Why is Big Sur so ugly?

[nsklaus]

Yep, I use the global menu too. It works great, a feature straight out of the base system now. And I agree, it has been my safe haven for keeping things stable while everything else goes.... some other direction.

Although on the tiling WM's, those have just never appealed to me at all. There's nothing more productive about them, or whatever the big selling point is, at least for the way my mental model is hard-wired. Sometimes they look pretty cool, but I find them unwieldy and way too opinionated about how windows are arranged.

the main point of them is that they are fast and lightweight.
fast to display and fast to use. it is a bit like using spotlight or alfred to find and start apps. they also don't waste space, and are endlessly tweakable. especialy if you can do scripts and play with c/cpp code. dwm compiles in something like 5seconds. code is clear and very small. linux shells are very powerful and those desktops let you do a deep dive into this world. everything is just few keystrokes away. mouse driven environments in comparison can be slower and more fat (in file size) by nature/design.
i mean.. dwm for example, if it weight 1mb it's already big. in comparison macos graphical environment is a few gigabytes, that's a lot of cpu cycles being used to process all those gigabytes. the comparison is that macos is a few thousand times slower and resource hungry. ( "a few thousand times" is not exact figure, it is just a manner of speaking).

 

[nickdalzell1]

It's unusual for me given my love of skeuomorphism, but in Linux since my first love, VectorLinux 6, I always defaulted to the terminal for app installs, system config, etc. I never could get 'used' to Synaptic or their version of the App Store.

If it were possible outside a server environment, I'd default to terminal logins. Vector 6 had a nice ANSI art of the Tux penguin at the login screen kinda remind me of the BBS glory days. Any attempt at coaxing Ubuntu to allow terminal logon breaks X and the GUI from running correctly for some reason. It's either you have terminal 24/7 or GUI 24/7. Game Pack won't even let me use Alt-Fx (where x is a number) to switch to the other terminals!

 

[nsklaus]

good news: the chunky bar problem is being worked on there's: MEMiniMe.
it needs macForge, and it is not yet working on mac m1 as far as i know, but hopefully ..soon.. we'll have a working solution to remove the fat bars.

 

[CasualFanboy]

Any attempt at coaxing Ubuntu to allow terminal logon breaks X and the GUI from running correctly for some reason. It's either you have terminal 24/7 or GUI 24/7.

This is another thing that concerns me. Linux has gone in a new direction that seems to have started around 2012, slowly at first, where display managers became tightly integrated with desktops and are responsible for starting a huge list of helpers, daemons, services, etc.

When it comes to an old-school desktop, like you described with a simple login manager or tty, you can still get that with FreeBSD. I have that installed on my old Thinkpad laptop, and with hardware that is well-supported in the FreeBSD kernel, it's my favorite system to use. I wish I had the time and knowledge to develop drivers for that project, I'd make it a more usable (but not user-friendly) laptop OS.

 

[nsklaus]

it's just because ubuntu and fedora are bad distros. run anything like arch variants or slackware, gentoo or whatever and you're fine booting straight to tty and just run startx when you want graphical environment. i do that all the time.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I kinda wish OpenWebOS would be possible for android smartphones. I only know WebOS from screenshots and past wiki articles or forum discussions. It was perfect--skeuomorphic gesture controlled OS. Efficient. Had a sort of nature aesthetic (looking at screenshots of the Palm Pre. Slider phone, wireless charging, gesture control, removable battery, small display, expandable storage. Perfect!

Unfortunately they're 3G or HSPA+ 4G which is gonna die next year. Otherwise I'd buy one. I want a modern phone with a skeuo UI and that's just not possible or complete merely with changing launchers or icon packs. I just hope an OS matures one day (maybe when KaiOS blows up?) that can get us out of flat land.

Or just Linux in general being more than for PC or Mac. Old Nokia N-series smartphones ran a variant of Linux (maemo? Meego?) at one time.

 

[n-evo]

1) defaults write -g NSWindowSupportsAutomaticInlineTitle -bool false
this restores normal windows titlebars, so i can easily click and drag my windows around, whereas with the fuzed titlebar/toolbar design it's more annoying to find a correct spot to be able to click and grab windows for moving them around. often time i'd just end up clicking on an icon or some element that would have prevented me from grab and drag. which was annoying. well, that setting above took good care of that.

Mind sharing a screen shot what apps/windows look like after using that setting?

 

[nickdalzell1]

it's just because ubuntu and fedora are bad distros. run anything like arch variants or slackware, gentoo or whatever and you're fine booting straight to tty and just run startx when you want graphical environment. i do that all the time.

Yeah I found that out when I tried to install a DE on my Ubuntu Server (which serves as an NAS, Certificate Authority, Plex server, and Proxy server) and it wanted to switch from a server to a desktop PC. (it actually said that, it would remove ubuntu-server and replace it with ubuntu-desktop)

Since it only operates as a server (mostly headless) all I really need to do with it if it ever shuts down or needs maintenance is switching the wifi off/on, editing config files, etc the terminal 24/7 is all I need. I just felt it odd that any DE switched it from a server platform to a desktop platform, given many modern servers use GUIs (such as Windows Server)

 

[CasualFanboy]

arch variants or slackware, gentoo or whatever and you're fine booting straight to tty and just run startx when you want graphical environment.

