‘Stubear’ is a graphics artist who in his free time helps the OpenBeOS folks in constructing the User Interface for a future version of this new operating system. Particularly, this shot looks pretty clean, but the widgets still need some work to look sharper. These are just concept screens, but sometimes, especially if you have lots of time in your hands, it is nice staring at nice shapes and colors. Moreover, OSNews received an email (which contained a real screenshot) from a BeOS user who wished to remain anonymous. The screenshot shows a hidden feature (“easter egg”) of the “Dano” version of BeOS which is called ZSnake! To enable this feature press and hold CNTRL+ALT+SHFT and then click on the “Menu” application under “Preferences”. While this feature seems unfinished (zooming to the screenshot shows some pixels out of order) this is a neat little UI gimmick that it not supported by any other operating system or Toolkit so far and it looks at least interesting UI-wise.
OpenBeOS Concept GUI Screenshots and… an Easter Egg
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Aqua’s transparency + Windows XP’s menus != new ergonomic solutions…
Wow, the screenshot of the OBOS UI prototype design look absolutely gorgeous. Keep up with your great work, BeAdingo ! Can’t wait to see that really running on my PC 🙂
“Aqua’s transparency + Windows XP’s menus != new ergonomic solutions…”
First, I have to say that the menus don’t remind me XP at all, but more the ones from Epoc32 (Psion handhelds).
Second, I’m not sure I see your point, because nobody said it’s supposed to be a new ergonomic solution 🙂
What the hell do you mean? It’s just pretty. It’s not meant to be an ergonomic soloution at all, so why moan and complain over something unrelated? If you’re gonna use a word, try looking it up first.
the 2.1 UI bar colors is better than the next revisions (too much yellow in the others), I don’t like so much the folder icons
the rest is simply nice, I hope to start using it soon
I could get a headache with all that yellow. Thing to remember is that Be’s interface was beautiful and functional because it was elegant and simple. Adding all that yellow makes an otherwise decent UI look overdone and far too distracting. The UI shouldn’t take attention away from the main application, it should complement it.
The OpenBeOS user interface idea feels like the Be interface lacquered up, with bits of XP and Aqua throw in. While it’s fine to apply style to a design, it’s not good to apply it indiscriminately.
1) Make sure it’s consistent
The scrollbars have a traditional hard Windows bevel. The window widgets are smooth and glassy. Other controls are somewhere in between. The progress bar is the only element with blue in it. To maintain consistent style, I’d suggest playing with ideas as you are. Then choose a single style, and apply it to its natural conclusion with each element. Don’t just work on widgets at random and hope consistency emerges.
2) Make sure it’s necessary
Why do windows need drop shadows? Will it help separate the frontmost window and help users find it faster? Or does it just look sorta neat. If it’s only there to look neat, drop it. Is a bevel the best way to separate an area? Or are you using bevels because you’ve seen them used before. Maybe flat colors and simple lines will do the trick just as well and prove less distracting.
It is not the aim of graphical user interfaces to make a stylistic statement. Don’t try to be slick, cute, or futuristic. Try to be clear, informative, and visually terse.
Good Stylistic Devices
– Different values of gray to establish a hierarchy of importance
– Sparse use of color to draw attention to key interface items
– Gradation to establish volume when necessary
– A common light source to reinforce physicality of the interface
Check out some books on visual design for presentation of information. After all a UI is a complex visual presentation of directly manipulable information. I’d suggest starting with Edward Tufte’s “Invisioning Information”.
It might be a fun exercise to run a UI style review. Gather screenshots of as many interface styles as possible, from different desktop environments, and compare them for clarity. In which is it easiest to distinguish interface elements from one another? How does each widget use its style to suggest a use? When does the interface widget overwhelm the information it presents?
“I could get a headache with all that yellow.”
Personally I like it a lot.
But I understand some people may hate. And it’s why the theme color is something you can change (see his other screenshot, where he give an example with red, charcol, etc)
Think you’re right that UI is a very complex and delicate matter.
But just for the sake of discussion, here’s my opinion on some of you’re feedbacks:
Drop Shadow: I love it. As you said yourself, it’s a good way to distinct all windows in a easier way.
