5 ms·

Rounded corners seems like a feature that has unexpectedly high performance penalty but the ui designers refused to let it go.

bee_rider 3y ago
Is it possible that they are just the well know representative example? I vaguely suspect they that is the case, but I can’t think of the broader class they are an example of, haha. The play button they show seems to be a good one, though. It is really nice to have it overlaid on the video.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  Fortunately the Play button disappears when the video starts playing, so it has no effect on the frame rate! Or instead of a triangular Play button, you could draw a big funny nose in some position and orientation, and the game would be to pause the video on a frame with somebody's face in it, with the nose in just the right spot. I don't know why the vlc project is ignoring my prs.
solarkraft 3y ago
It's something I as a user would also refuse to let go, given that the performance penalty is reasonably small (I think it is).
- torginus 3y ago
  I think the point is that it's not - rather than just copying a rectangular area to the screen, you have to go through the intermediate step of rendering everything to a temporary buffer, and compositing the results via a shader.
  - chris_wot 3y ago
    But… the example given shows that they place the video frame behind the window an make the front window transparent except for the round play button. This apparently offloads the frame… so why not just do the same for rounded corners? What am I missing?
    - nagisa 3y ago
      The selfie example has an explanation under it. Summary: because the video subsurface is square and needs to be clipped to produce rounded corners. Otherwise you would have corners of the video surface protruding from under the corners.
DonHopkins 3y ago
It's not like crazy out of control avant garde different thinking UI designers haven't and totally ruined the user interface of a simple video player ever before! Interface Hall of Shame - QuickTime 4.0 Player (1999): http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.htm http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.htm
- anthk 3y ago
  And then you have smplayer (Multiplatform) and mpc-hc as a good balance between usability and features. I might write some UI for mplayer/mpv on Motif some day, is not rocket science, you basically talk to both with sockets and sending commands. Kinda like mpc/mpd.
bsder 3y ago
Professional designers mostly cut their teeth on physical objects and physical objects almost never have sharp corners. This then got driven into the ground with the "Fisher-Price GUI" that is the norm on mobile because you can't do anything with precision since you don't have a mouse. I would actually really like to see a UI with just rectangles. Really. It's okay, designers. Take a deep breath and say: "GUIs aren't bound by the physical". BeOS and MacOS used to be very rectangular. Give us a nice nostaligia wave of fad design with rectangles, please. Animations and drop shadows are another thing I'd like to see disappear.
- twoodfin 3y ago
  Rounded corners for windows have been in the Macintosh operating system since the beginning. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_...
  - bsder 3y ago
    Yes, but often not in the interaction areas: http://toastytech.com/guis/macos1.html http://toastytech.com/guis/macos1.html Or, take a look at the interaction mechanisms and palettes in MacPaint: https://www.punchkick.com/blog/2015/08/07/how-apple-has-shaped-the-user-interface https://www.punchkick.com/blog/2015/08/07/how-apple-has-shap... Even in the 1990s, it was a lot of squareness. And, as I point out, physical objects have rounded corners for a reason. Computers GUIs do not share that reason. Rounded corners are a design choice. A different design choice can be made. One other thing that people forget is that rounded things generally suck for packing.
    - toast0 3y ago
      > And, as I point out, physical objects have rounded corners for a reason. Computers GUIs do not share that reason. I knew a guy who poked his eye out on a Windows 3.1 window corner. Super brutal, was running on only 16-colors too. It was the upper left corner, so there wasn't even a drop shadow to help.
- 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
play_ac 3y ago
If you're writing a video player or a game or something else that wants direct scan-out, then you can disable the round corners in your CSS.

bee_rider 3y ago

Is it possible that they are just the well know representative example? I vaguely suspect they that is the case, but I can’t think of the broader class they are an example of, haha. The play button they show seems to be a good one, though. It is really nice to have it overlaid on the video.

DonHopkins 3y ago
Fortunately the Play button disappears when the video starts playing, so it has no effect on the frame rate! Or instead of a triangular Play button, you could draw a big funny nose in some position and orientation, and the game would be to pause the video on a frame with somebody's face in it, with the nose in just the right spot. I don't know why the vlc project is ignoring my prs.

solarkraft 3y ago

It's something I as a user would also refuse to let go, given that the performance penalty is reasonably small (I think it is).

torginus 3y ago
I think the point is that it's not - rather than just copying a rectangular area to the screen, you have to go through the intermediate step of rendering everything to a temporary buffer, and compositing the results via a shader.
- chris_wot 3y ago
  But… the example given shows that they place the video frame behind the window an make the front window transparent except for the round play button. This apparently offloads the frame… so why not just do the same for rounded corners? What am I missing?
  - nagisa 3y ago
    The selfie example has an explanation under it. Summary: because the video subsurface is square and needs to be clipped to produce rounded corners. Otherwise you would have corners of the video surface protruding from under the corners.

DonHopkins 3y ago

It's not like crazy out of control avant garde different thinking UI designers haven't and totally ruined the user interface of a simple video player ever before! Interface Hall of Shame - QuickTime 4.0 Player (1999): http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.htm http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.htm

anthk 3y ago
And then you have smplayer (Multiplatform) and mpc-hc as a good balance between usability and features. I might write some UI for mplayer/mpv on Motif some day, is not rocket science, you basically talk to both with sockets and sending commands. Kinda like mpc/mpd.

bsder 3y ago

Professional designers mostly cut their teeth on physical objects and physical objects almost never have sharp corners. This then got driven into the ground with the "Fisher-Price GUI" that is the norm on mobile because you can't do anything with precision since you don't have a mouse. I would actually really like to see a UI with just rectangles. Really. It's okay, designers. Take a deep breath and say: "GUIs aren't bound by the physical". BeOS and MacOS used to be very rectangular. Give us a nice nostaligia wave of fad design with rectangles, please. Animations and drop shadows are another thing I'd like to see disappear.

twoodfin 3y ago
Rounded corners for windows have been in the Macintosh operating system since the beginning. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_...
- bsder 3y ago
  Yes, but often not in the interaction areas: http://toastytech.com/guis/macos1.html http://toastytech.com/guis/macos1.html Or, take a look at the interaction mechanisms and palettes in MacPaint: https://www.punchkick.com/blog/2015/08/07/how-apple-has-shaped-the-user-interface https://www.punchkick.com/blog/2015/08/07/how-apple-has-shap... Even in the 1990s, it was a lot of squareness. And, as I point out, physical objects have rounded corners for a reason. Computers GUIs do not share that reason. Rounded corners are a design choice. A different design choice can be made. One other thing that people forget is that rounded things generally suck for packing.
  - toast0 3y ago
    > And, as I point out, physical objects have rounded corners for a reason. Computers GUIs do not share that reason. I knew a guy who poked his eye out on a Windows 3.1 window corner. Super brutal, was running on only 16-colors too. It was the upper left corner, so there wasn't even a drop shadow to help.
3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

play_ac 3y ago

If you're writing a video player or a game or something else that wants direct scan-out, then you can disable the round corners in your CSS.