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> in the case of the proxy icon, the types of interactions you could perform with it were mostly undiscoverable and unknown to a lot of users. That's a good po

> in the case of the proxy icon, the types of interactions you could perform with it were mostly undiscoverable and unknown to a lot of users. That's a good point I hadn't thought of -- I love the proxy icon. I'm glad it's still there, but this kind of feels like Apple is implicitly saying, "Look, for the ten of you who knew what this was, you still do it, but we're just hiding it from everyone else, sorry."

SllX 6y ago
It’s easy to take every UI change as an affront, particularly when somebody changes something we liked. Just from what I’ve seen though, it appears the goal is a simply a more space efficient UI. It’s not a bad goal, even though I still want to beat them over the head with the Dock which functioned better under NeXTSTEP than it ever did under Mac OS X, and the stoplight isn’t doing anyone any favors over the Mac OS 9 window controls. I guess I shouldn’t be fighting the wars of 20 years ago though. It is what it is, and since the goal seems to be to rebuild everything in SwiftUI eventually, maybe the Dock will finally be reconsidered in the next few versions when they get around to it.
- masswerk 6y ago
  The problem is, it seems to be not so much about space efficiency, but about streamlined appearance (e.g., there's now less horizontal space and fewer controls are shown at once), which translates to low semantic contrast, wich again translates to lower work efficiency. And it's the latter, which causes most of the criticism, as not all users want to trade personal time and usability for looks (or prettier printouts of the UI).
  - SllX 6y ago
    I'm not going to defend Apple's work on this front, it's just they decided to consolidate the title bar and toolbar to free up some vertical screen real estate pressure and they're leaning hard on these slide animations to hide some of the UI elements so as to not overload the toolbar/titlebar thing. That to me looks like a botched attempt to make it more space efficient, although I do at least like the bit with the search bar. John Siracusa has a different theory though, and having had time to go through and examine to changes in the HIG in more detail, I'm inclined to agree. The spacing and layout and sizing appears to make Mac OS XI more "touchable", i.e. we should expect Macs with touch screens at some point.
    - masswerk 6y ago
      I can also see, why this is not a bad choice for touch interfaces. However, at the same time, this also illustrates, why it may be not that great a choice for a WIMP interface: the kind of "intimacy" related to the specific mode of interaction is essentially different. Where contrast and too much of variety may be irritating for a touch interface, it may be already too low in contrast and information density for a WIMP GUI. On the other hand, visual grouping (and semantic collapsing of groups) is much more important for the more remote WIMP interface, whereas touch already is much more locally focused. Generally, treating them both the same isn't a good idea.
- snuxoll 6y ago
  I don’t mind the stoplight. I do mind Apple repurposing the god damned zoom button for fullscreen, requiring I hold option every time or having to install third party tools for what should be at worst a freaking plist change.
  - SllX 6y ago
    A circle given the same height provides a smaller pointer target than a square. The stoplight was also a downgrade over the shapes, positioning and functionality of the Mac OS 9 window controls. Stickies still uses these controls by the way, if you want to see what it is like. Close is all the way over on the left and its a box, I would prefer an X ("batsu"), but it's a box. WindowShade-style minimize is all the way over on the right, and Zoom, well it's the triangle but its been degraded in functionality. At this point it's maximize and revert, provided you don't resize it from its maximized state. Re: Zoom. Maybe you already know this, but just in case you don't, double click the titlebar. Even works in Safari, although there's less "titlebar" to work with. If you already know all that, well, maybe it will help someone else reading through the thread. That said I did use BetterTouchTool to modify its behavior because I too was frustrated with changing functional behavior and I recently bought a three button mouse to use in addition to my other input methods, but I decided to make it default Zoom, but middle click Full Screen. You can also set a keyboard shortcut if you like in the Keyboard settings (no third party software required) within System Preferences. Just go to App Shortcuts, All Applications, add a shortcut, for the Menu Title type Zoom and then just record your shortcut.
    - armandhammer 6y ago
      >A circle given the same height provides a smaller pointer target than a square. To be fair, the click target of the traffic light circles isn't limited to the actual drawn pixels. You can click a fair few pixels outside of it and still get the same result (basically wherever the hover state activates).
      - SllX 6y ago
        Yes but given the same margin for error, a square would still be a bigger target. The stoplight was a pure aesthetic choice, I would have preferred more functional choices, but it was probably the right call at the time to go for aesthetics. A new aesthetic on a new operating system, that’s exciting, that gets people talking. That said, it’s one of the last elements of Aqua that has remained almost entirely untouched, through pinstripes, brushed metal, stitched leather and now apparently, iOS 7 Strikes Back or whatever we’re going to call it in Mac OS XI.