Bevel: Again I personnaly prefere that over a flat line. This is the kind of little details that help to give me a feeling of profesionnalism in a UI. Don’t know why, but it’s the case 🙂
The only big concern I have with this design is that windows title tabs seems fixed to the top left corner. As a BeOS user myself, that little feature that let you place the title tab where you want is something I find pretty useful. And I hope OBOS will keep that !
Keep up the great work!
The Dano “easter egg” is pretty cool as well.
I wonder what else they have in there.
Long Live BeOS!
ciao
yc
well i think youre wrong
if you do something in a gui it should give you feedback.
if you move a scrollbar it should be lifted up a bit so you know you do the right thing.thats one thing i always hated with beos gui.it doesnt give you feedback of what youre doing.the mouse cursor for example never changed.well it did but not much.if the cursor moves over something i can click it should be another symbol than the standard icon.
Well, I don’t, but as long as it has a “Classic BeOS” (and maybe a “Dano, With Moving Tab”) I’ll be happy 😉
those RGB layer windows and the toolbox left to it looks like photoshop heheh. probabyl just a remark to the fact ti’s made with it? or does that mean photoshop for obeos
*lol*
While these tabs look anchored in the top corner, how lovely would it be if they fluidly slipped round the corner? It’d keep that useful feature, and not waste too many cycles, I’d bet. That said it could be an arse to implement. The other tabbish thing I’d quite fancy would be something like the KDE B3 thing, where the tabs reposition themselves to try and be visible. It isn’t done quite right (it can be mis-interpreted when windows are lined up just so), but there is merit in the concept. (Been forced to use Linux lately)
The rest of my thoughts on these shots are still ill-formed, other than to say I like a bunch of things about them, and I’ll mail the designer with the little niggles. Keep up the good work!
from the screenshots i can see that the yellow tabs are sometimes higher on some windows then others. this should be fixed (maybe one heigt for programs and one for properties). furthermore i’d like to see more characteristic icons like from the people app that you find on so many websites. doesn’t mean they should ditch the anti aliased stuff, just mean more identity. icons give beos it’s look as much as the windowdressing (but maybe that’s not part of this ui concept).
last point by me, maybe it’s nice to have that golden windowborderline, like you can get with that theme package for beos (if i recall correctly) as standard?
that’s it
This gui looks greeat if that’s would be the beos next generation i’m absopulutly ready to eate yallow eggs !!!
Naturally the end result will be tweakable, I hope.
<ranting>
Btw, don’t forget that visual apperance is a very small part of a nice UI. In the ideal case the users ‘vision’ of what will happen when he does a certain thing should match the real action 100%. Also you should only have to do minimal work to obtain your goal.
</ranting>
I’m looking for more evidence of practical UI features, like tabbing and tiling of windows. Any OS can look pretty with a bit of skinning applied.
/not massively impressed.
Looked pretty though.
I like it. I’d use it. I’d prefer sliding tabs, too. I also prefer BeOS’ way of keeping the maximize and close buttons well seperated. I don’t know how many times I’ve maximized a window in Windows when I wanted to close it. And closed when I wanted to maximize.
I like it mostly and hope that it just gets better. Keep up the good work meistro!!!
I was never really a huge fan of the BeOS interface, but that may be because I never really took the time to learn about it.
Either way, I like the way this is going. The widgets do look nice. But I really hope that you can change the colors. Supposed pundits blathering about the evils of OS skinning nonwithstanding, I don’t want to be stuck with that yellow.
Anyway, good luck to the OpenBeOS team!
Nice screenshot. The guy’s a GIMP-master. But we are waiting for an operating system, not a GIMP-master.
When will it be ready?
And I think if I used that UI, I would get quite a headache.
I used to be really skeptical about this project, but now that skepticism has become hope. There are a TON of REALLY dedicate programmers working on this thing, and I hope the OS depicted in that screenshot eventually comes to life.
The only thing I have to warn you guys about is this: AN OS WITH NO HARDWARE SUPPORT IS A DEAD OS. And the NewOS kernel definitely does not have a lot of hardware support. I urge you to consider using the Linux kernel (not a distro). It’s fast with a ton of hardware support. You can patch it up (pre-emptive patch, for example) to make it more how you like it. With Linux you can start programming right on top of the framebuffer layer, and you already have the hardware stuff done. Please, for the sake of OBOS and all those of OS who are still looking for a good x86 OS, think about using Linux.
