5 ms·

I don't think if you instructed someone to make a UI with greyscale 3D bevels it would look as close to NEXTSTEP as Windows 95 was. There's specific things like

I don't think if you instructed someone to make a UI with greyscale 3D bevels it would look as close to NEXTSTEP as Windows 95 was. There's specific things like the source of light being on the top left, etc, which make them nearly identical.

pmontra 3y ago
There is a good reason to have a light source on the top: it's the natural position of the sun and of most artificial light sources. Then it could be straight from the top, but you only get one side lit and furthermore it's not very natural as it happens rarely. Then it's only two choices, from the left or from the right. A coin flip? Actually no. Top left lightning has a long history for some good reasons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-left_lighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-left_lighting so we could say it's the only professional and safe choice
- pazimzadeh 3y ago
  > it could be straight from the top, but you only get one side lit No, you could have the top highlight be 2 pts deep and the sides be 1 pt and one shade darker, or something like that. There are many other ways to do it. > and furthermore it's not very natural as it happens rarely Every day from 10 am to noon (1/3rd of the day), and any time you have your back to the sun? > we could say it's the only professional and safe choice Mac OS X has top down lighting and it looks great. I think what you are trying to say is that you can't think of any other ways to design the buttons. Anyway, top left lighting is not the only detail they copied. BeOS had top-left lighting and still managed not to look like an exact clone of NEXTSTEP.
acqq 3y ago
For the reference: NextStep 3.3 screenshot http://toastytech.com/guis/ns33nfsmanager.png http://toastytech.com/guis/ns33nfsmanager.png (3.0 released Sept 1992, 3.3 Feb 1995) Windows 95 released Aug 1995.

5 ms·

I don't think if you instructed someone to make a UI with greyscale 3D bevels it would look as close to NEXTSTEP as Windows 95 was. There's specific things like

by pazimzadeh 3y ago

pmontra 3y ago
There is a good reason to have a light source on the top: it's the natural position of the sun and of most artificial light sources. Then it could be straight from the top, but you only get one side lit and furthermore it's not very natural as it happens rarely. Then it's only two choices, from the left or from the right. A coin flip? Actually no. Top left lightning has a long history for some good reasons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-left_lighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-left_lighting so we could say it's the only professional and safe choice
- pazimzadeh 3y ago
  > it could be straight from the top, but you only get one side lit No, you could have the top highlight be 2 pts deep and the sides be 1 pt and one shade darker, or something like that. There are many other ways to do it. > and furthermore it's not very natural as it happens rarely Every day from 10 am to noon (1/3rd of the day), and any time you have your back to the sun? > we could say it's the only professional and safe choice Mac OS X has top down lighting and it looks great. I think what you are trying to say is that you can't think of any other ways to design the buttons. Anyway, top left lighting is not the only detail they copied. BeOS had top-left lighting and still managed not to look like an exact clone of NEXTSTEP.
acqq 3y ago
For the reference: NextStep 3.3 screenshot http://toastytech.com/guis/ns33nfsmanager.png http://toastytech.com/guis/ns33nfsmanager.png (3.0 released Sept 1992, 3.3 Feb 1995) Windows 95 released Aug 1995.