The Opera web browser comes with the “Opera Standard” Look and Feel per default and this bugs me to no avail. Opera also supports “Windows Native” which on Vista looks so much better than “Opera Standard”. Switch dammit !

As developers we often force our own preferences on other users in situations where following the taste of the average user would make much more sense. All Teppefall software comes with a dark look and feel. The reason is simply because black is easier on the eyes for people who work with UI development. But this is only true in an all dark UI environment. A dark (or very white) UI is actually horrible when used together with other applications that have different color schemes. Black UI's working together with White UI's will hurt your eyes and cause them to dry out. This is why boring gray has been the color of choice for Microsoft, Sun and SGI over the years. The middle ground of the black-white color specter reduces eye strain and makes the experience consistent. Black on white has been reserved for text editor components and early Mac's.

The new Vista Aero UI is based on translucency and shades of blue and white. If you look at the websites of many large cooperations you will see that blue is a dominant color. IBM being the best example. Some claim blue is the dominator color, the color that has powers over all other colors. I don't know about this, but the sky is blue and people are talking about powerful creatures in the heavens, so who knows. Maybe we are hardwired to enjoy blue. Danger is red (think Ferrari) and green is safety (grass and exit signs).

Anyway, I wish Opera would switch to Windows Native look and feel and get some new less colorful icons. They got a kick ass product that only needs some minor tuning of the visual experience to become state of the art. If they came closer to Firefox and started supporting XSLT transformed RSS/ATOM feeds I would use it more than I do today. I also don't understand the right click menu item “Print”. Has anyone ever used that item more than like one time ? I am not even sure my mom would use it.

Posted by JP at 12:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I found this excellent screenshot tool today. So I tested it out. All applications are running on Vista with the -Xchrome parameter.

Teppefall Darkstar EXE parameters for Windows.

• -Xchrome - Turns on the native chrome.
• -Xnative - Windows look and feel.
• -Xinsecure - Not running under the DSR security policy.
  

Colorspace

Darkstar Layout

Darkstar FX

Darkstar Layout examples

Darkstar FX examples

Darkstar dialogs

Darkstar Layout (native look)

Darkstar FX (native look)

Darkstar FX (legacy look - 1.4.2 compatible)

Posted by JP at 02:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Two weeks ago I added new builds of Fabric, Surface, Colorspace and Darkstar to the download site. I did not make this public because I planned to fix all the kinks when I came home from vacation. but since some of you are probably struggling a bit, here is the lowdown on the new builds.

• Surface is now Darkstar FX (the old name was Surface GFX) Hopefully the JavaFX supporters do not come after me with pitchforks.
• Fabric is now Darkstar Layout
• DSI is now DSR (Darkstar Runtime)
• FX, Layout and DSR run under security policies (DSR.policy) which are NOT completely secure at this point.
• The security policy is crashing some parts of JFC. You can add the -Xinsecure flag to your exe file to fix this. *
• If you get a disabled "open" menu item, the fix is also to run under -Xinsecure.* Or you can just drag and drop.
• If you dislike the custom chrome on Windows Vista you can turn on the native chrome by adding the -Xchrome parameter. This is true for all Windows operating systems. Just check out the CMD files for more information.
• Mac users will find the example code and documentation inside the .app bundle.
• This build fixes the shared C library issue in Vista.
• The download page has yet to be updated, so the new builds are only available from the download list.

* Mac users must reconfigure Info.plist and Linux users mush reconfigure Teppefall.sh. Just remove the security manager parameter and the policy reference. Or simply grant AllPermission in the DSR.policy file.

Posted by JP at 09:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)