User Interface

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Dcnblues
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User Interface

Post by Dcnblues »

I just purchased NWE, but it was a very close call and I really wanted to go with Mellel as, to my taste, it looks so damm good. I'll probably get used to NWE, and this board and a few other things swung me to get this program, but I'm curious whether there is currently any other 'skin' for the program, or an option for one in future versions.

I'm not computer litterate enough to know these things, but am hoping that an option for changing the look of the user interface would be relatively easy. As well, I recall a tip from a Mac magazine a year or two back about old programs using software saved from NEXT applications (god did those programs look good - Wordperfect on NEXT was the handsomest User Interface I've ever seen) that could be activated to change the look of the User Interface in OS X.

I assume that NWE is new code, and again I know little about this so the simpler answer would be best, but are there any possibilities for a NEXT / Mellel type of look? If it's hard to do and will never happen, that's all the information I'm looking for. Again, not criticizing anything, just stating a personal pref. Thanks.
fletcher
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Post by fletcher »

I'm no expert but I don't think this is currently possible. I don't think Apple has done much to facilitate easily changing themes or skins or whatever you call them, so any program doing this would need its own code to handle windows, buttons, etc. And that would be a lot of work. I don't know how much work it would be to shift to the brushed metal look like Mellel -- or how much demand there is for it. Personally I think brushed metal is overdone.

Recent builds of Mozilla have some theme support, but not too many Mac applications do it, I don't think.
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scottwhitlock
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Post by scottwhitlock »

I may be crazy, but I think the brushed metal look that works so well in Safari and the iApps is absolutely horrible for a word processor. I think the distract from the page. I would hope that Nisus would never go brushed metal.
HeatherKay
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Post by HeatherKay »

I agree with Scott. Keep the UI simple. Let the user concentrate on the task at hand, and keep as much usable space as possible. Word is horrible at this, with buttons and palettes and nonsense.
midwinter
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Post by midwinter »

Personally, I would like to see an Omniweb-style open documents drawer opposite the tool drawer. I often have multiple documents open at once, and even with expose it can be a pain to switch back and forth among them.
MacSailor
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Post by MacSailor »

midwinter wrote:Personally, I would like to see an Omniweb-style open documents drawer opposite the tool drawer. I often have multiple documents open at once, and even with expose it can be a pain to switch back and forth among them.
That's a good suggestion. Maybe that could be something for NWE 3.0? 8)
Peter Edwardsson
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cchapin
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Post by cchapin »

I like the idea of a handy open document list/document-switching mechanism. I also like OmniWeb's tab drawer. I'd be happy if a future version of NWE implemented something like this. However...

Often when I am switching back and forth between documents, they don't look that different from one another, so a thumbnail image of the document is less helpful than in a Web browser.

And often the names of the documents I'm switching back and forth between are long and very similar. So being able to see the entire name would be helpful.

Just my thoughts. Something like what midwinter proposed would be welcome -- especially if it stayed out of the way when not needed.

As for the original topic, I agree with those who like the current clean, simple, uncluttered interface.

--Craig
rallx
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Post by rallx »

the latest version of BBEdit has this feature, but it just lists the file name -- doesn't show page views. It is very useful, particularly when you are doing a batch grep find and replace or other text processing.

One thing NWE could do which would be a part way solution would be to have a drop down menu on the toolbar which listed all open windows. One could probably also do this in a palette.

Rick
rallx
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Post by rallx »

the latest version of BBEdit has this feature, but it just lists the file name -- doesn't show page views. It is very useful, particularly when you are doing a batch grep find and replace or other text processing.

One thing NWE could do which would be a part way solution would be to have a drop down menu on the toolbar which listed all open windows. One could probably also do this in a palette.

Rick
rallx
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Joined: 2004-09-11 12:05:03

Post by rallx »

the latest version of BBEdit has this feature, but it just lists the file name -- doesn't show page views. It is very useful, particularly when you are doing a batch grep find and replace or other text processing.

One thing NWE could do which would be a part way solution would be to have a drop down menu on the toolbar which listed all open windows. One could probably also do this in a palette.

Rick
rallx
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Joined: 2004-09-11 12:05:03

Post by rallx »

the latest version of BBEdit has this feature, but it just lists the file name -- doesn't show page views. It is very useful, particularly when you are doing a batch grep find and replace or other text processing.

One thing NWE could do which would be a part way solution would be to have a drop down menu on the toolbar which listed all open windows. One could probably also do this in a palette.

Rick
midwinter
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Post by midwinter »

rallx wrote:the latest version of BBEdit has this feature, but it just lists the file name -- doesn't show page views. It is very useful, particularly when you are doing a batch grep find and replace or other text processing.

One thing NWE could do which would be a part way solution would be to have a drop down menu on the toolbar which listed all open windows. One could probably also do this in a palette.

Rick
I'd prefer the BBEdit way. A menu dropdown would require at least two mouse clicks and some precision mousing. I think a drawer with either a graphical representation of the page or the title would be more efficient.
rallx
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Sorry..

Post by rallx »

Sorry about the multiple posts. the forum and my browser were not cooperating this morning!
midwinter
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Post by midwinter »

Something like this would be heavenly. If all NW did was give a little picture of the document and the filename, I'd be unbelievably happy.
penguinmedic
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Post by penguinmedic »

midwinter - what an absolutely stellar picture. I'm drooling. I, too, often have numerous docs open at one time. I'm on a laptop, so real estate is always an issue. The idea of the doc-drawer is the best I've heard to combat that issue. I hope the developers are listening. I don't think it would be too difficult to implement and I'm certain it would attract other users with similar issues.
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