MacCritic are writing down their opinion on the rumors that say that Mac OS X 10.3 Panther will use the “Metal” interface system-wide.
System-wide Brushed Metal Interface on Mac OS X 10.3-Panther?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
69 Comments
2003-03-28 12:57 am
2003-03-28 1:43 am
Anonymous
..and I’ve turned my XP into something similar…
http://home.iprimus.com.au/bres5/mockmac.jpg
sorry about the quality of the screenshot though…it was for another site that had a 100k limit on uploaded pictures so I had to dumb it down quite a bit then zip it to fit 
2003-03-28 3:20 am
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2003-03-28 10:44 am
Anonymous
Awww, come on! A hollywood desktop like that would be sooooooooo cool 
I’m in love. One day, I’m going to sit down and hack out a Linux desktop/widget toolkit based entirely on hardware accelerated SVG rendering so I can have a desktop made purely of special effects 
2003-03-28 11:15 am
Anonymous
“What apps/themes did you use to get all that??? Do tell!”
There’s a bit there: I’ve got the GBrushed StyleXP theme, Opera with the Metal Blue theme, ObjectBar dock, QCD with the iTunes skin, yzShadow for the shadows on windows and menus, yzToolbar to change the explorer buttons…hmmm…i think that’s it. If you want some of these parts and get stuck let me know
2003-03-28 1:43 pm
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2003-03-29 2:44 am
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Essentials/AquaHIGuideli…
“Avoid using the textured window appearance in applications or utilities that are unrelated to digital peripherals or to the data associated with these devices.”
I really wish Apple would follow this. Safari is about the worst I’ve seen as far as breaking this guideline goes.
I don’t like the brushed metal look at all. I really hope Apple doesn’t take this approach, or if they do if it becomes a user customizable option.
I hope they allow you to turn off ALL of the Special Effects. I love the classic look! I also want SPEED. Even Microsoft allows you to turn off the XP gui. In fact, I think the GUI is TOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOWEY!! YUK!!
Dan
Here is how my 12″ Powerbook looks daily:
http://img.osnews.com/img/3131/osx.png (that’s safari 0.67
I think that the safari tabs have a bit too dark color which makes it difficult to read the text, but overall it ain’t bad.. My only gripe with OSX was not the metal apps, but the stripes on the back of the aqua apps that made it really bad looking on this LCD screen (the stripes don’t look as bad on the CRTs). So, I found a hack and took the stripes out, and now I am happy.
Looprumors reported this last week. I mail them to find some more info – in their opnions system wide would prob. mean all the apps, but not menu bar. Or, if it really will be system wide, there will be an option to change it.
In any case, it’s just a really lousy idea. Brushed is nice, IN MODERATION!! As one person has already pointed out, making Safari brushed was a huge mistake, totally uneccessary and even against apple’s own interface guidelines. iApps, fine. Safari, Mail, Sherlock, finder, Sys Prefs, Menu bar……no way! I do want more consistency from apple (widget’s should behave the same at all times, brushed should have strict guidelines and these should be adhered to), but System Wide Brushed Metal is NOT the consistency i’m looking for.
On the other hand, consider this: Keynote was released just 2/3 months ago. If a move to all brushed metal was planned, surely Keynote would have been brushed from day one. But it’s not, it’s pinstripe.
L.
“I hope they allow you to turn off ALL of the Special Effects. I love the classic look! I also want SPEED.”
i would have to second that opinion. I am a winXP user at work, a redhat/mandrake user at home, and i do get to play with a mac osX from time to time (i have colleages who are graphics artists). This doesn’t make me a mac-expert at all, i don’t get the chance to configure it the way i like and so on but…
i really have to say,i find mac OSX is about the worst interface of them all. I really don’t see why the icons in the taskbar have to start moving when you hover over them. I really don’t see why a selected item in a dropdown needs to blink 3 times before doing what was asked. I really don’t see why those macs need to be slowed down even more, or why their users need to be wasting time waiting for animations to end
I also loath the look of brushed metal and I’m not even a Mac user
I love Eugenia’ Mac OS desktop and I normally hate OS X and it’s looks.
