Haiku UI look patch

Very good, I'd change the checkbox and radio buttons, they look as if disabled in this screenshot. I'd add those dots or something else you have on the resize handle on to the scrollbars to indicate that they are grabable and can be moved. The handle looks very 'flat' I'd change that too and I'd change those black arrow indicators, make them sharper.

I am tempted very much to incorporate the patch in a more generic way. I would like to introduce a (private for the time being) InterfaceKit class which would be used by all other controls to delegate theme related drawing. Then it can be changed all in one place, and would be plugin friendly for the future. I would like to implement it in such a way that third party applications can (once it's official) use this for their own custom controls to still achieve a themed look for things like "frames" and "background" and this class could also handle other stuff, like default spacings for controls or between list items and so on. No idea when I will get around to doing this though.

Hi there! That looks way better than the usual look (Which looked good 10 years ago when it didn't have to compete with OS X, vista and X-managers.

A few things though: (IMO)
BRadiobutton looks like it's disabled with the same grey color as the disabled BCheckBox.

BButton still need a little work. Can't put my finger on it (still its better than the default/origin look).

BPopupmenu should be redone from the ground up. I never liked them. (OS X managed to make them look good though).

If you like to add more usability to Haiku/Beos why not add "Bread crumbs" to tracker?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadcrumb_(navigation)

I'm eager to see your work on my desktop in the future =)
Thanks

On the subject of theming, I'm against its inclusion in Haiku. Mac OS X has zero theming support, yet considering the size of the userbase, there are few complaints. I'd wager this is because a) the default theme is so good b) people that really care about theming have no problem whatsoever with downloading a third party theming application. Theming to me seems to be more derived from the Linux everything-and-the-kitchen-sink mentality than the simplicity-is-paramount approach of MacOS and BeOS. Theming is a serious blow to consistency (how many Linux distributions or desktops have you seen bin the default theme every couple of releases rather than spend years refining and perfecting one?) and offers very little in return as far as usability is concerned. This isn't to say I don't think there should be UI options for accessibility though.

As far as Denis' refining and perfecting of the current Haiku interface goes, I'm liking the progress being made. Nice subtle improvements which should modernise the UI yet age gracefully. Tabs have got to be the biggest improvement, looking far, far nicer than they did previously. Keep up the good work!

Actually, I don't really like the theme in Mac OS X. If I wanted to use OS X, not being able to change the theme would be a real minus. While an OS should definitely try to have good defaults, it should not be hostile against giving the users options. I don't know how big OS X's user base is, but it doesn't make me like it more. A third-party application for theming? It could work, but it makes me think of all the third-party theming applications for Windows.

About Linux: there are many areas where the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink mentality hurts it, like several different incompatible GUI toolkits (Qt, GTK, FLTK..), a big sound mess, the different desktop environments with incompatible icon themes, incompatible drag-and-drop, etc. But there are also other things that I actually consider necessary for a good desktop. Being able to change the theme is one of them. There are times when limiting the options will make users feel trapped.

About skinning and inconsistency: I don't really like "skinning" that much either. I don't want every application to have its own set of widgets etc.; consistency is good. And if we ever port any non-native GUI toolkit, then it must be integrated so that applications that use it will look like native applications (look at Qt in Windows).

I'd rather have a shelf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelf_(computing)

or something like this too jej

http://nmap.org/images/matrix/trinity-nmapscreen-hd-crop-1200x728.jpg

It is a shot from the matrix... I don't remember that scene though is doesn't seem photoshoped... guess I have to watch it again to check :-)

So. how you like the new look that made it to the trunk?

It'll be in the next pre alpha image in a few days.

Embrace the status quo and you'll receive the status quo.

Threaded conversations in a friendly format is great with forums. A cool project might be integration of mailing lists and forums to unify the community — an excuse to try some more serious Django if nothing else.

Cool - I liked your look and are looking forward to enjoying it again ;-) maybe it provides some more inspiration for certain people who love plans which work *grin*

Btw you should also post such stuff to the mailing list ;) might get more attention of the developers there ...