5 ms·

One of my favourite unreported MacOS issues comes from how, at some point, they changed the appearance of the window close button to be a particular shade of re

One of my favourite unreported MacOS issues comes from how, at some point, they changed the appearance of the window close button to be a particular shade of red with a tiny little X in the center. And if you happen to be using a particular kind of screen and possibly wearing glasses, that little X kind of wanders around in the button, appearing just slightly off center in a maddening way. Made only more maddening by the glasses component: https://www.robbert.org/2014/10/the-off-center-close-button/ https://www.robbert.org/2014/10/the-off-center-close-button/. That post points out it’s probably just subpixel stuff causing the issue, but I think my thick, cheap glasses at the time were adding a layer of chromatic aberration to something that was already visually confusing. I assume it’s kind of gone away at this point with all the high DPI screens these days. But I remember thinking at the time, if there was a public bug tracker, that issue would be a fun one.

trilbyglens 2y ago
This is not a software bug, but rather an optical phenomenon called "chromatic aberration". What's happening is that your glasses are bending light at different angles depending on the wavelength, to the red and blue and green are landing at slightly different places on your retina. It's a hard problem to solve optically and requires specially shaped lens. It's a common issue in telescopes, with higher end expensive scopes having these specially shaped lenses to reduce this effect.
- voctor 2y ago
  From the post: > In conclusion, the off-center “x” is real and probably an artifact of the display or how it is rendered. It is unlikely that it is the result of chromatic aberration.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- meta-level 2y ago
  from the comment: > That post points out it’s probably just subpixel stuff causing the issue, but I think my thick, cheap glasses at the time were adding a layer of chromatic aberration to something that was already visually confusing.
- dustincoates 2y ago
  Is this why, when I'm reading text on a dark background, red will appear on a different plane than white? I was just wondering the reason last night.
  - leereeves 2y ago
    A different plane?
    - amiga 2y ago
      The red text seems to be closer than the other text. As if it were floating above the other text.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
        I get that a lot with default terminal colors - on black background, dark blue and dark red look shifted in opposite directions relative to baseline (white/light colors); when both colors are used in close proximity, it gives me a strong and quite distracting 3D effect. I always thought this is specific to that color combination (red and blue on black) and LCDs, thus is perceivable by anyone, and could be used to create intentional 3D effects; I never considered glasses may be a factor too.
  - zimpenfish 2y ago
    Sounds a bit like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromostereopsis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromostereopsis > Another interesting reversal effect was observed in 1928 by Verhoeff in which the red bars were perceived as farther away and the blue bars as protruding when the bars are paired on a white background instead of a black background.
  - zerocrates 2y ago
    I have pretty strong high-index lenses, and definitely can get a kind of 3D effect. The classic terminal blue and green text colors on a black background is the situation where I first noticed it: moving my head makes them shift in different directions giving a parallax or depth effect.
- almostnormal 2y ago
  Chromatic aberration is mostly relevant further away from the center of vision. If there is an icon (or text) visually inspected carefully it is at the center where chromatic aberration matters least. The icon is mis-aligned, or its the different color subpixels of the screen that are not produced at the same place. Tradidionally, red is to the left.
  - _ph_ 2y ago
    To be precise: chromatic abberation is lowest at the center of the lens. But with glasses we often don't look through the lens center even if we have something in the center of our vision.
mrob 2y ago
>More expensive lenses have a coating to compensate for this chromatic aberration. You can't compensate for chromatic aberration with a coating. You need a compound lens made from multiple elements each with a different dispersion, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achromatic_lens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achromatic_lens More expensive glasses lenses usually have worse chromatic aberration than cheap ones. The cheapest material for glasses lenses (PADC, often called by the brand name CR-39) has one of the best Abbe numbers (measure of dispersion). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CR-39 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CR-39 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbe_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbe_number
- kortilla 2y ago
  Can you link to something to buy?
  - mrob 2y ago
    I don't think anybody makes achromatic glasses lenses because they would be too thick and heavy. AFAIK, every optician sells PADC (e.g. CR-39) lenses.
- w4rh4wk5 2y ago
  I can confirm this. I had annoyingly bad chromatic aberration with my previous glasses. I specifically asked for CR-39 lenses for my next set of glasses and now it's barely noticeable at all. I would recommend this to any programmer who uses high-contrast syntax highlighting. To me, it felt fatiguing every time I noticed differently colored words scrolling slight further than other words on a terminal screen on the same line.
  - agent86 2y ago
    One thing to keep in mind is that CR-39 is not impact resistant. They will shatter and can do horrible things to your eyes when they do. Kids should always be put in impact resistant lenses. If you’re a desk jockey, or impact resistance is not a concern, CR-39 will give the least aberration with the exception of crown glass. The hidden hack here if you need/want impact resistance is to ask for Trivex lenses. Same impact resistance as polycarbonate but much better ABBE value. It’s often overlooked because it costs a little more than polycarbonate and most people don’t complain about the distortion. Also, anecdotally, you get what you pay for with progressive lenses. I have a cheap lens in my sunglasses and a higher end lens in my daily drivers and I can easily tell the difference.
jahnu 2y ago
Another irritating thing that is captured in that image is the single pixel gap between the top of the application window and the menu bar. If the desktop background is bright it is very distracting. Not a mistake like the off centre X but drives me mad, nevertheless.
- jeffhuys 2y ago
  I knew from the very start of using macOS that it was designed around apps NOT being full-screen. Yeah, they are catering to the full-screen-apps people a little more nowadays, but embracing floating windows everywhere, and making good use of the distinction betweend CMD+Tab and CMD+~ makes it so much more powerful than just tabbing through full-screen apps, or three-finger-swiping. It also makes macOS way more beautiful to look at in my opinion.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    It’s quite maddening if you use spaces (as workspaces) and same windows across them. An option like CMD-Tabbing being restricted to only applications with windows in the current space will go a long way. Power users is an unknown concept at Apple.
    - jwells89 2y ago
      I’m not sure that they’re an unknown concept, because macOS has lots of little things tucked away all over the place for power users. It’s one of the things I miss most when using other desktops, particularly those that go maybe a little too far on the minimalism thing (like GNOME). It’s just that they expect these users to have fairly specific usage patterns and design around those. The further one’s personal patterns deviate from that expectation, the higher the level of friction encountered.
      - skydhash 2y ago
        > It’s just that they expect these users to have fairly specific usage patterns and design around those. That’s how you design generic appliances, not professional tools. While macOS is great for the users it caters to (that only use a handful of apps), it’s not for people that use their computers as computers (making it do pretty much everything).
johnwalkr 2y ago
When I got an ultra wide monitor I also noticed this for the first time on the macOS circular red X button, when wearing glasses. I guess a wide monitor has you looking at things off-axis more. It is really remarkable how much you can make the X dance around the red circle by moving your head. There's something about the colours and simplicity of that particular icon that really cause the effect. The effect is almost non-existent if you're looking at a more complex image, so I guess it's also remarkable how much your brain compensates for chromatic aberration in most contexts.
trustno2 2y ago
I mean horizontal and vertical centering is the hardest thing in computer science
amelius 2y ago
Honestly what annoys me most is that it looks like a sideways traffic light.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hedora 2y ago
My glasses cause a bit of chromatic aberration, but not enough that I'd expect to see this sort of effect except at the edges of their field of view. Now that you point it out, the X is way off center on my up-to-date M2, so I took a screenshot with default display settings and zoomed in to look at the pixel work. The X is rendered asymmetrically. It appears to be about 0.1 pixels too far to the left and down, since the antialiasing has shaded pixels "outside the X" but only on those sides. The antialiased render of the red circle is symmetric. This matches what I see without zooming in and rules out my glasses. I wonder if someone fixed the bug for low-dpi displays where subpixel rendering mattered a lot, but did so in a way that hard-coded whatever Apple shipped 10 years ago. Maintaining tall piles of hacks is hard. Alternatively, maybe their font renderer is getting wobbly in its old age. The window manager is my #1 complaint about this laptop, but crappy font rendering vs. well-configured Linux is also on my list.

