes out of nowhere. Is the analogy that my desktop is made of water?

Considering the interface is called "Aqua" and all.

[SMacTech]

I find it kind of neat, but it only happens when adding a widget.

[mrmister]

I like it, and sits perfect since one doesn't actually move new dashboard widgets that often, it can be flashy w/o overwhelming performance.

[chris v]

I'm not fond of it either. Once is great, but even by the end of the demo, I'm thinking "okay... weve seen that already..." It reminds me of that "window waving in the breeze when you drag it" effect from the Longhorn demo last year. Over the top, and it serves no actual purpose. Maybe Unsanity will write some functionality into Windowshade that mutes/disables the effect.

[ManOfSteal]

I'll let you know in 8 days.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Windows 95 had an Open GL screensaver that warped and rippled the desktop. Worst screensaver ever. Ten year old technology that can be done on the CPU but now you need a Core Image supporting GPU to do it. Corporations rule at making you get the latest and greatest technology.

[Chuckit]

There's a difference between rippling the an image through OpenGL and having live, impact-free effects applied to your desktop.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

There's a difference between rippling the an image through OpenGL and having live, impact-free effects applied to your desktop.

I'd like to know the difference if you can explain it. Both are 'live, impact free' btw.

Edit: Both are not totally live. The Windows screensaver froze the desktop to a temp image file and then applied an Open GL distortion. Dashboard is doing the same (at least it was in the first developer release). Move a widget as soon as the ripple starts and all of a sudden the ripple ends.

[REB3L]

When I first saw it, I thought, Oh that's neat, I like the analogy. The desktop is covered by water, and when you activate Dashboard, you can drop down widgets into the water and they float above everything else. That is a nice analogy, but then I noticed that the widget ripple effect distorts other widgets so that doesn't make any sense at all. Something tells me that this "special effect" was included in the final release in order to make you think that Dashboard is different and better than Konfab.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by REB3L

When I first saw it, I thought, Oh that's neat, I like the analogy. The desktop is covered by water, and when you activate Dashboard, you can drop down widgets into the water and they float above everything else. That is a nice analogy, but then I noticed that the widget ripple effect distorts other widgets so that doesn't make any sense at all. Something tells me that this "special effect" was included in the final release in order to make you think that Dashboard is different and better than Konfab.

If Konfab's developers wanted they could use Open GL and shortcut keystrokes to do the same.

[Kristoff]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

I'd like to know the difference if you can explain it. Both are 'live, impact free' btw.

Edit: Both are not totally live. The Windows screensaver froze the desktop to a temp image file and then applied an Open GL distortion. Dashboard is doing the same (at least it was in the first developer release). Move a widget as soon as the ripple starts and all of a sudden the ripple ends.

If you play a QT movie, and drop a widget, the movie is playing in the background and get's distorted in realtime by the ripple and still plays.

[Ozmodiar]

Originally Posted by Socially Awkward Solo

Considering the interface is called "Aqua" and all.

I agree with this sentiment. Not that I don't also agree that the ripple is a little superfluous, but I don't feel that it came out of nowhere.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

Both are not totally live. The Windows screensaver froze the desktop to a temp image file and then applied an Open GL distortion. Dashboard is doing the same (at least it was in the first developer release). Move a widget as soon as the ripple starts and all of a sudden the ripple ends.

I'm fairly sure the CoreVideo effect is applied live � that's the whole idea behind the technology. I don't have Tiger to test it, but try having an animated Web page going in the background or something. It should keep going while it ripples, from what I understand of it. I think the reason it ends if you move the window is because it would be a little inconvenient to have it keep rippling if you want to get right to business and move it around.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by Kristoff

If you play a QT movie, and drop a widget, the movie is playing in the background and get's distorted in realtime by the ripple and still plays.

That's fine but video texture mapping and distortion is hardly new either although rarely used. It's still something that can be done with decent programming that uses the CPU and GPU the best they can. I can understand that if the ripple effects are only going to use pixel shaders then older hardware will be shut out but why don't developers take the two way path of using pixel shaders for certain models and plain well-optimised Open GL for others? I guess it's either too much work or to urge hardware upgrades.

Edit: Please, if we're going to argue about this keep in mind I'm saying that the ripple effect that is currently being done using pixel shaders could be done using Open GL geometry distortion (more intensive) on some older GPUs such as the Geforce 4MX which has no pixel shaders but is installed in Macs up to 1Ghz.