These are much better:
http://cotito.free.fr/projects/Gonx_res/generated_fakes/
This is by the guy working on the GUI for BlueOS
(http://cotito.free.fr/projects/BlueOS/)
Maybe you could update the story to point to this too?
Well…as far as I know from keeping up to date on the Glasselevator mailing list – this was one of the proposed GUI’s.
A large majority of people were up for having the GONX UI actually implemented in OBOS 2.
It’s still in complete discussion – I have seen nobody say, right, this is the “marketing” GU, i.e. the default one, the one that says that this is OpenBeOS 2.
Anyway, OBOS 2 will incorporate some form of themes, skins or whatever you want to call them.
Personally, I prefer the GONX UI – and would **LOVE** to have that running on my machine. These ones, well I cant say I’m too fond of them – they remind me too much of OS X, but who knows, they are only concept shots – they look a little too… “GUMMY” to me, it looks more like a toy than a tool. If you know what I mean :/
Why is every new OS making the mistake of placing the minimize and maximize gadgets right next to the close gadget the way Windoze does?! Did only the Amiga *ever* get this right?
Still, very nice work of course
I was under the impression that OpenBeOS was going to make use of OpenTracker. If this is true, will people currently using classic BeOS get a UI facelift out of all this?
Thanks.
I take back my close/minimize/maximize comments above — just seen the last shot!
>>The only thing I have to warn you guys about is this: AN OS WITH NO HARDWARE SUPPORT IS A DEAD OS. And the NewOS kernel definitely does not have a lot of hardware support.<<
Well I think that they will be working closely with Scott Bates and Frizbe Computers to try to hash out the hardware compatibility issues. Basically I think they will get the OBOS compatible with the most popular hardware components first and then work down the list to the least and most weird of them. It’s a start and at least we have an OEM to call our own 🙂
All this stuff looks great. Absolutely wonderful. Now, how about less drawing and more doing? Hell, I can mock up a UI in Photoshop.
By the time BlueOS or OpenBeOS make it to R1, we’ll all have forgotten about it, and be using MacOS XIV, Windows 2010, or Linux-Mandrake 23.1. Until then, it’s all just fantasy and wishful thinking.
My biggest fear is that us BeOS folks will end up defending our OS the way the GEOS people do. But it *WAS* technically superior to Windows (3.x in the case of GEOS). The world will have moved on to full 64-bit OSes on 64bit Intel CPU’s, and we’ll be defending the (now) meager capabilities of our wonderful 32-bit OS.
Sorry, needed to rant.
Those buttons are too small. Yeah, I can still hit them, but they’re too easy to overshoot. Maybe make them bigger?
I agree most with what Aaron Sittig was saying. Makes some excellent points about consistency. I think some of the others are just concerned about how cool the UI looks. But I hope both OpenBeOS and BlueOS don’t sacrifice usability for coolness.
Also in reply to Steve, I saw the other colors, but they’re still too much. You’re missing my point: sublety is key. Don’t need to bonk the user over the head with color.
i found this screenshots too
http://cotito.free.fr/projects/Gonx_res/
They are more different from the old beos ui but
also much more advanced an still in beos style.
I love gonzo ui.
I still make design for quite a long time and
gonzo rocks
I hope this one will be next obos ui.
obos ownz
cu
[vscope]
http://www.vscope.at
very nice!
I like the GUI, i’m gald that the tabs aren’t fixed in place – that would be a bad mistake.
Hopefull in openbeos there will be better icons for various types of removable storage. So, the Orb drives have there own icon, and so do the Zips, SparQs, etc. Instead of just having one standered removable storage icon.
