Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac OS X Theme Change in Leopard Seed 9A410

ChildOL said:
I suppose personally I am feeling the brunt of this and am a bit bitter since I like Apple because of their OS, and I still use a G4 powermac so I have that "left behind" thing going on. I watch flash videos every day and flash sucks on a mac and I wish they would fix it and so I hope with every release of OS X that it will be fixed but alas it is not :(
Click to expand...
Um, Apple doesn't make Flash. That would be Macromedia/Adobe. I suggest you take up your gripe with them.

I can't recall a single problem I've had with Flash video (I use a G4 Powerbook). My thinking is that the errors you're experiencing are somewhere between the chair and the keyboard.

You know, I don't believe that you're not a troll. I really hope you're not because your astounding ignorance reflects very poorly on the Mac community.
 
Performance aside, I am all for change; but if you are going to get rid of the brushed metal look, at least surpass it with something that looks as good or better. I think the plain grey is about as aesthetically pleasing as a DMV.
 
wmmk said:
Hmmm...
At first, UNO seemed cool to me, but then I realized the wisdom in a non-unified GUI:
You can tell apps apart more easily

I still hate brushed metal and stripes, but like having some degree of variety in my UI. ....
Click to expand...

Agreed. And it looks like there will still be variety: all apps MAY have metal title bars, but underneath some are still white while others are all-metal.

What I do NOT like is having multiple slightly-different versions of metal (like iTunes vs. Safari) and multiple slightly-different versions of white (like TextEdit vs. Mail).

I like the newer white look--the "unified" white (meaning titlebar and toolbar are unified without a line) for white apps. Like Mail and Prefs have. (The term "unified" doesn't mean metal-and-white unified, it means titlebar-and-toolbar unified.)

I also like the newer metal look that iTunes has (except for the scrollbars) better than Safari's brushed texture.

If something consistent can evolve from the new (unified) white and the new (non-brushed) metal, then we can still have variety in apps, with some using white below the top bar--but not so much chaos of NEARLY-alike themes!

And that improvement is what I'm seeing in these screenshots. Which isn't surprising, since the OS is going res-independent and unifying the themes into fewer slightly-different flavors makes that an easier job.

As for "going back to Platinum"--it's a nice sound bite, but no more. You might as well say the white OS X look we've had so far "goes back to System 6" since it has grooves in the title bar and lots of white. One or two details like square corners do not Platinum make. (How many shapes of corners are there to choose from? :p )

Change is always painful, but inevitable. We'll get used to it.
 
Why does everyone hate "Ye Olde Platinum"?
Give me it over Aqua any day. I would love to see platinum again. I mean, when you look at the Blue theme, It looks like something that would be for a beginner who doesn't know what buttons are for closing/minimizing, etc. Most that I know use Graphite or shapeshifter with an impossible-to-use, resource hogging theme. I would love to be able to switch between a platinum theme, the "Pro" theme, and an unusable (But show-y) translucent black "Glass" theme. And why can't we choose the colour (or tint) of windows and/or buttons?
 
coffeecty said:
Why does everyone hate "Ye Olde Platinum"?
Give me it over Aqua any day. I would love to see platinum again. I mean, when you look at the Blue theme, It looks like something that would be for a beginner who doesn't know what buttons are for closing/minimizing, etc. Most that I know use Graphite or shapeshifter with an impossible-to-use, resource hogging theme. I would love to be able to switch between a platinum theme, the "Pro" theme, and an unusable (But show-y) translucent black "Glass" theme. And why can't we choose the colour (or tint) of windows and/or buttons?
Click to expand...

No, Platinum wasn't anything bad, but it wasn't anything especially bad, either. It was more customizable and it's great to collapse the title bar and all, but it missed click-through, which I find necessary for ye old Mac OS' modal Finder. The Aqua Blue theme is great for anyone not doing graphical work, and many people complain that Aqua Graphite won't allow you to focus on your work, but I think I can rather well, and it's certainly better than a giant orange X and a green blob. :rolleyes: I don't think a black-based UI is a good idea because I think it can be harder to read things on desktop and notebooks (cell phones...I'm okay with it) and would just give everything an odd look. Sure, it's okay to have a black sheet here and there, especially in iLife, where it's generally found, but I don't think a UI based off of it would be a good idea.
 
