A firsthand account of how the Mac human interface was developed 40 years ago for the Lisa, and resources for learning to code for macOS.
human interface
How to get the best out of a Combo box, and all about Pop-up Buttons, Text Fields, Date Pickers and more.
It may seem minor, but what TextEdit has been doing for the last 6 months is a travesty of what made the Mac.
Not mentioned in the release notes, the new version of TextEdit is a bold attempt to provide a Dark Mode which is infuriating, confusing, and inconsistent. Avoid it.
Global Dark Mode poses problems with styled text which cannot be solved well without giving the user control over the mode used by that app.
It’s not just inversion of display colours, but has colour tinting from the Desktop, accents which change the colour of controls, and all icons need to be redesigned. Just to be cool?
Illustrated workthrough with Desktop & Documents Folders option turned on, showing file layouts in the GUI and file system. And a new version of Cirrus to do it with.
A detailed look at the presentation of folders and files in the Finder, GUI, Terminal, and FileManager in different iCloud options.
Consistency is an overriding design principle for the human interface. However you use iCloud storage, it adopts different behaviours from those of the Finder. Apple needs to evolve the iCloud interface to improve it, and to empower the user.
Two recent retail experiences remind me of my mis-spent youth, when I learned the hard way what it takes to sell to customers.