I’ve looked at all the proposed OBOS screenshots and the gonz screenshots and have to say that I have mixed feelings about all of them. The OBOS 2.0 & 2.1 screenshots I thought had too much of a mac osx feel to them. OBOS 2.1 screenshots honestly I thought weren’t much better than the 2.0. OBOS 2.1.1 I thought felt a little better in that it felt a lot less like OSX. OBOS 2.1.2 moved the OBOS menu to the top which was very good idea. One thing that I think must be true regardless of the UI motif is that the OBOS menu must always be in a corner so that it doesn’t move once you place it there. The gonx look a bit like slightly altered Dano screenshots. Honestly I don’t care much for the Gonx shots myself. There are some concepts involved in it that I don’t quite understand and therefore may not like just because I don’t understand them. My criticism of all the OBOS shots and Gonx and Dano are that the edges are rounded. What possible benefit does it have other than to look good? At 800×600 I don’t think one can quite get the edges rounded quite the way one would want them to be. I’ve used OSX and WinXP and don’t really care for rounded edges. Since the OBOS only have rounded tabs I would vote for the OBOS 2.1.2 motif with the OBOS logo from the OBOS 2.0-2.1 screenshots. I rather prefer the red and blue logo rather than the black on yellow one. The only thing I like about Gonx is the icons. Mainly because they have so much of a Classic Be feel to them.
People, THIS IS A CONCEPT!!! This has a long way to go before it is usable. I have tried to demonstrate as many differentiations of titlebars, widget types, applicaitons and UI concepts. Eventually as things begin to come together this will become a more unified look and feel and the screenshots will begin to demonstrate this. When I began working on this UI I just designed something I liked. Now I am beginning to approach the problems one at a time and subtly change the UI where it needs to be changed. This project will not be done next week. It will not be done next month, it might very well take the rest of this year before something resembling a final UI is complete. Until I hear from the OBOS developers, instead of a bunch of belly-aching wannabees, I don’t know exactly howmuch of this will make it, if any at all.
To “Anonymous”,
Instead of doing a little belly-aching of your own, why not take the criticisms and do what you can to address them? Listen to what potential users think. Some of the critisms are valid, others are not. It’s up to you and the team to decide. But you’re wasting an excellent opportunity to hear what a wider audience than just the developers say.
Why bother posting this stuff if you don’t want to hear the feedback of “belly-aching wannabees”, you arrogant [….]? <– self-edited so as not to drag OSNews down…
Anonymous- can’t you think of a better user name than that! That’s very un-original!
“Anonymous”,
Do not get obset as soon as people give feedback. Most criticisms are well observed, and should make you go in the good direction.
As far as I am concerned, here are the things I do not like in the UI:
– some buttons are on the left of windows’ title bar, some are on the right
– the round corners of the horizontal scroll bar (mmm, should we still call it a corner if it is round? ;-), besides the vertical scroll bar does not have these corners
– the blue texture in the progress bar (I liked plain blue better)
– the right edge of windows’ title bars (too round)
– buttons seem to be too small
– some widgets have square corners, some have round corners (lack of consistency to me)
– the look of the folders on the desktop
– the buttons on the right of windows’ title bar are not ver self-explaining.
It seems it is highly inspired from the BeOS UI, with a touch of the Aqua UI.
Judging a UI is very hard with only a screenshot though. If I were designing a UI, I would focus on the feel, not the look.
Also, remember that it is human nature to complain. People usually say what they do _not_ like, and only barely what they do like.
Cheers,
-T
“I urge you to consider using the Linux kernel (not a distro).”
Bad idea, in my opinion. We discussed a lot about the kernel, and we decided to not use the Linux kernel for many reasons, like we want to create a new OS from scratch, not depending on a old kernel with many legacies. Plus, we want a kernel that is *LOT* less monolithic.
But in my personnal opinion, the main reason why *I* don’t want to use Linux is because of the GPL license. I’m the nemesis of this license, and always try to avoid it like hell. 🙂
” These are much better:
http://cotito.free.fr/projects/Gonx_res/generated_fakes/ ”
Well …. I’m not impressed by those. Still prefere the ones by BeAdingo 🙂
It’s by far too early to call this “the” OBOS UI. Those are just some scetches Stuart postet to the GE mailing list and put them up for discussion. OpenBeOS R1 will look like BeOS R5 by design, what OpenBeOS R2 will look like – no one knows.
