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Did Apple fire it's UI designer?
- Thread starter wankey
- Start date
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ah yes
yeah i see what u mean, the shadows for folders are off to the side and smaller than they should be, good catch
yeah i see what u mean, the shadows for folders are off to the side and smaller than they should be, good catch
How come your dock folders look so big and so far off the dock? Mine are the same size as the other icons and in line. I don't see a problem with mine.
Edit: Oh I see, you have magnification on But then surely the shadow would sit back and shrink as the icon moves up, so it's not really incorrect.
Edit: Oh I see, you have magnification on
But then surely the shadow would sit back and shrink as the icon moves up, so it's not really incorrect.
Magnification option. That way, you can keep the bulk of the dock small, and only see what you want to see.
The bear is Adium with a customized Domokun iconset (he waves his hands when you get a message)
I notice these things because I'm a UI designer myself. The problem with the shadows is that they are casting an entirely new light source now. The whole debacle about the original dock was that there was 3 light sources casting shadows on the dock. Now the 3rd light source seems to have moved to the right. But the effect doesn't work well on folders since it's only nudged the shadow to be offset. Doesn't make sense design wise. The shadow does look neat on other none square objects because if gives a sense of depth. But on folders and other square icons (finder for instance) it just looks tacky.
I notice these things because I'm a UI designer myself. The problem with the shadows is that they are casting an entirely new light source now. The whole debacle about the original dock was that there was 3 light sources casting shadows on the dock. Now the 3rd light source seems to have moved to the right. But the effect doesn't work well on folders since it's only nudged the shadow to be offset. Doesn't make sense design wise. The shadow does look neat on other none square objects because if gives a sense of depth. But on folders and other square icons (finder for instance) it just looks tacky.
I think that's just a perception issue. I've messed around with many different colors / changes, and that one still feels the best.
I've tried modding it to be a clear gloss, dark shadow etc etc... but there's really not great solution. Some thematic mods look alright but get very tiring after a while:
And the clear gloss just looks cheap and crappy:
Or just a clear white... seems a little non thematic and cheap as well:
Or a Safari 4 like border... doesn't really make it "expose -like", feels too safari like:
I'm just wondering why they didn't bother to make an Core Image powered background that has some kinda of overlay blending or vivid light blending set into the image to give it that extra design feel. I guess we'll just have to wait.
If you were truly concerned about UI design, you wouldn't have turned the dock magnification effect on.
The magnification effect is TERRIBLE UI design and thats probably why Apple keeps it off by default. When you turn it on, your icons are constantly moving around and hence very bad UI.
The magnification effect is TERRIBLE UI design and thats probably why Apple keeps it off by default. When you turn it on, your icons are constantly moving around and hence very bad UI.
Its a visual cue that reacts based on what icon your mouse is over, having it turned off is bad UI design because its hard to tell where your mouse is. Magnification is not done well but its better than nothing, it would have been better to have just a single icon react to a mouse over.
I think the shadows are just fine. The shadow is done with a 3d perspective thus when you raise and bring forward (the action of making larger) the shadow would naturally move back and get smaller. It is not centered because the light is coming from a angle thus this is why you are seeing what you do.
It happens all the time in the real life. I don't shy why it should happen any differently on your computer.
Shadows are cool.
-Zeek
I had the magnification on to show off the shadows in case people like the first two posters can't see them. Dock magnification is atrocious UI design, actually the dock itself is atrocious. Moving targets, wrong perspectives, not highlighting which application you are currently selecting.. etc.
My simple fix for the dock is to make it Windows 7 like (hides behind a rock). Make it stretch the entirety of the width of the screen, no magnification options. Finder is always hard left of the screen, recyclebin is always hard right. Then you can define much better areas for application and document shortcuts. The one thing I'd like to see in the Dock is some sort of notion that this is the application you've selected. Way too many times I think I'm in Safari, when I'm in Finder with no windows open and I press Cmd K for search and it pops up the connect to server window, which esc doesn't quit I have to cmd W it.
You're obviously not a designer and shadows are not cool. They were cool when I was starting off playing with photoshop.
The multiple light sources totally throws off the shadowing. There is a light source coming from the keyboard into the screen (causing the back shadow), there is a light source coming 60 degrees off the horizontal casting a shadow on the Dock, AND there is another light source from the original icon itself (the 45 degree angle that the Apple UI spec defines for app icons)
The Dock itself casts no shadow.. which makes it odd as well (especially if you have it hiding)
It's just a mess in my opinion, shoddy work.
There is already a visual cue when you hover over a dock icon; the name of the app or folder instantly appears above the icon. Sorry, but anyone with any kind of UI design training would know that dock magnification is simply terrible as far as UI design goes.
Dock magnification is only good for showing off to Windows using friends.
Actually, the thread title should be
"Did Apple fire its UI designer?", instead of
"Did Apple fire it's UI designer?"
After all, that's every bit as important as the miniscule "flaw" you're discussing!
One reason why I default mine back to the 2D version of the dock
Can't stand the "shelf".
-Kevin
One reason why I default mine back to the 2D version of the dock
Can't stand the "shelf".
-Kevin
No shît. Anyone who's not using the 2D dock is just taking what's given to them. Besides, the new black context menu style on the dock looks great with the 2D dock!
You mean that small transparent world bubble that hovers 50 pixels above the icon, overlaps other icons, and is almost impossible to see on a photograph background? Ya that works great as a mouse over. Please dont tell me you think thats good.
Nothing about the dock is very good, but having a slight magnification makes it a lot easier to use since you never lose track of where your mouse is. The word bubble above each icon is a joke, I always forget its even there.
hey wankey
Looks like he got them form..
http://macthemes2.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16798576
took me a while to find it, but I did!