trilbyglens 2y ago

This is not a software bug, but rather an optical phenomenon called "chromatic aberration". What's happening is that your glasses are bending light at different angles depending on the wavelength, to the red and blue and green are landing at slightly different places on your retina. It's a hard problem to solve optically and requires specially shaped lens. It's a common issue in telescopes, with higher end expensive scopes having these specially shaped lenses to reduce this effect.

voctor 2y ago
From the post: > In conclusion, the off-center “x” is real and probably an artifact of the display or how it is rendered. It is unlikely that it is the result of chromatic aberration.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
meta-level 2y ago
from the comment: > That post points out it’s probably just subpixel stuff causing the issue, but I think my thick, cheap glasses at the time were adding a layer of chromatic aberration to something that was already visually confusing.
dustincoates 2y ago
Is this why, when I'm reading text on a dark background, red will appear on a different plane than white? I was just wondering the reason last night.
- leereeves 2y ago
  A different plane?
  - amiga 2y ago
    The red text seems to be closer than the other text. As if it were floating above the other text.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      I get that a lot with default terminal colors - on black background, dark blue and dark red look shifted in opposite directions relative to baseline (white/light colors); when both colors are used in close proximity, it gives me a strong and quite distracting 3D effect. I always thought this is specific to that color combination (red and blue on black) and LCDs, thus is perceivable by anyone, and could be used to create intentional 3D effects; I never considered glasses may be a factor too.
- zimpenfish 2y ago
  Sounds a bit like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromostereopsis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromostereopsis > Another interesting reversal effect was observed in 1928 by Verhoeff in which the red bars were perceived as farther away and the blue bars as protruding when the bars are paired on a white background instead of a black background.
- zerocrates 2y ago
  I have pretty strong high-index lenses, and definitely can get a kind of 3D effect. The classic terminal blue and green text colors on a black background is the situation where I first noticed it: moving my head makes them shift in different directions giving a parallax or depth effect.
almostnormal 2y ago
Chromatic aberration is mostly relevant further away from the center of vision. If there is an icon (or text) visually inspected carefully it is at the center where chromatic aberration matters least. The icon is mis-aligned, or its the different color subpixels of the screen that are not produced at the same place. Tradidionally, red is to the left.
- _ph_ 2y ago
  To be precise: chromatic abberation is lowest at the center of the lens. But with glasses we often don't look through the lens center even if we have something in the center of our vision.