I posted these to the GE mailing list. I have no idea who posted them to OSNews anda couple other web sites. I wanted initial feedback from developers. Once this progresses further along it was my intention to get more of the community involved. If I were to listen to and follow the advice of many of the poeple here and some who e-mailed me, then nothing would change. About half of you guys want one thing and the other half want the opposite. This design is far too early in its development to involve this many people in the discussion. Too many chefs pissing in the pot as it were. Also keep in mind that much of the functionality many of you want is simply not possible to show in a screenshot. Perhaps I’ll eventually create some animated shots but until the UI is much further along this is a waste of my time. I’m glad many of you liked these concept screenshots and I appreciate the feedback but it was never my intention for this to be released to the public at this time.
“Now, how about less drawing and more doing? Hell, I can mock up a UI in Photoshop.
By the time BlueOS or OpenBeOS make it to R1, we’ll all have forgotten about it, and be using MacOS XIV, Windows 2010, or Linux-Mandrake 23.1. Until then, it’s all just fantasy and wishful thinking.”
Ok … you successfully get me started ! What’s your problem with someone doing his part in a team ? Do you think that when an artist do some prototyping, we programers, stop to work ??? This is a free project, that we do because we have fun to do it. We DON’T WANT to kick Microsoft ass ! We DON’T WANT to replace Linux as a server solution. We are doing it because we LIKE DOING IT ! And if someone like you have problem with people participating in this fun adventure, just stay away !
Maybe in a far futur OBOS *may* become a major OS. But we are so far from that, that we don’t even think about it.
We love to receive feedbacks from user, that’s a great way to actively participate (brain-sharing) for everybody 🙂 But judging someone’ contribution is downright mean.
With 120+ developers, and a rather eager community willing to test the OS at every part of the way, I won’t be surprised if a usable OS isn’t going to occupy a few virtual stockings at Christmas this year.
I certainly hope so.
As regards the UI, well, those screenshots were pretty but nothing else. But what else were they going to be at this early stage. The UI should be 1) skinnable and 2) flexible. IMHO tabbing and tiling of windows are two musts. But I said that before.
Good luck to the OBOS team. You’ve got my attention and I’m not a BeOS (ex)user.
“With 120+ developers, and a rather eager community willing to test the OS at every part of the way, I won’t be surprised if a usable OS isn’t going to occupy a few virtual stockings at Christmas this year.”
I try to avoid having too much expectation. So I concentrate on each little task I’m assigned to, one at a time. But I can’t hide that if a fully usable OBOS can be ready at the end of this year … WOW check out the champagne !!!! 🙂
Sorry, I just think that an OpenBeOS / BlueOS project is damned to complete obscurity. The OS world is extremely polarized on the desktop between Windows and Linux. There was *almost* no place for BeOS when Be, Inc still existed. Hell, how many downloads of FreeBe where there? 1,000,000? How many of those people still actively use it? Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 because of hardware support issues?
Wasted time working on the UI of a non-existent clone of a dead platform just seems to me to be foolish.I mean, c’mon I love BeOS too, but the reality is Be is dead, the developers have long since jumped ship, and even if the platform is ever released, it will be nothing more than a curiosity in the OS world – just like the real McCoy.
Gee – this is a great UI, love that I can play 16 MP3’s backwards on my machine at the same time, and only use 30% of my CPU. Cool Beans, I can slide the title bar around. Neato – Look at this OpenGL spinning Teapot. Oh, wait. I’ve got to get some work done – reboot into an OS with an office suite that is still supported.
Just my .02
How about an OS that I can install on an old Pentium II 233 which lets me hook up an extremely big drive and convert into an MP3 server that can handle encoding MP3s at the same time as playing them. Yes a stripped old linux distro can probably do it, but I don’t want to spend that time doing it and I am not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a new computer for a relatively minor use like MP3 serving.
“Wasted time working on the UI of a non-existent clone of a dead platform just seems to me to be foolish.”
Yeaaah right. And my bother like to play baseball with his friends, a sport he really enjoy. But following your way of thinking, this is totally foolish, because he will never get to the major league… pfff…
Where you totally missed the point is by using the words “working on”. I don’t *work on* OpenBeOS, and I guess neither of my teammates. I have *fun and relaxing time* coding the OpenBeOS.
That’s a world of difference.
If you to be stealing something small you are petty thief, but if you to be steal millions you are a gentlemans of the societys.
What you may want to know is that nothing got anywhere without somebody putting in hard time and a little bit of effort.