[Chuckit]

I believe that's what they did with CoreImage (from the technology overviews Apple provides). I think they just disabled the ripple effect in Dashboard because OpenGL isn't guaranteed to have good performance on all computers, and they didn't want it looking crappy on older boxes.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

I believe that's what they did with CoreImage (from the technology overviews Apple provides). I think they just disabled the ripple effect in Dashboard because OpenGL isn't guaranteed to have good performance on all computers, and they didn't want it looking crappy on older boxes.

True. If there's a video or too much background stuff happening then using plain old Open GL geometry distortion might have been very jerky.

[Kristoff]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

That's fine but video texture mapping and distortion is hardly new either although rarely used.

And I never said it was new, or that it couldn't be done using OpenGL.
I was just pointing out that it is live.

And, also, I don't find it useful---just eye wash--which is ok, I guess.

[himself]

I like the ripple for the most part, but I'd like it more if were more subtle. That being said, I would expect the ripple effect to be applied behind the existing widgets, not on top of them. That could be partly what makes the effect seem like overkill.

[leperkuhn]

if we are to assume that a widget is similar to paper, and that it floats on top of the water and yet follows its waves, then the widget would ripple.

this is a stupid topic.

[TETENAL]

The ripple effect should be between the widget but not effecting widgets at all. Like as if the desktop were water on which the widget would be floating. Then the ripple effect should be on all the time. That would be cool.

[himself]

Originally Posted by leperkuhn

if we are to assume that a widget is similar to paper, and that it floats on top of the water and yet follows its waves, then the widget would ripple.

this is a stupid topic.

As it is now, existing widgets are affected by the ripple effect as if they were under the surface, not floating on top of it.

When adding a new widget, it behaves as if it were a firm, solid object, not like a sheet of pliable paper. It's not that big of a deal to me, but I always appreciate a little extra consistency with things like this.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by himself

As it is now, existing widgets are affected by the ripple effect as if they were under the surface, not floating on top of it.

When adding a new widget, it behaves as if it were a firm, solid object, not like a sheet of pliable paper.

The new one just hasn't had a chance to get soggy yet. Duh!

[leperkuhn]

Originally Posted by chris v

The new one just hasn't had a chance to get soggy yet. Duh!

Yes, I agree. Not like toilet paper, but a really thin cardboard.

[himself]

Originally Posted by chris v

The new one just hasn't had a chance to get soggy yet. Duh!

Now that you put it that way... I feel a little soggy now.

[CatOne]

Originally Posted by ericwass

I'm always knocked out by Apple's attention to detail and the clever little UI tricks that make you go "wow" when you see them, but I gotta say the ripple effect on Dashboard borders on ridiculous. I've always thought that Apple had a guiding paradigm in this department: that the neat, little trick (such as the spinning cube in user switching or the genie effect in the dock) was meant to help the user visualize what was happening within the visual framework of the OS. But the ripple effect sort of comes out of nowhere. Is the analogy that my desktop is made of water? Or that the widget is so heavy that it's causing seismic waves on my screen? A small bounce I might understand. But this one just seems like an excuse to show off Core Image or something. Obviously, this is trivia. It won't ruin my day. But it looks distracting and sort of pointless. More importantly, it seems like a break in Apple's meticulous design standards for creating the OS.

My 2 cents. Anyone have other thoughts?

c'mon. How often are you ACTUALLY adding a widget? Like 2x a month? You tend to add them, and then they're on the dashboard.

Sure, it's eye candy, and it's necessary, but unless you're actually TESTING 500 widgets, you're never going to be doing it.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

If Konfab's developers wanted they could use Open GL and shortcut keystrokes to do the same.

Right, because it's really that simple.

glRippleEffectAtLoc((glDouble)0, (glDouble)0)

Your Windows 95 analogy is way off. Windows 95 used a very simple uniform shape ripple on a static image. Mac OS X is doing it with a live rendering desktop with a non uniform shape that has to send out multiple ripples.

When you see it in person you can tell it's a lot different than some screensaver trick. I personally don't think it's too much. You don't add widgets very often, and it's not like it disrupts your other work when you're in dashboard.

[Catfish_Man]

CatOne: Sticky notes

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by goMac

Right, because it's really that simple.

glRippleEffectAtLoc((glDouble)0, (glDouble)0)

Did I say it was simple?

