doron's blaahg

Mozilla still needs more developer support, namely stylesheet switching. A developer wants to browse too, but like anyone, probably needs one or more user stylesheets to overcome poor design on sites he needs to use. One creating new pages certainly doesn't need this confounding his site development efforts. So, to surf, one must shut Moz down, copy/rename the user stylesheet and restart. Then to work, the process must be reversed. And again. And again. Arghhhhhh!!!

rich text editing? i really haven't seen a website with some real use with that except the one on mozilla.org; i'm missing something :)?

abc

Other examples of these animations might be to show the status of an FTP transfer, the progress of media being digitized, or an updated time signature. And don't forget that users may want to have some control over this, so give them plenty of options, including the ability to turn these functions off.

This is the first thing your users see, and probably the single most important visible part of your application. It is the first chance you have at making an impression and the best chance to help establish your brand.

Whether native or not, this is obviously one of the first steps on your way to OS X. Keep in mind that often, the functionality of your code has a lot to do with how your interface is designed. How many developers have come up with great functional ideas from working with their interface or looking at their competitors'? Start working on your Aqua compliance from day one. Don't wait until the last minute.

The simple fact is that, when all other factors are equal, where will consumers spend their money? I believe that in the long run, the best looking, easiest-to-use applications will also be the most successful. I think that's why Apple encourages developers to write programs that are 100 percent Aqua-compliant.

To put my money where my mouth is, in each new article I'll build a hypothetical application that illustrates the guidelines I'm covering. Today's application is called "Paint" and will be based on the photo-illustrative icon I created in my last article. Together we will complete each step, and by the end of the project we should have a well-designed, 95%-100% Aqua-compliant application. I'll leave some room for personal preferences and the fact that Apple changes the OS every few months.

This is the first thing your users see, and probably the single most important visible part of your application. It is the first chance you have at making an impression and the best chance to help establish your brand.

Dock Animation. Sometimes animating icons in the dock can be useful in communicating the status of the system or application.

Okay, I just told you what Apple wants you to look out for with window positions, but in the real world, not everyone uses the hiding feature of the Dock, and it is unrealistic to be able to predict where each user will place their Dock at any given day or how large they will have it. However, you can build a feature into your application that allows spacing for the Finder. You can give users the option of where to position their windows and what area of the screen not to cross. I know that BBEdit provides me with this feature, and I wish more developers gave me more control over my windows.

This is the first thing your users see, and probably the single most important visible part of your application. It is the first chance you have at making an impression and the best chance to help establish your brand.

Adhere to Layout Guidelines. Did you leave 12 pixels between your push buttons? Does the positioning of your pop-up menus make sense, and when do you use a pop-up versus a scrolling list? Are you using the right types of buttons for the proper functions?