I hate seeing skeptics out there that readily put down and belittle projects in their early stages. I mean what right do you have? What difference are you gonna make by insulting a project?.. All I see is a sad way to waste a couple minutes of your day. And if you do make a difference what are the effects? You can’t tell me that anything positive or uplifting will happen to anyone, you’ll just create more doubt and pessimism.
So get out there and show some encouragement and enthusiasm for these coders that are trying to “create”, not destroy.
Good, leave BeOS news alone.
Please tell me why you saw the need to post that comment if you don’t see a future in the OS? Are the developers hurting you by working on it?
Personally I really dig these new designs. Sure they may be concepts but everything starts somewhere.
No wait, a brand new UI’s just popped out of the air in front of me… and it’s fully formed!! 🙂
But on the more serious side, It’s good that those who can, do. I’d love to see these concepts develop further and become the new upgrade/replacement.
Keep on smiling and praising those who deserve the praise.
-G
ps, the BeOS community’s friendly, remember. 🙂
I don’t like this GUI concept. Too much Aqua-like, and i don’t like Aqua
Those “bubbles” as buttons are very annoying for me.
I can’t believe all the moaning from some people around here.
If you don’t like the *concept* screenshots, by all mean explain why. But for goodness sake be constructive about it, given that they are, after all, just early drafts.
If you don’t see the point in OBOS, don’t bother to say so. I’m sure the folks working on it don’t see the point in you either.
Personally, I thought these concept design ideas were really exciting. *Definetely* better than any of the themes in Dano, and it already looks more mature than those IMHO. I don’t think the Deskbar menu button should be at the bottom though, because then you actually have to aim the mouse cursur at it instead of just plonking it in the top-right hand corner of the screen.
Great work though.
“Hey Gee… Even I could mock a UI in Photosh…” – Thump – “Owww!”
Those designs are pretty nice! I really like Stubears’ one is nice and smooth and sleek.
Of course there are a few “niggly” things I think need to be changed, like the macos X style window buttons which I’m not fond of personally, but there’s plenty of time, and this is like only a first prototype – following the logical development cycle this should end up looking pretty damn sweet.
As for GONX – Well, this is my favourite, why? Because it breaks away from many of the stupid “desktop” concepts – the desktop is basically a file management window (i.e a tracker window) that can not be hidden, moved or closed – what point is that? None! It’s totally useless. Looking at some of the GONX shots it looks like the creator has some interesting concepts for UI design and I would love to see some of the ideas implemented, althoughj some of them do have me baffled as to their point. The interface is also clean and also stylish – it feels BeOS! It’s not perfect by no means – but I think that with a few touchups it could become a killer feature, much as OS X’s UI was!
Sorry to say but the screenshots do not have a Be feel up till now. Too ‘glassy’. I like the Be interface so much because a bunch of grey lines can be so elegant and very light on the mind.
The Gonx screenshots look much more ‘down the path’ of the original BeOS design.
Not to say, a lot can change. For starters, I would make the widgets sharper, the fonts less troubled and clearer and I think the colors in general are too hard. Not only the overkill of yellow, but also I think the difference in the lighter and darker colors should be lesser.
>>If you don’t see the point in OBOS, don’t bother to say so.
Thats right. Your opinion has no place on an open forum. Only praise and generalized buttkissing is allowed.
>>>>If you don’t see the point in OBOS, don’t bother to say so.
>>Thats right. Your opinion has no place on an open forum. Only praise and generalized buttkissing is allowed.
Last I checked, this was a comment system – we are commenting about our opinins of the OpenBeOS user interface, or future interface.
If there was an article about “the point of OBOS” then feel free to make your comment / point. But try to keep it relevant to the discussion in hand, which here happens to be the Concept UI.
>>If there was an article about “the point of OBOS” then feel free to make your comment / point. But try to keep it relevant to the discussion in hand, which here happens to be the Concept UI.
I believe that’s what I did with my original post. I just happened to think it was pointless to work on it at all.
So sorry my opinion differs than those of everyone else.
Es tut mir leid, mein Ubergrupenfuhrer.
Let me try to explain how these concept started, where they are headed and why I am doing this because I feel there is a lot of confusion surrounding some VERY earlu sketches that leaked to the public. Keep in mind this VERY same attitude surrounded MacOS X.