“I really wish Apple would follow this. Safari is about the worst I’ve seen as far as breaking this guideline goes.”
According to your link to the UI guidelines, it does NOT break their UI guidelines.
“Within an application, the textured window appearance should be limited to the primary application window. Supporting windows, such as preferences and other dialogs, should not use the textured window appearance. It is acceptable to have a mix of standard Aqua windows and textured windows within an application.”
I also loath the look of brushed metal and I’m not even a Mac user
I have to agree. In all the times I’ve used OSX, the metal apps have always stuck out like a sore thumb. Way worse than having separate themes for KDE and GNOME, way worse than running 10 different windows apps that all look different.
Its even worse due to the fact that Apple has such a normally rigid HIG, but the entire purpose of even having brushed metal apps is simply mind boggling, to me.
I have mentioned this before at another site but didn’t know it was going around as a rumor.
I said, with all the apps they are releasing now which are brushed (which really shouldn’t be, like safari). If they do make some interface changes to Panther this would be a likely choice.
I think though that a theme change or other major interface changes like it should be saved for the next major revision meaing, OS11 or something.
P.S. if you want system wide brushed metal you could always use Max Rudberg’s brushed theme.
I wrote up a petition against this, If anyone is interested. Even if this is just a rumor, i think its a good idea to get an opinion on paper. Sign it if youd like!
http://www.petitionpetition.com/cgi/petition.cgi?id=5397
“According to your link to the UI guidelines, it does NOT break their UI guidelines. ”
uhhh, if you use safari you will notice that it will occasionally use textured windows for preferences and sheets. So it DOES go AGAINST the referring stanza of the HIG.
Also, a browser in no way is an extension of a digital hardware device. This is against the HIG…
Hey, I really don’t like the brushed metal look on any app. I wish Apple would give the end-user’s the ability to turn brushed metal off. That’s the major reason I don’t use Safari now. I downloaded the last public beta, ran it, though “Hmmm, pretty fast, decent rendering of pages, no tabs, UI sucks” and then stopped using it and went back to Camino (the old Chimera), which does all the things I like, even if it is a tad slower than Safari, but it looks a heck of a lot better.
“uhhh, if you use safari you will notice that it will occasionally use textured windows for preferences and sheets. So it DOES go AGAINST the referring stanza of the HIG.”
I use it everyday. Where does it use textured windows for preferences?
“Also, a browser in no way is an extension of a digital hardware device. This is against the HIG…”
Again…
“Within an application, the textured window appearance should be limited to the primary application window. Supporting windows, such as preferences and other dialogs, should not use the textured window appearance. It is acceptable to have a mix of standard Aqua windows and textured windows within an application.”
The icons moving when you move your mouse over the Dock(that’s what it’s called… it’s not “Taskbar”) is an effect called magnification.
It’s a remedy for those who complain about Dock icons becoming too small when you have a nuber of things in the Dock(as they scale down smoothly so the Dock will fit on the screen). This is incredibly easy to shut off. Just control-click or right-click on the divider in the Dock, between the applications section and the documents/folders/Trash section, then click on “Turn Magnification off”.
I believe the blinking can also be turned off, but it does serve a purpose. It’s verification that an item has been selected.
Also, on the Dock, you can set(via System Preferences), icons not to bounce when an application is loading. Instead the little black arrow under them pulses.
It’s really quite a configurable GUI.
…but I think this is a great idea. I’m not a Mac user (yet, anyway) but I have used OSX and found the default Aqua very difficult to read – the horizontal lines play havoc with my imperfect eyesight – for some people any bright UI can be very painful. I normally use Win2k with all the colours toned down but the best – for looking at – desktop for me has to be WinXP Luna with the title bars shrunk down a lot.
A metalled OS would be stylish and low – intensity, perfect for me.
The HIG has NEVER been a hard and fast set of black and white rules.
Hint: GUIDElines.
Apple has always had inconsistencies, and they’ve always written entries to be open ended: “This window style has been designed specifically for use by—and is therefore best suited to…”
“Best suited to”–i.e. this is the original intention but they can see applications for the style BEYOND what they specifically state.
