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The Interface Designer
Dealing with Dialogs in Aqua
The rules for designing dialog boxes have changed in OS X. Here's the low-down on what's different.
Issue: 1.1 (August/September 2002)
Author: Toby Rush
Author Bio: Toby Rush, a music instructor, consultant, and freelance software and web designer, has been using REALbasic since before version 1.0. His current projects include The Interface Mafia (
Article Description: How to make proper Aqua dialogs.
Article Length (in bytes): 8,394
Starting Page Number: 44
RBD Number: 1015
Resource File(s): None
Related Web Link(s):
www.interfacemafia.org
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macos8/HumanInterfaceToolbox/HumanInterfaceGuide/humaninterfaceguide.html
Known Limitations: None
Excerpt of article text...
Aqua, the interface component of Mac OS X, obviously has a lot of differences from Platinum, its OS 9 predecessor. Some of them are obvious changes: the Dock, the Finder windows, the Apple menu. But there are quite a few more subtle things that are new, many of which are a result of some fundamental interface changes.
One place where Aqua has introduced changes is in the field of dialog boxes -- those helpful windows that appear when the application needs to communicate with the user. Dialogs designed in Platinum will almost always work perfectly when ported to Aqua, but this approach ignores a lot of design guidelines established for the new OS, and in some cases these dialogs may cause confusion for the user. Taking the extra steps to redesign the dialogs can help avoid this confusion and give your OS X application a very professional, polished look.
Some Things Never Change
Before we talk about the changes in the new interface, let's cover some of the aspects of dialog box design that apply no matter what system you're using.
...End of Excerpt. Please purchase the magazine to read the full article.
Article copyrighted by REALbasic Developer magazine. All rights reserved.
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