After all these 10+ years with Linux, I'd possibly entertain an Arch variant, but not Arch itself. There was a time when I loved Slackware, but oh man that package management philosophy gets exhausting once you've learned all that you can from it. It does protect against bloat caused by lazy packaging though.

 

[nsklaus]

@CasualFanboy
go for manjaro if you want an easy arch based system,
or for artix if you're allergic to systemd virus, like me.
both have livecd and graphical installers.
and the package manager, pacman, is quite nice.
arch and its variants are worth it. you just need to give it a bit of time and you'll discover a cleaner linux world. and that distros like ubuntu and fedora and such, are just adding unnecessary fat that is supposed to help the users but in fact, ends up just getting in the way.

 

[nsklaus]

Mind sharing a screen shot what apps/windows look like after using that setting?

you can see it a few post back. for example: here or there.
ignore the colours and the theme. what you're looking for is that it restore the windows titlebar on top.
it remove the fusion of titlebar and toolbar together. it make it so macos have a normal separated titlebar and toolbar, like it was before bigsur new design disaster.

 

[jennyp]

i'm a linux user too ( i'm anticipating marcan's port and virtualization tools to come up on m1 by the way
about explaining how to do this, i don't have pdf or detailed instruction but, here's what i did:

- grab a copy of themeengine
- boot into recovery and disable sip:

csrutil disable
csrutil authenticated-root disable

- find out the name of your boot volume:

df -h
or
diskutil list

- mount a mirror of it (create a direcory for the mount point in your home dir, for example 'livemount' and mount):

sudo mount -o nobrowse -t apfs /dev/disk4s5 /Users/<YOUR USER NAME>/livemount

- run themeengine with admin rights:

sudo /Applications/ThemeEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ThemeEngine

- open a *.car file, for example:

/Users/<YOUR USER NAME>/livemount/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemAppearance.bundle/Contents/Resources/Aqua.car

- use themeengine to modify the theme to your linking. (Aqua.car is the light theme)
- save the modified file, quit the app and make your change persistant:

sudo bless --mount /Users/<YOUR USER NAME>/livemount --bootefi --create-snapshot

- reboot, and 'voila'
( most of these info are already available on jslegendre repo, maybe i added just a little extra info to it, but not much)

if you just want to change the colours of titlebar/toolbar like me, you can look at the screenshot i posted earlier, it point to the element i have changed to do so. themeengine allow for copy/paste between various items as well as drag and drop import of bitmaps into Aqua.car's UI elements.

now if you wanted to do something deeper than just changing a colour, maybe you could grab Aqua.car from say catalina, and copy an element you wish to import, and paste it in the Aqua.car of big sur on a specific element. doing so will ask time and patience but it can be done. if you do, i'd be interested if you could share your modified Aqua.car

I'm tempted, but something tells me not to disable SIP. Am I being paranoid ?

 

[nickdalzell1]

Turning off SIP won't affect anything. I just disables Apple's permissions keeping you from editing system files on the root partition. Unfortunately, disabling SIP and Secure Boot doesn't do jack to allow you to edit system level apps (such as removing them or replacing them with older versions) or edit their icons. I've tried and failed.

 

[cfdlab]

1) defaults write -g NSWindowSupportsAutomaticInlineTitle -bool false
this restores normal windows titlebars, so i can easily click and drag my windows around, whereas with the fuzed titlebar/toolbar design it's more annoying to find a correct spot to be able to click and grab windows for moving them around. often time i'd just end up clicking on an icon or some element that would have prevented me from grab and drag. which was annoying. well, that setting above took good care of that.

This is great discovery. Thank you very much.

It makes BS more tolerable, though the anaemic colors, which makes everything too white, is still hard to like as it strains the eye.

 

[jennyp]

Turning off SIP won't affect anything. I just disables Apple's permissions keeping you from editing system files on the root partition. Unfortunately, disabling SIP and Secure Boot doesn't do jack to allow you to edit system level apps (such as removing them or replacing them with older versions) or edit their icons. I've tried and failed.

Right - but according to that earlier post I can use the themeengine thing to at least return the Finder to an earlier, less washed-out look (say like Catalina), right? Or am I missing something here?

 

[nsklaus]

@cfdlab
you're welcome, i'm glad if i could help. this finding isn't my own by the way, i've found it on the net. i'm just sharing the word.