Also, why do people only quote parts of it: “This window style has been designed specifically for use by—and is therefore best suited to—applications that provide an interface for a digital peripheral, such as a camera, or an interface for managing data shared with digital peripherals, such as the Address Book application.”
“This appearance may also be appropriate for applications that strive to re-create a familiar physical device—the Calculator application, for example. Avoid using the textured window appearance in applications or utilities that are unrelated to digital peripherals or to the data associated with these devices.”
People don’t say the Address Book is inconsistent, but they whine about Safari. Guess what: Safari is an “interface for managing data shared with digital peripherals” (including the Address Book, Mail, and anything they connect to; do people forget that Safari is one of the better Rendezvous-enable apps?)
Further: “Within an application, the textured window appearance should be limited to the primary application window.” I think this is saying less about peripheral windows and is saying more about the style being applied to single window apps.
I’ll repeat the HIG is a set of GUIDElines. They are subjective. Apple has always written them to be open-ended. They have ALWAYS gone outside the recommendations of the HIG themselves. They intend the HIG to be a way to DIRECT and LEAD development, but it also always evolves.
Apple seems to be telling its users what they like. I am a Macintosh user because it gives me choice and ease of use. Why should Steve Jobs, or anyone else at Apple, tell me what I want to see as far as themes?
I can deal with the standard Aqua look though it robs the CPU of its power. If other people want the brushed metal look, let them have it as a choice. If someone else wants another look, let it be a choice too.
I found recently that WinXP gave me a lot of choices as far as themes go. KDE does this as well. Apple needs to be open to far faster ways to display information which just happen to appeal to users.
Hey Eugenia, what pager/virutal desktop manager is that? Just got my 17″ pbook the other day and I desperately need a good one. ty
“If other people want the brushed metal look, let them have it as a choice. If someone else wants another look, let it be a choice too.”
You can. Do you use a Mac? Then what do you care? I have a fully brushed metal them, several others, an Aqua without pinstripes, and the original Aqua theme.
Doesn’t anyone recognize that maybe Apple wanted to establish a very distinctive look-and-feel for the infancy of its new flagship OS, but that they will reintroduce themes once they have done so, and they can insure the OS can handle other styles?
Doesn’t anyone think that if there is an option to be all brushed-metal that it is likely there will be a CHOICE between brush-metal and Aqua? And that by providing this choice they will be enabling other third-party choices to be used more easily?
Doesn’t anyone think this whole posting is a retarded flamebait anyway considering this is one of the least significant of all rumors re: Panther out there from the least reliable of rumor sources on the web? Why aren’t we discussing Giampaolo’s work on the FS? or 64bit-ness? or how would you improve the Dock? etc…
I think it would be nice if they would implement something akin to user skins in the OS. At the very least it would be nice to see the following options somewhere in the general preferences:
O Make all windows Aqua
O Make all windows Metal
O Make all windows use application default
Then I could choose what I wanted and everyone (except those who hate Aqua AND Metal) would be happy.
Mac people blow my mind. I have an Indigo iMac and a 733 Graphite G4. Both still run Sys 9 because God-honest, Aqua actually makes me nauseous. Brushed Metal would finally get me to upgrade, as well as gain more respect from other OS users, and the Mac-heads hate it.
I do agree with one thing though: choice, including turning off *everything*. OSX is horribly stiff compared to other OS’s.
>Hey Eugenia, what pager/virutal desktop manager is that?
http://freshmeat.net/releases/117711/
tyvm
Take your pick.
http://homepage.mac.com/max_08/index.htm
http://swizcore.com/SS/macOSX.php
Don’t like stripes – Remove them
You DO like metal interface – Add it
Want something a little different – Add it
The choices are all there for you. Have fun.
You’re a Mac user still using 9; you like the metal look. So why are you saying Mac-head’s are stupid. There are plenty of us that have differing views, but you are lumping everyone together and saying their opinion is idiotic. I use a theme quite unlike Apple’s preferences. I actually like the idea of an interface theme within another theme to make some apps distinct. I like having other choices. And I like Aqua too. You have your own opinion as well, adn then you lump all “Mac-heads” together?
