Re: [Usability] (no subject)

[David Zulaica <david pseudo-cyb org>]

On Tue Nov 16 13:07 , Mark Drago <markdrago mail com> sent:
>Dulling out and flattening widgets in the app would be pretty neat, but
>you probably wouldn't want to dull out the entire contents of the
>window.  A similar idea came up at the gnome summit (I wonder if there
>are any notes from that discussion floating around).  The idea was to
>show out-of-focus windows in grayscale.  However, mucking with the
>contents of a document-centric window where color matters (gimp windows
>for example) is probably not a good idea.  But 'dulling' widgets in an
>application would probably work pretty well.

dulling and flattening sounds like the way to go. the gimp example is
definitely a good catch. i suppose that rather than treating things per 
"window", the entire application would recieve the effect. i know that
in my personal experience i find that when i'm working with multiple
documents in the gimp, i am definitely working with multiple documents
in the gimp and, as a result, do in fact need every element with some
sort of focus.



On Tue Nov 16 13:09 , Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com> sent:
>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.

the flattened/dulled idea combined with the drop-shadows sounds like it
would have the most impact. and indeed there isn't a need for animation;
it _might_ actually be over-kill if animation were applied. 



On Tue Nov 16 13:15 , <john erling blad aftenposten no> sent:
>With ol' style psaudocolor visuals that could be pretty easy.
>But I would guess that translucency and/or color adjustment would be
>piece of cake with almost all graphics card today.
>Anyhow, dulling the user interface by flattening shadows should *not*
>change sizes on any widgets. I think that should be obvious. ;)

indeed. essentially all that would change is color. this is just taking
it beyond simply changing the color of the titlebar. 3d effects (outset,
inset, ridge) are "toned down" by adding different color values. the
sizes should not be touched.

i don't feel this is eye-candy for the sake of eye-candy. like john said,
most graphics cards can handle this these days and would definitely
add to ease-of-use.

david