I wasn't really bummed about the delay until I saw those screens.

The new look is terrible. Most notably is the text in the bar against the grey. Not enough contrast.

I had hopes about these secret features being significant and the new look and finder being beautiful.

I am not so optimistic now. For the first time, in Daring Fireball, a pundit questioned whether these secret feature were even real.

I have the sinking feeling Leopard is a half-baked, barely inspired upgrade.

I hope I am wrong. I really do. But I have my doubts...
 
Well, I have hope that this UI is temporary and the finalised feature list announced at WWDC will include some extra bonuses.
 
psychometry said:
Um, Apple doesn't make Flash. That would be Macromedia/Adobe. I suggest you take up your gripe with them.

I can't recall a single problem I've had with Flash video (I use a G4 Powerbook). My thinking is that the errors you're experiencing are somewhere between the chair and the keyboard.

You know, I don't believe that you're not a troll. I really hope you're not because your astounding ignorance reflects very poorly on the Mac community.
Click to expand...

Please don't insult me, I have been using Windows since 1994 and have been a PC technician and developer for over a decade and Mac technician and developer for 7 years now so I do know what I am talking about. The Flash player has ALWAYS performed much worse compared to a Windows PC (and thats a PC with lower specs). The fact that later versions of OS X has actually "improved" the performance with the use of Core technologies AND the fact that PowerPC Mac OS even HAS flash would mean Apple has to be involved in it's implementation working with Macromedia/Adobe (PPC Linux users are not so lucky).

FYI I am not getting "errors" I am getting CHOPPY flash animation and CHOPPY flash video. Even though I use a DUAL 533Mhz G4 CPU PowerMac running ONE flash video usually takes up around 50-70% of BOTH CPUs yet is STILL semi-choppy (on my G4 800Mhz iMac it takes 95%-100% of the CPU and is WAY worse), just go to http://video.google.com and watch some videos and see what I mean. it's worse when it is still downloading the flash video etc. you would think the downloading would be a separate thread than the animation/video itself IDK. Sometimes it seems as though it is the browser integration or thread usage of the browser, it's hard for me to tell what the issue is exactly but I am sure this is on both Apple AND Adobe.

I'm doing two things here soon, upgrading to SATA and getting a Radeon 9800 Pro with 256MB of video memory in hopes that it will help.

Wanna test how slow your flash is on a mac? go here and compare: http://www.foodforlife.com (12 seconds on an old Windows machine (using over 90% of the CPU) for the flash to animate until the bird on the right comes down but 25 seconds for my machine using about 60% of both CPUs)
 
BWhaler said:
I wasn't really bummed about the delay until I saw those screens.

The new look is terrible. Most notably is the text in the bar against the grey. Not enough contrast.

I had hopes about these secret features being significant and the new look and finder being beautiful.
Click to expand...

It's a placeholder theme. It not the final theme. NOT THE FINAL THEME. A PLACEHOLDER.

Jesus, all the drama here. It's seriously worse than high school.
 
shrimpdesign said:
It's a placeholder theme. It not the final theme. NOT THE FINAL THEME. A PLACEHOLDER.

Jesus, all the drama here. It's seriously worse than high school.
Click to expand...

Yeah, seriously. Whenever there's a dramatic day at school (which is almost everyday), I come here to relax, but today, for the first time in two years, I want to do the opposite. :(

And my family is also panicking for no apparent reason. It's that time of year again....

Am I the only sane person????? ;)
 
So far in Leopard we've had these theme changes:

iChat metal--->white
iCal metal-->white
Automator metal-->white
Safari metal-->gray
Finder metal-->gray
Spotlight white-->gray
Preview becomes Mailified

I'm trying to find a pattern, but I can't. It's like Apple threw a die to decide how to change the app. Well, at least we can bury metal next to OS 9.

