Why Apple cannot replace Aqua in Leopard

[iancapable]

Shapeshifter doesn't change everything. I haven't used it but would imagine it changes standard widgets(scrollbars, table headers, aqua buttons etc etc), not custom ones.

prove me wrong.

This is yet to be seen by me... Ah well my new mac is coming next week and I'll install shapeshifter on it and have a play. I would think that having widgets that don't at least take on the look and feel by inheritance (they can still look different) would be a major development mistake... Even Microsoft do this.

 

[2ndPath]

If you re-read the post, no one is saying it it totally impossible. We are saying that Aqua cannot be replaced come Leopard, even if Apple did decide to replace the interface style. Aqua would still be on your system.

Also, all these points below kinda suggest they aren't going to try:

- None of the Leopard builds so far how any new interfaces
- Apple have already created scalable aqua widgets for resolution independence(why would they do this if they had a new UI planned?)
- It's getting mightly close to release time
- Devs have been working with the new Xcode and IB for a while now, no new interfaces.
- Dev would be kinda pissed if Apple sprung a new interface on them 2 weeks before Leopard gets released.
- None of the other 10.X releases had major changes, just tweaks to standard elements.

I just hope people don't get their hopes up cause so far Nothing indicates that we are getting a new interface.

Actually the resolution indepence was the first thing I was thinking about, when reading about redesigning widgets. If this will be fully implemented in Leopard, all programs will have to have adjusted widget for resolution independence. If they don't, they will either look terible or be not resolution independent. So work from third parties is required anyways.

Then concerning the possible changes in the style: If the disappearance of Aqua means the disappearance of the blue jelly things or their reduction, I could see this coming. But I wouldn't even see this as such a big change. The number of blue jelly widgets has already decreased over the time. 10.0 had a lot more of them (At least my impression). Nowadays in Apples applications I mainly just see them in standard widgets as scroll bars, pull down menus and select buttons.

Besides the blue jelly I guess they will slightly adjust the textures used for the window backgrounds and title bars as they did with every new OSX release so far. And hopefully they will manage to get the appearance of all their applications to get a bit more consistent.

 

[aussieNickuss]

I still love the glossy buttons and scroll bars....but I think the brushed metal in the Finder and Safari has to finally go. I like the smooth look in Mail...I think they should uniform that throughout the OS.

Apple should have a feature in 10.5 to set non-focused windows to semi-transparent, like they were way back in 10.2....and maybe like Vista.