Re: [Usability] (no subject)

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

On Tue, 2004-11-16 at 12:54 -0600, David Zulaica wrote:
> >...
> >that the window lost focus and somehow flattens the window content.
> >Buttons would loose much of its shadows, coloring would be reduced and
> >so forth.
> >
> >Note that this could work together with translucency.
> 
> "dulling" the application is another option that would work just as well
> as translucency, i think. it would probably work better, actually.

It might still offer readability problems when working with multiple
windows.

Something I've thought about, though, would be "flattening" non-active
windows.  First off, this is dependent on a GTK+ theme implementing most
of this feature.  Basically, for the active window, or toolbox/dialog
windows related to the active window, all of the controls and such would
be rendered one way.  All other windows would look different.  For most
3D-ish themes, this would be a flattened and color-reduced (say, to
gray-scale) widget style.

This would make the active window have a huge visual "pop" compared to
the other windows.  You could then combine this with drop-shadows on the
active windows only (all other windows would be flattened so they
wouldn't logically have shadows) and the usual window-decoration visual
cues.

Now the active window is floating above a collage of background windows
and is far more visually stimulating and intriguing than the background
windows.  Switch to another window and the other one goes back into the
collage, is flattened/grayed, and the newly selected window "pops" into
activity.  There isn't any animation or anything needed here - just
alter the widgets from a flat style to a pseudo-3D style and draw the
drop-shadows on the active window(s) only.

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-- 
Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>
AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.