Comments on: User interface thoughts

By: Kathryn Huxtable

Kathryn Huxtable — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:58:07 +0000

At the moment, we’re setting the property and letting Aqua manage the menu bar.

It’s part of being a good Mac citizen. Non Java apps seem to all use the system menu bar. Why shouldn’t Java apps?

By: Marco Hunsicker

Marco Hunsicker — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:54:21 +0000

Thanks for your answers. Dynamically changing the L&F is a non-issue, I believe. Not something I would worry about.

Do you always use the global menu bar Mac OS X? Or only if the corresponding system property is set?

By: Kathryn Huxtable

Kathryn Huxtable — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:49:27 +0000

I should add that I’ve almost never seen Vista and, in particular, Office Vista, so I’m not terribly familiar with the “stripe”. I know keyboard-y people who hate it. My ex seems to be okay with it, though, and is a keyboard-y person.

By: Kathryn Huxtable

Kathryn Huxtable — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:42:50 +0000

On a Mac we’ll use the global menu bar. Everywhere else, we’ll do the iTunes thing and put the menu in the title bar. This code is written and works.

Of course, on a non-Mac, the L&F can’t be uninstalled without disposing and recreating all the windows, and maybe not even then, because of the way undecorated JFrames work.

But how many apps that aren’t designed to show off L&Fs actually uninstall their default L&F?

By: Marco Hunsicker

Marco Hunsicker — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:26:31 +0000

I’m very curious how you will tackle platform differences like global menu vs. per window menu bar. IMHO the unified tool bar appearance in Mac OS X looks and feels awesome, but one important aspect is that no menu bar items pollute the appearance. Recent Windows versions use an interesting approach and sometimes simply don’t display the menu bar by default, but when using a Gnome desktop there is no (usable) counterpart. I guess some sort of dynamic adjustment is warranted here which might alienate some potential users that want a true cross-platform look.

I would second Ken’s remarks about looking good. If the app looks awesome (and works great of course), most users won’t care much about minor differences in appearance. After all, the application still uses the same concepts.

By: Ken Orr

Ken Orr — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:29:02 +0000

I think that iTunes doesn't stick out because it uses the same window chrome. But even when apps do use different window chrome (think Pixelmator), they can still be acceptable to the end user. So what is it that makes it acceptable? My feeling is that as long as the application looks as good as, or better than native apps, then it doesn't much matter how different it is than native apps. For example, Photoshop Elements on Windows doesn't use standard controls, but it seems that users are accepting of the app because it shows at least as much polish as native Windows apps.