Do you miss Aqua UI?

[turbineseaplane]

Yeah, I can't stand light mode on MacOS for this reason. With more contrast like the pre-Yosemite UI, I might be tempted to use it more.

Tahoe doesn't seem to have improved things much either. The drop shadows and floating sidebar looks more like a beginner learning CSS for the first time and going crazy with drop shadow and border radius than it does a UI designed by a trillion dollar company.

I've been on Sequoia this last week (my 2015 15" MBP) and it's so nice and relaxing.

I have an upgrade coming on Monday (M5) and I'll be back on Tahoe. Sigh.
🫣

 

[vindasal]

Where did you get that screenshot? OS X never shipped with those folder icons, and the toolbar is not aligned and with the wrong style. That seems a third-party mod.

Not OP, but it’s an old Tiger theme pack for Snow Leopard, I don’t remember exactly which but it was on DeviantArt at the time. You can tell as well because of the Downloads folder in the sidebar and there’s no blue circle under the Spotlight icon.

 

[zevrix]

Do you happen to remember the utility for Intel Macs?

Yes, it's MacForge:

MacForge - macEnhance

Simple plugin manager for macOS.

www.macenhance.com

and you'll also need its colorfulsidebar plug-in:

GitHub - w0lfschild/colorfulSidebar: :open_file_folder: MacForge plugin to add color back to the sidebar icons in Finder on macOS

:open_file_folder: MacForge plugin to add color back to the sidebar icons in Finder on macOS - w0lfschild/colorfulSidebar

github.com

 

[Hastings101]

The only thing I really miss from Tiger (the peak Aqua era) is contrast. Overall I'm kind of torn and my opinion changes all the time. Right now, I don't really miss the rest of Aqua anymore. I like macOS current design with Liquid Glass with the caveat that Apple needs to keep working on legibility. Which they have imo, I can barely tell the difference between 'clear' and 'tinted' styles now which to me means concessions have been made. The final bad part that I interact with daily is the 'screen mirroring' area of control panel, and even that text has been made much better even recently.

That said, legibility problems are nothing new for macOS. The weird years post Tiger era of Leopard and Snow Leopard that had black or light grey text on grey backgrounds everywhere was the start, and that was still Aqua until Lion came out which is when I consider Aqua dead.

 

[blufrog]

When I bought my first Mac in 2006, Tiger was the current OS, and Aqua was paired with an aluminium finish. It looked amazing. It gave the Mac a fun look. I miss it. I blame Jony Ive for taking it away from us. Do you miss it?

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I totally miss it! I don't dislike what we have now, but definitely want Aqua back!!! Modern UIs are too...clinical, and/or massive wastes of space. Tahoe is heading in the "waste of space" direction.

I run a 40" 4K monitor, size 8 fonts in my code and text editors, and run the UI such you can actually put several windows side-by-side with room to spare.

Not sure what's with this obsession with every single element needing 3 acres of space around it. Even for a touch interface it is excessive, and not even required on a traditional computer with a pointing device. UGH!!!