As opposed, say, to someone just normally repellant...

I often find myself wondering how many of Dean's supporters are going to feel betrayed and alienated after he wins the nomination. If he does. Although almost everyone thinks he's going to win the nomination, I am not at all sure that he will. He's got the furiously angry part of the Democratic base, and not much else that I can see.

Posted by Dean Esmay at November 22, 2003 8:00 AM

Drawers. Similar to Sheets, this is a "child" window that gives users access to items that do not always need to be present. But when do you use a drawer and when do you use a palette?

Posted by Basil at January 12, 2004 6:22 PM

But limit your animations to whatever is required to communicate the necessary information. Avoid annoying animations that discourage ease of use. Ask yourself, "What do I need to show the user, and what is the cleanest way possible to achieve that?" A good example is the Mail application for Mac OS X. Whenever a new message arrives, the Dock icon changes appearance to indicate a changed state.

Posted by Faustinus at January 12, 2004 6:23 PM

If an application is designed well, the reward for users is that they will learn it faster, accomplish their daily tasks more easily, and have fewer questions for the help desk. As a developer of a well-designed application, your returns on that investment are more upgrade revenue, reduced tech support, better reviews, less documentation, and higher customer satisfaction. The rewards of building a good-looking Aqua application are worth taking the extra time.

Posted by Gentile at January 12, 2004 6:23 PM

This topic is one we will tackle later in this article, but it refers to making sure that your application and the dock aren't fighting it out for supremacy of the screen.

Posted by Lionel at January 12, 2004 6:23 PM

Due to the positioning of the Dock, remember that when you build an application, you have to be sure that new document window sizes and positions do not violate the Dock's space. Dock is temperamental and Dock loves his space. If you default to a window size that expands behind the dock, users will have a difficult time reaching the navigation and resize areas at the bottom of the screen. I can personally say that more than once I have been rather peeved that I couldn't get to an area of the window to resize because the default window settings always pop up behind the Dock. In addition, the new Dock in 10.1 will allow users to position their Dock location on either side of the screen as well.

Posted by Christopher at January 12, 2004 6:24 PM

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.

Posted by Jocatta at January 12, 2004 6:24 PM

Adopt Sheets. I really like the use of Sheets in OS X. The use of Sheets lets me know which window my dialogue belongs to without hijacking my system.

Posted by Grace at January 12, 2004 6:25 PM

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.

Posted by Grace at January 12, 2004 6:25 PM

To help you become a good Aqua citizen, Apple has created a few guidelines. I've put together a brief overview of them, and we'll be tackling many of them in the months to come.

Posted by Dudley at January 12, 2004 6:26 PM

For example, if you see an AIM window peeking out from behind your browser and you click on it, that window will come to the front, but the main application window will not. The Mail.app/Activity Viewer is another example. The Aqua system of layers works well in many instances, but not in all. Thank goodness that the Dock is always there to come to the rescue. I know that clicking on an application icon in the Dock will always result in not only the application coming to the front, but also any non-minimized windows associated with it. And if the application is active but no windows are open, clicking on the Dock icon should create a new window in that application.

Posted by Cadwallader at January 12, 2004 6:26 PM