@jennyp
it's correct you can change finder's colours, but it doesn't just apply to finder. it's system wide. every window will have the colour background you defined. changing background colour and apply a fixed one or even a gradient is easy. after that, the rest, is more complex. for example restoring white background around toolbar buttons or things like that will require more fiddling with themeengine. it can be done though. but it will need more tricky tweaking. (it's in the zzzzpackedassets1 and 2 i believe.. it's less simple to edit those.)

see this screenshot i've highlighted in red the sections for changing window background colours.
the element are just bitmaps. i recommend browsing everywhere in the aqua.car elements, find a colour or a gradient you like, then copy it, go back to the element i've highlighted, select one on the right panel and paste. save your modification, in term do the bless thing (for me it is: sudo bless --mount /Users/klaus/livemount --bootefi --create-snapshot) then reboot and you should have your new colour applied for every window.

my current setting makes it look like that:

it's not as nice as previous macos, but at least it's more bearable that way.

 

[jennyp]

Say I do all that but then I find a compelling reason to re-enable SIP and authenticated-root. I know I can do both those things by booting into recovery mode and doing these in terminal:

csrutil enable

and

csrutil authenticated-root enable

... but what of the other changes made, with themeengine etc - would I need to 'reverse' these in any way? Would I be left with the need for a clean-install?

 

[CasualFanboy]

... but what of the other changes made, with themeengine etc - would I need to 'reverse' these in any way? Would I be left with the need for a clean-install?

It's unlikely that anything as drastic as a complete reinstall would be required, but what has always concerned me is the interaction of any personal modifications with future official updates. The most likely thing is that the updates will simply clobber your changes, and you would have to make them all over again. However, I don't know that for sure, because I haven't tested and witnessed this scenario. I customize the hell out of my Linux installs, and tend to just take my beating when it comes to Apple's bad decisions.

 

[nsklaus]

... but what of the other changes made, with themeengine etc - would I need to 'reverse' these in any way? Would I be left with the need for a clean-install?

if csrutil is reactivated, all changes becomes ineffective. i haven't tried to do full circle (disable, enable, disable again) to check if changes were completely lost or just rendered ineffective while csrutil was active. if you want to revert all to default, just reactivate csrutil, no need to reinstall whole OS.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I keep SIP and authenticated root off. I don't need my 'pro' system trying to protect me from myself. If I do something stupid, it's on me. I wish more people felt this way so OEMs like Apple or Microsoft or whomever would stop idiot proofing everything.

 

[Populus]

Have you noticed that the dialogue buttons are similar to the old iOS 6 dialogue buttons? Without the glossy textures, obviously. Do you think they will revert to this type of buttons on iOS/iPadOS? Flat, but buttons again instead of just lines.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Those style of buttons were like that since Catalina for me. Apple TV app icons have a bit of a 'surface' as well but I'll reserve my optimism for when we actually get skeuomorphic UI completely back. Cover flow and all.

 

[Populus]

Those style of buttons were like that since Catalina for me. Apple TV app icons have a bit of a 'surface' as well but I'll reserve my optimism for when we actually get skeuomorphic UI completely back. Cover flow and all.

I don't think we'll get back to a full textured skeuomorphism like in 2010, but I do see a slight direction/regression towards that. Maybe with flat textures but some level of 3D (different layers).

 

[nickdalzell1]

It wouldn't be a regression at all. Going back to flat UI ala Amiga Workbench/DOS/CP/M/OS/2 Warp 4 is regression. Imagine how the future could be if we kept skeuo UI, we might have holographic by now. I just want some of that back. That way I can finally get off the 2010-2013 era for once (I still use older phones/tablets because I hate flat design and can't just get used to something I hate)

Design seems to be cyclic anyway. Cars go from over the top digital display dashes and touchscreens (Buick Reatta circa 1988, Olds Trofeo 1989) to basics (Chevy Luminas in 1990s, Ford Escape 1st gen, Jeep Liberty) to over the top again (infotainment systems today) and will go back to basics once more. I hope the same applies to computer UI design. If so, we hopefully will get off this flat wagon once and for all. At least, maybe for 5 years. But I will never get used to flat. Why we stopped moving forward to go back to the 1980s era of design again is something I will never understand. We should have kept moving forward.

Every time I test drive a 2010 car, use a 2010 phone, or a 2010 TV, it always feels far more future-thinking than what we have today, even with the hardware limitations. It felt spacey and wonderful then it all had to change for no reason. Especially with the level of hardware evolution you'd think we could have a UI or OS that fits instead of this modern regression to DeskMate. I want the variety back, the hardware choices we had. sliders. small and large displays, you know, options! features! gloss!

The one question I must ask is: If skeuo design got 'dated' to everyone after 6 years of it (ignoring how it evolved over time), why isn't flat UI design dated to everyone after 7 and going on 8?!

 

[nsklaus]

i've just discovered that if i replace Aqua.car, AquaAX.car and VibrantLight.car with Graphite.car, GraphiteAX.car and VibrantLightGraphite.car (all from big sur default SystemAppearance.bundle) i get this:

almost perfect looking macos. it should be easier that way to work only with bigsur files.
i plan to restore Aqua.car, AquaAX.car and VibrantLight.car, and fill them with assets from Graphite.car, GraphiteAX.car and VibrantLightGraphite.car. it should solve the last little problems i have.

the file responsible for button background colour is VibrantLight.car (here replaced with VibrantLightGraphite.car)