mrob 2y ago

>More expensive lenses have a coating to compensate for this chromatic aberration. You can't compensate for chromatic aberration with a coating. You need a compound lens made from multiple elements each with a different dispersion, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achromatic_lens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achromatic_lens More expensive glasses lenses usually have worse chromatic aberration than cheap ones. The cheapest material for glasses lenses (PADC, often called by the brand name CR-39) has one of the best Abbe numbers (measure of dispersion). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CR-39 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CR-39 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbe_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbe_number

kortilla 2y ago
Can you link to something to buy?
- mrob 2y ago
  I don't think anybody makes achromatic glasses lenses because they would be too thick and heavy. AFAIK, every optician sells PADC (e.g. CR-39) lenses.
w4rh4wk5 2y ago
I can confirm this. I had annoyingly bad chromatic aberration with my previous glasses. I specifically asked for CR-39 lenses for my next set of glasses and now it's barely noticeable at all. I would recommend this to any programmer who uses high-contrast syntax highlighting. To me, it felt fatiguing every time I noticed differently colored words scrolling slight further than other words on a terminal screen on the same line.
- agent86 2y ago
  One thing to keep in mind is that CR-39 is not impact resistant. They will shatter and can do horrible things to your eyes when they do. Kids should always be put in impact resistant lenses. If you’re a desk jockey, or impact resistance is not a concern, CR-39 will give the least aberration with the exception of crown glass. The hidden hack here if you need/want impact resistance is to ask for Trivex lenses. Same impact resistance as polycarbonate but much better ABBE value. It’s often overlooked because it costs a little more than polycarbonate and most people don’t complain about the distortion. Also, anecdotally, you get what you pay for with progressive lenses. I have a cheap lens in my sunglasses and a higher end lens in my daily drivers and I can easily tell the difference.

jahnu 2y ago

Another irritating thing that is captured in that image is the single pixel gap between the top of the application window and the menu bar. If the desktop background is bright it is very distracting. Not a mistake like the off centre X but drives me mad, nevertheless.

jeffhuys 2y ago
I knew from the very start of using macOS that it was designed around apps NOT being full-screen. Yeah, they are catering to the full-screen-apps people a little more nowadays, but embracing floating windows everywhere, and making good use of the distinction betweend CMD+Tab and CMD+~ makes it so much more powerful than just tabbing through full-screen apps, or three-finger-swiping. It also makes macOS way more beautiful to look at in my opinion.
- skydhash 2y ago
  It’s quite maddening if you use spaces (as workspaces) and same windows across them. An option like CMD-Tabbing being restricted to only applications with windows in the current space will go a long way. Power users is an unknown concept at Apple.
  - jwells89 2y ago
    I’m not sure that they’re an unknown concept, because macOS has lots of little things tucked away all over the place for power users. It’s one of the things I miss most when using other desktops, particularly those that go maybe a little too far on the minimalism thing (like GNOME). It’s just that they expect these users to have fairly specific usage patterns and design around those. The further one’s personal patterns deviate from that expectation, the higher the level of friction encountered.
    - skydhash 2y ago
      > It’s just that they expect these users to have fairly specific usage patterns and design around those. That’s how you design generic appliances, not professional tools. While macOS is great for the users it caters to (that only use a handful of apps), it’s not for people that use their computers as computers (making it do pretty much everything).

johnwalkr 2y ago

When I got an ultra wide monitor I also noticed this for the first time on the macOS circular red X button, when wearing glasses. I guess a wide monitor has you looking at things off-axis more. It is really remarkable how much you can make the X dance around the red circle by moving your head. There's something about the colours and simplicity of that particular icon that really cause the effect. The effect is almost non-existent if you're looking at a more complex image, so I guess it's also remarkable how much your brain compensates for chromatic aberration in most contexts.

trustno2 2y ago

I mean horizontal and vertical centering is the hardest thing in computer science

amelius 2y ago

Honestly what annoys me most is that it looks like a sideways traffic light.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

hedora 2y ago

My glasses cause a bit of chromatic aberration, but not enough that I'd expect to see this sort of effect except at the edges of their field of view. Now that you point it out, the X is way off center on my up-to-date M2, so I took a screenshot with default display settings and zoomed in to look at the pixel work. The X is rendered asymmetrically. It appears to be about 0.1 pixels too far to the left and down, since the antialiasing has shaded pixels "outside the X" but only on those sides. The antialiased render of the red circle is symmetric. This matches what I see without zooming in and rules out my glasses. I wonder if someone fixed the bug for low-dpi displays where subpixel rendering mattered a lot, but did so in a way that hard-coded whatever Apple shipped 10 years ago. Maintaining tall piles of hacks is hard. Alternatively, maybe their font renderer is getting wobbly in its old age. The window manager is my #1 complaint about this laptop, but crappy font rendering vs. well-configured Linux is also on my list.