Your Windows 95 analogy is way off. Windows 95 used a very simple uniform shape ripple on a static image. Mac OS X is doing it with a live rendering desktop with a non uniform shape that has to send out multiple ripples.
.

OK but I said I haven't seen the Tiger one for a while and couldn't remember if it was live or not. My point was: It's been ten years since that simple example was done on Windows 95 (it was also in Windows NT 3.1) and that it can be done without pixel shaders using geometry distortion, although it's much more inte

OH **** I just realised the ****ing moron I am.

**** it

[goMac]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

OK but I said I haven't seen the Tiger one for a while and couldn't remember if it was live or not. My point was: It's been ten years since that simple example was done on Windows 95 (it was also in Windows NT 3.1) and that it can be done without pixel shaders using geometry distortion, although it's much more inte

OH **** I just realised the ****ing moron I'm talking to.

**** it

: sigh :

Right, because doing something like this would require rendering the entire UI in OpenGL (unless you want to try compositing OpenGL over non-OpenGL stuff, and if so, be my guest). The example you are referring to was not live updating, and took a very simple shape (a circle), did not provide a realistic ripple, if it could even be called a ripple. It was pretty much just a single non changing distortion you wouldn't even need OpenGL for. Just twist the points some of the pixels in the image are drawing at. This affect is changing to position of pixels AFTER they've been drawn into their own buffers. The effects you're comparing aren't even on the same scale. Of course if Windows 3.1 could does these things in screen savers, Photoshop must be an overnight job, and something that can live render Photoshop effects like CoreImage must be a real simple thing, right?

Leave the technical understand to people who a) Know OpenGL b) Know CoreImage and c) Run Tiger.

[ericwass]

Well, I'm glad I sparked some conversation. I stand by my assertion: it's too much. I get the Aqua / ripple thing now, but liked people said... if that's the analogy then the other widgets already present should bob along the crests of the ripple, not ripple themselves. Of course, this is all like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Who really cares? But it's strange to me to see Apple who are otherwise so disciplined and deliberate, throw in a UI element that violates their design paradigms so blatantly just to show off an old graphics trick.

[Mac The Fork]

I agree with your assertion, ericwass. I'd like Apple to work on a fresher, more refined visual identity for their next OS release. Visually, Dashboard is reminiscent of a Microsoft demo.

[kcmac]

I like to see Apple show off. I am tired of the comparisons to Longhorn. I am tired of All-chin going around and now touting that Longhorn just works. That Longhorn will seamlessly just find wireless networks.

Windows can't do the ripple. Can't do the genie. Can't do transparencies. And on top of it all, Windows is mostly annoying as hell.

Show off Apple. The next year and a half is plenty of time for some to notice that Longhorn is just a lot of talk.

[Gee4orce]

Exactly - stop comparing Tiger with Longhorn. That's kind of like comparing a new car from GM with one from Ford that isn't available for another 18 months (except software turnaround is much faster than car manufacturing, so it's more like 5 or 6 years difference). Which car can I actually drive today ?

Compare OS X 10.4 with it's contemporary - Windows XP. Compare Longhorn with it's contemporary - probably 10.4.5 or even 10.5...

[nuggetman]

Originally Posted by Millennium

The least Apple could have done was not move the widget up and down; yes it's a neat feature, but it comes at significant expense in readability (not so much a problem for the iTunes widget, but can you imagine reading the Weather widget during that effect?). Toning down the height and range of the ripples would have also been a plus.

Dude, the effect lasts 2 to 3 seconds tops.

If you need to get the weather THAT quickly and don't already have the applet on the dashboard (it only rippples when you drop it for the first time) maybe you need to reorganize a bit, eh?

[Mac The Fork]

I like to see stimuli (animations, sounds, visual effects, different colours, etc.) used to their potential in design, which is to highlight important information. When you add frivolous stimuli to a design, you force people to progressively ignore them and you raise the bar for what's required to really get people's attention. In extreme cases, you run out of ways to highlight information, and you make your design very difficult to use. This one instance is far from an extreme case, but it's a waste of a big visual effect. It doesn't matter how quickly it happens, how good it looks or how high-tech it is; it's bad design.

The reason why there are comparisons with Longhorn is that the effect is most similar to what we have seen in Longhorn demos. I think we can acknowledge those as being overwrought, and I'm saying that the same is true for Dashboard's ripple effect. It doesn't matter when or even if Longhorn ships.