Speaking of MacOS X, there have been numerous comments about the glassy buttons. When I began designing the UI I started with a cartoon like UI to get the basic shapes worked out. I decided that a rounded title bar would certainly be, IMHO, a lot nicer.
Once I had the title bar shapes worked out and the overall window borders settled I tackled the buttons. In BeOS the buttons were square though nondescript. I decided that a button with a glyph was a better approach. As the titlebars were rounded (from square shapes) I decided to round off the buttons. I don’t like squares wih rounded corners; they look like they belong on a visio chart. However I didn’t want to leave the BeOS feel altogether so I decided on round buttons, to match the rounded title bars, and a gradient similar to the gradient in BeOS. My first few attempts didn’t look all that great so while trying to better define the edges I accidentally stumbled upon the glassy look.
Seeing as I had done this I decided that I was apparently beign influenced by other designs I stopped working on them to think about the designs while away from the project. I kept the thought in the back ofmy head and worked on other parts of the UI that needed attention. Some of the early screenshots had the glassy buttons in them because I wanted the dev team for OBOS looking at them but it was my intention all along, as the more recent screnshots attest, to change these.
This project is far from over and a lot more will change before it’s done. Hell, even my involvement in this project could very well change before OBOS is done but I hope not. This leads me to why I am doing this. I e-mailed the OBOS project leader last November about working on the project. I was interested in GUI design and this project offered me a way to design something that most designers don’t get a chance to. I like projects like these. They challenge my design senese and give me something unlike anything I’ve done before to put in my portfolio.
For example, if there are any soccer fans out there, after the 2000 Summer Olympics and the Womens US Soccer team success, the United States decided to start a Women’s US soccer association and the WUSA was formed. The Boston team owner was not happy with the designs the WUSA contracted advertising agency did for them so I was brought in to offer some alternatives. I don’t really care for soccer myself but the project was one that doesn’t come along everyday. Needless to say the owner liked my work and one of my concepts was chosen and is now the Boston Breakers team logo (sadly they didn’t choose the best one; the wave is too boring in the verion they used.)
I approached this project in very much the same manner. You don’t get to design an OS UI every day; skins don’t count in my opinion. I volunteered my time to work on the GUI and icon sets for OBOS and what many of you have seen already is my first sketches at a new UI for OBOS that I hope is implemented by the developers. I’m doing this project because it’s unique and it challenges my abilities in ways other projects do not.
With this project, I want to challenge UI assumptions and see where it will work to push an idea with OBOS and where hard and fast rules will apply. Without this approach, the OBOS GUI will either become more like Motif or some kewl skinz found on many skinning sites. While I agree that the OS is more than a pretty interface to functionality, without a clean interface and by following the current UI design rules strictly you wind up with crap. Form and function must balance and this is myapproach to the UI. If you don’t want form, tell the dev team you want a theming engine in OBOS so you can recreate Motif or CDE.
>>With this project, I want to challenge UI assumptions and see where it will work to push an idea with OBOS and where hard and fast rules will apply.
I’m really glad to hear you say that! – I would love to see you experiment a little with the damn desktop. I know that these are only the first few concept ideas, but perhaps when you have some more time you could try experimenting with changing the openbe button / taskbar / desktop – much like in the GONX shot – in fact that’s the only thing I prefer about the GONX one is that it’s adapted the desktop and taskbar metaphore. Although, I have to say I really do like the look of the deskbar in your UI’s!
“Thats right. Your opinion has no place on an open forum. Only praise and generalized buttkissing is allowed.”
That’s not the point ! You can tell that you don’t like at all the GUI, and it’s your opinion, everything is welcome. Where I get a problem is when you said that just “doing it” is foolish and pointless. We’re talking about someone who use his free time to make a “FREE” contribution. It’s your right to hate the result and giving your opinion, but attacking the nature of his giving is just harsh and mean.
my 2 cents
Steve,
Leave it alone. Personally, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what this guy thinks. If he thinks it’s a waste of my time to do this, fine. He can eat crow when things are done.
stubear, if you want any help, or ideas, give me an e-mail, I love toying around with new UI concepts and designs, and just playing around with UI’s in general.