Don’t get it.
For all you who either hate or love the Metal look (personally, I hate it), Unsanity has a great application that will either enable or disable the Metal look system wide. It’s called (De)Metallifizer [ http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/metallifizer ].
and reportedly you’ll be able to turn it off. sounds good
Let OS X have an option to turn antialiasing off *completely*, and I’ll be the next mac customer (next to my A1 of course 😉 )
Eugenia’s screenshot only, makes me dizzy.
You can go to System Preferences and turn the Font Smoothing off for fonts 12pt sizes and under. Since most standard point sizes are normally 10 -12pt that should work for you.
what i don’t get is why the UI elements (text fields, title bars, header zones, etc) are so big in OSX; it makes a 1024-768-sized screen look cuttered in an instant. the “obese” UI started with AppleWorks 6 under OS9, what happend? apple hired a few too many near-sighted UI designers?
Anonymous, take a deep breath and try again. And stop trying to twist other people’s words. Where did I use the words “stupid” or “idiotic” or imply thats what I thought.
The irrationality of your post just about says it all. Turn off your computer and get out of the house more often.
edit the file ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist
change AppleAntiAliasingThreshold to a nice big value (set the font size to a number much higher than 12 if you want)
Rasta, I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth, but you were saying there was something wrong with Mac-heads–my point was: if you use Macs and disagree with them, why lump them together and think they all have the same opinion. What is your opinion of them then if they blow your mind? My using words like “idiotic” and “stupid” is irrelevent–your bigotry is still apparent.
You gotta find this one funny. Apple is following Enlightenment in this situation. E popularized the brushed metal back in the mid 1990s
I personally kinda like the look: it’s much more edgy than the (IMHO) same-old, same-old rut computer interfaces seem to have fallen into. Personally, I want my computer to look like: http://www.xeofreestyle.com 
Of course, this whole brushed metal thing points out a flaw in Apple’s dogma. People *do* have different tastes. One company cannot unilaterally dictate how everyone’s computer should look. I can totally customize my cellphone, so why not my computer? This will become even more important as a new generation of computer users, ones that grew up with computers, start becoming the target market of the computer industry. To these users, the computer is an everyday object, just like a car or a cellphone. At that point, customizing becomes a manner of expressing identity.
I wonder what happened to the careful and well thought out UI design that Apple used to be famous for? Not everything in Mac OS X is badly designed, there’s actually a lot that’s great. But I feel that Apple just aren’t putting much throught or usability testing into their products these days. Apple haven’t had a great track record since the terrible Quicktime 4 UI, with it’s inelegant thumbwheel volume control.
But at least Apple do seem fairly good at listening to customer complaints. Sooner or later problems tend to get fixed and often requested features get added. Even if Panther is the UI disaster that some people fear, Apple will hopefully listen to the complaints and fix it.
But it’s a real shame that Apple seem to be almost as bad as Microsoft at following their own user interface guidelines.
Imaginereno:
ummm are you blind? Or do you just read half of everything?
“Avoid using the textured window appearance in applications or utilities that are unrelated to digital peripherals or to the data associated with these devices.”
Who cares what the second part says about the main window being textured, but none others? It needs to fall in line with the main rule, which i have quoted above, please read it this time.
If you turn off AA in OS X, I recommend also changing the default font (the upcoming Silk 2 will allow you to do that, or if you can find it the alpha version of Silk 1.5). The standard Lucida Grande 13 font looks horrible when not AA’d, where fonts like Tahoma or Verdana look great. See this scren shot: http://www2.hdm-stuttgart.de/~sw19/visu/800ibook.png
Eugenia, I got rid of the metallic look in Safari because of my lousy eyesight. Without it, the Aqua look is sort of boring – if the toolbar was more colorful, it would be nice. But, a more colorful toolbar would look bad with the brushed metal look. LOL, can’t win! 🙂
“My using words like “idiotic” and “stupid” is irrelevent…”
“So why are you saying Mac-head’s are stupid.”