Edit:well, apparently from the other thread, everything has gone dark, even mail. Huh. Can't say I like it, but it's about time Apple got consistent.
 
I for one like this new look. I use UNO with Tiger now so I should adjust quickly to the new themem. However I dont want them to take away all the aqua like they did to itunes. I dont want it to become boring with no color. At least I finally get to see that brushed metal go.
 
I hope this is a joke - a really bad joke - in case I'm not seeing the same thing as everyone else ( cos I can't believe my frickin eyes right now!!) - this is just flat boring dull grey laid over the old brushed metal , right ?.
 
ChildOL said:
FYI I am not getting "errors" I am getting CHOPPY flash animation and CHOPPY flash video. Even though I use a DUAL 533Mhz G4 CPU PowerMac running ONE flash video usually takes up around 50-70% of BOTH CPUs yet is STILL semi-choppy (on my G4 800Mhz iMac it takes 95%-100% of the CPU and is WAY worse), just go to http://video.google.com and watch some videos and see what I mean. it's worse when it is still downloading the flash video etc. you would think the downloading would be a separate thread than the animation/video itself IDK. Sometimes it seems as though it is the browser integration or thread usage of the browser, it's hard for me to tell what the issue is exactly but I am sure this is on both Apple AND Adobe.

I'm doing two things here soon, upgrading to SATA and getting a Radeon 9800 Pro with 256MB of video memory in hopes that it will help.

Wanna test how slow your flash is on a mac? go here and compare: http://www.foodforlife.com (12 seconds on an old Windows machine (using over 90% of the CPU) for the flash to animate until the bird on the right comes down but 25 seconds for my machine using about 60% of both CPUs)
Click to expand...
It's a well-known knowledge that Flash don't run as fast on Mac than Windows on a comparable machine. And Flash prior version 8 is notoriously heavy on resources, they did clean up and optimize with v8 but it is still not enough. Lastly, you should look at Adobe for an answer, NOT Apple. Adobe is the one that code and give out flash player and it's plugin to Safari, not Apple.
 
shrimpdesign said:
It's a placeholder theme. It not the final theme. NOT THE FINAL THEME. A PLACEHOLDER.

Jesus, all the drama here. It's seriously worse than high school.
Click to expand...

You have absolutely no idea if this is the case. It is your speculation, nothingmore. That much is for certain.

So save the lectures. Let people express their opinions and stop pretending that "you know" anything more than anyone else here.
 
I think a more interesting prospect is that all the finder elements could be core-animation elements. The dull-grey is just a placeholder texture that is layed down and light-sourced by Core-Animation.

Choose a different texture and your system-wide look is redone real-time.

this is mostly speculation, but in line with predictions that core-animation will take a bigger role in the UI.

arn
 
Ah, the website with big pictures is full. I am meh with the new look from what I saw from the small photos, I wish it has glossy black (like in time machine) incorperated into it.
 
im getting pretty sick of the brushed metal look, apple needs to update with something shinny :rolleyes:
 
arn said:
I think a more interesting prospect is that all the finder elements could be core-animation elements. The dull-grey is just a placeholder texture that is layed down and light-sourced by Core-Animation.

Choose a different texture and your system-wide look is redone real-time.

this is mostly speculation, but in line with predictions that core-animation will take a bigger role in the UI.

arn
Click to expand...

So, sort of like themes in Mac OS 8 and 9?
 
So is this the big user interface change? Is this the big Aero killer? The move away from brushed metal, which can be achieved by a simple third party app called UNO?

Give me a break.
 
iMacZealot said:
So, sort of like themes in Mac OS 8 and 9?
Click to expand...

I guess I don't really see Apple going all out with customizable themes, as I feel like they like to have a unified look to the Mac... that being said, core-animation is very cool, and it seems they could do some crazy stuff for it.

like daytime/nighttime effects or whatever in real time.

arn
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back