macOS iLife '06 look with Interface Builder?

[Benjamindaines]

Does anyone know how to build an interface for an app using Interface Builder that looks like iLife '06?

--Thanks.

 

[MacRumoron]

you mean like iTunes?

if so look here: http://mattgemmell.com/source/

scroll down to "TunesWindow"

 

[caveman_uk]

You can't actually do it using the standard IB palettes. As MacRumoron suggests you have to roll-your-own. This is not at all unusual. The standard UI components the dev tools provide are a very basic set. They're functionally fine but look a bit mundane. Many developers use them as the basis for custom buttons, windows, views and cells etc they write themselves. Apple apps very rarely use just the basic IB components unless the apps are pretty basic.

 

[whooleytoo]

A fair point, but it doesn't say much for a standardised look and feel when Apple itself doesn't use the UI provided by its own interface builder.

 

[caveman_uk]

Apple's UIs stopped being consistent ages ago. First there was aqua, then brushed metal, then garageband (wtf happened there?!?!? Wood effect?!?!?? You're bonkers!), then the pro apps UI and now we've got the iApps with the clipped window corners, gradient backgrounds and floating inspector windows. Apple's app developers must never have got invites to the 'Let's all agree on one UI style' meeting. Meanwhile the appkit/IB guys are sitting in their cubes going 'La la la, not listening' when someone tells them 'Hey, maybe we should support some of this new stuff in the dev tools?'

Edit: I'm not criticising the UI skins (well except Garageband's) but some consistency would be nice and I (and every other mac cocoa developer) would like to not have to reinvent the bloody wheel everytime we want to write an app.

 

[whooleytoo]

Apple's UIs stopped being consistent ages ago. First there was aqua, then brushed metal, then garageband (wtf happened there?!?!? Wood effect?!?!?? You're bonkers!), then the pro apps UI and now we've got the iApps with the clipped window corners, gradient backgrounds and floating inspector windows. Apple's app developers must never have got invites to the 'Let's all agree on one UI style' meeting. Meanwhile the appkit/IB guys are sitting in their cubes going 'La la la, not listening' when someone tells them 'Hey, maybe we should support some of this new stuff in the dev tools?'

Edit: I'm not criticising the UI skins (well except Garageband's) but some consistency would be nice and I (and every other mac cocoa developer) would like to not have to reinvent the bloody wheel everytime we want to write an app.

No, I agree wholeheartedly. I also don't think it's a haphazard decision by Apple, I think they deliberately update the OSX and and iLife look 'n' feels continuously. It may sound strange, but people can often do without a lot of features, but they'll upgrade rather than have a dated 'theme'. (Including the year in the software title a la MS Office has the same effect).

It also differentiates Apple's software from any 3rd party offering.

It's a shame too that if you change a view or window's class in IB, the changes are only reflected when you run the program, not while editing in IB itself. Not having a WYSIWYG feature here rather defeats the purpose of an interface editor to some degree.

 

[HiRez]

No, I agree wholeheartedly. I also don't think it's a haphazard decision by Apple, I think they deliberately update the OSX and and iLife look 'n' feels continuously. It may sound strange, but people can often do without a lot of features, but they'll upgrade rather than have a dated 'theme'.

I agree. Perhaps I'm cynical, but I believe Apple "hordes" its latest themes for its own uses, only releasing them for use by the masses when they've moved on to something else (although brushed metal seems to be hanging around). They've never released any of the UI looks as found in their pro apps.

EDIT: I just noticed that even Safari's brushed metal window isn't a standard one: the bottom corners aren't rounded (as you would get in IB) and the size grabber is smaller than standard too.

 

[Josh]

As other posters have pointed out in the past, different UI styles can be a good thing at times.

With several windows cluttering the desktop, it's very easy to tell safari apart from iTunes just by a quick glance (if you're only able to see a very small portion of the window).

I think Apple's UI is consistent, but not consistent in the sense that 'everything looks the same.' Rather, it is consistent in the sense that 'things have different appearances in an expected, regular, way.'

 

[whooleytoo]

With several windows cluttering the desktop, it's very easy to tell safari apart from iTunes just by a quick glance (if you're only able to see a very small portion of the window).

I think Apple's UI is consistent, but not consistent in the sense that 'everything looks the same.' Rather, it is consistent in the sense that 'things have different appearances in an expected, regular, way.'

While that's true, I don't think I'd want every app I have looking different to each other, just for the purpose of making them readily identifiable.

(Another problem is - some of the UI differences aren't just cosmetic. For instance, some of the metal windows were draggable by any part of the window frame, whereas others were only draggable by the title bar, even though there was no visible border defining it. Also (though this has since been fixed) iPhoto's window had a close box, but Cmd-W didn't close it. These kind of inconsistencies are just annoying, though probably outside the scope of this thread).