SllX 6y ago

It’s easy to take every UI change as an affront, particularly when somebody changes something we liked. Just from what I’ve seen though, it appears the goal is a simply a more space efficient UI. It’s not a bad goal, even though I still want to beat them over the head with the Dock which functioned better under NeXTSTEP than it ever did under Mac OS X, and the stoplight isn’t doing anyone any favors over the Mac OS 9 window controls. I guess I shouldn’t be fighting the wars of 20 years ago though. It is what it is, and since the goal seems to be to rebuild everything in SwiftUI eventually, maybe the Dock will finally be reconsidered in the next few versions when they get around to it.

masswerk 6y ago
The problem is, it seems to be not so much about space efficiency, but about streamlined appearance (e.g., there's now less horizontal space and fewer controls are shown at once), which translates to low semantic contrast, wich again translates to lower work efficiency. And it's the latter, which causes most of the criticism, as not all users want to trade personal time and usability for looks (or prettier printouts of the UI).
- SllX 6y ago
  I'm not going to defend Apple's work on this front, it's just they decided to consolidate the title bar and toolbar to free up some vertical screen real estate pressure and they're leaning hard on these slide animations to hide some of the UI elements so as to not overload the toolbar/titlebar thing. That to me looks like a botched attempt to make it more space efficient, although I do at least like the bit with the search bar. John Siracusa has a different theory though, and having had time to go through and examine to changes in the HIG in more detail, I'm inclined to agree. The spacing and layout and sizing appears to make Mac OS XI more "touchable", i.e. we should expect Macs with touch screens at some point.
  - masswerk 6y ago
    I can also see, why this is not a bad choice for touch interfaces. However, at the same time, this also illustrates, why it may be not that great a choice for a WIMP interface: the kind of "intimacy" related to the specific mode of interaction is essentially different. Where contrast and too much of variety may be irritating for a touch interface, it may be already too low in contrast and information density for a WIMP GUI. On the other hand, visual grouping (and semantic collapsing of groups) is much more important for the more remote WIMP interface, whereas touch already is much more locally focused. Generally, treating them both the same isn't a good idea.
snuxoll 6y ago
I don’t mind the stoplight. I do mind Apple repurposing the god damned zoom button for fullscreen, requiring I hold option every time or having to install third party tools for what should be at worst a freaking plist change.
- SllX 6y ago
  A circle given the same height provides a smaller pointer target than a square. The stoplight was also a downgrade over the shapes, positioning and functionality of the Mac OS 9 window controls. Stickies still uses these controls by the way, if you want to see what it is like. Close is all the way over on the left and its a box, I would prefer an X ("batsu"), but it's a box. WindowShade-style minimize is all the way over on the right, and Zoom, well it's the triangle but its been degraded in functionality. At this point it's maximize and revert, provided you don't resize it from its maximized state. Re: Zoom. Maybe you already know this, but just in case you don't, double click the titlebar. Even works in Safari, although there's less "titlebar" to work with. If you already know all that, well, maybe it will help someone else reading through the thread. That said I did use BetterTouchTool to modify its behavior because I too was frustrated with changing functional behavior and I recently bought a three button mouse to use in addition to my other input methods, but I decided to make it default Zoom, but middle click Full Screen. You can also set a keyboard shortcut if you like in the Keyboard settings (no third party software required) within System Preferences. Just go to App Shortcuts, All Applications, add a shortcut, for the Menu Title type Zoom and then just record your shortcut.
  - armandhammer 6y ago
    >A circle given the same height provides a smaller pointer target than a square. To be fair, the click target of the traffic light circles isn't limited to the actual drawn pixels. You can click a fair few pixels outside of it and still get the same result (basically wherever the hover state activates).
    - SllX 6y ago
      Yes but given the same margin for error, a square would still be a bigger target. The stoplight was a pure aesthetic choice, I would have preferred more functional choices, but it was probably the right call at the time to go for aesthetics. A new aesthetic on a new operating system, that’s exciting, that gets people talking. That said, it’s one of the last elements of Aqua that has remained almost entirely untouched, through pinstripes, brushed metal, stitched leather and now apparently, iOS 7 Strikes Back or whatever we’re going to call it in Mac OS XI.