“…you are…saying their opinion is idiotic.”
Words are extremely relevent, especialy when you accuse someone of using them when they didn’t.
Maybe *my* words weren’t complete enough. I should have started *Some* “Mac people blow my mind.”. My use of the term “mac-heads” was refering to fanatics, some of which posted on the first page, that weren’t talking choice or mere opinion. They were saying or strongly implying that Brushed Metal shouldn’t be, period. One even went so far as to start a petition.
“…your bigotry is still apparent.”
Well you got me there. I HATE fanatics whether MacFascist, PC drone, Linux Zealot or Amiga freak. These types don’t even know what they’re talking about when they slag one another. They use hear-say and lies as facts and make their ignorance clear to eveyone. Of all the points in life and issues in the world to take up as a cause, what machine or OS one or someone else uses has got to be the sadest.
if the toolbar was more colorful, it would be nice
The buttons are stored as a couple of .tifs inside the application bundle, you can easily change them if you like.
Pictures like that once in a while makes me wish even more have the money to afford one of those Apple’s machines… Unfortunately, they are too expensive here in Brazil.
God, THAT’S beautiful! 🙂
I know this is offtopic, but what are your thoughts on your PowerBook now that you’ve had it for a little while? Would you recommend it to others? My income tax returns should be coming in the mail any day now.
I was so upset by this article that I went to Apple’s website and wrote them an e-mail stating my dissatisfaction witht the brushed metal interface and the reason that I don’t use Safari is because of it. I much prefer Camino and the overall Aqua interface to brushed metal and hope that perhaps if more people let Apple know directly this opinion things will stay that way.
10.3 is _not_ a required patch or hack, its an upgrade. Don’t like it? Don’t buy it! When 10.3.1 comes out with the ability to choose the default effects, then go ahead and buy it…bleh, senseless complaining
Thanks for the info, stew!!
Safari uses the brushed metal look for the download manager as well. That’s another window in addition to the main one.
Safari does not take the place of a real world device. Safari is not a media player. Safari does not exchange data with external devices. There’s absolutely no way that Safari follows the interface guidelines.
I suppose I’m biased in that I despise the brushed metal look. I’ve reluctantly switched from OmniWeb to Safari… and ChromeKiller does help make Safari’s look much more tolerable.
People used to joke about a web browser being the worst possible application to use the brushed metal look for, as far as Apple’s guideliness went. Then Apple came out with Safari…
Apple is breaking UI guidelines in other places too:
The “Show Package Contents” command is only available in Finder’s context menu where the guidlines clearly state that context menus must be a subset of the application’s main menu. ProjectBuilder does not bring up a new window when you click its Dock icon, and it’s using MDI. New document windows should be called “untitled n”, where the guidelines clearly state that “untitled” is in lower case. Guess what Safari’s doing. iPhoto quits the application when you close the window, which it shouldn’t do. And so on…
i dont really mind the brushed metal. on this LCD, if im not paying attention it looks grey to me anyway.
-Kev
The HIG has NEVER been a hard and fast set of black and white rules.
Hint: GUIDElines.
The problem is Safari is an experiment in how flagrantly the Human Interface guidelines can be broken.
In my opinion, the experiment was a failure.
Apple has shown a complete disregard for the Aqua Human Interface guidelines. They release application after application that uses the brushed metal look, and furthermore program custom widgets for each one (like iCal)
Usability certainly suffers on many of these (look at iChat or the DVD player)
I really hope Apple keeps with the Aqua/Graphite looks of the previous OS X releases and doesn’t go for full brushed metal.
To those who want to turn off aqua like you can turn off themes on windows. It’s not possible. Aqua is at such a low level on OSX that if you removed it there wouldn’t be a window left. Just pick a more conservative looking theme from a third party. Max Rudberg even has a version of classic platinum for OSX.
If you don’t like the brushed metal look in Safari, you can download a hack from versiontracker.com or if you have the developer tools installed, you can open the *.nib file and change it yourself.
Personally, I want my computer to look like: