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Moin Alexander,
(Maybe we should continue this offlist :)
On Sunday 15 January 2006 20:34, Alexander Bobrov wrote:
Tels,
T> The entire old skin design is more or less flat
Negative. Old buttons are bordered and gradiented.
I meant the rest of the skin (e.g. the "edit this article" docks, the menu
box etc). They are all essential flat, so the buttons should "fit" in.
T> I think making them 3D (especially the search
button!) is a solution
in search of T> a problem :)
Even in overall flat design it is highly recommended to have one's
control (interactive) elements highlighted. Usability. The volume is
the best way to do it.
Yes, but I think that if the entire design is "flat", then the buttons
should stand out by color, or by being darker, or by having a different
border, and not by being more 3D. It just looks inconsistent to me.
(my opinion, of course :)
For instance, if you color buttons bright orange, they will stand out,
even though they do not have a "shading" or 3D effect.
Nothing against 3D effects, but I think it doesn't fit the default skin.
T> * The new edit buttons are nice, but apart from
the 3D problem, they
also T> suffer from reduced contrast. That might be due to JPG
compression, but T> IMHO the black "A" was much better readable than
your new dark grey T> version, especially because the background is now
also more grey/silver.
Not JPEG compression. Intentionally - to compensate its large,
relatively to other pictos, strokes. But perhaps you are right. Let's
compare:
http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki3.shtml
Definitely better.
T> * In additon, the blue buttons stand out more,
the silver ones
almost T> vanish on the white background (since they don't have a black
border, T> either)
Another variant - to not to vanish. But it is more complex, less flat.
http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki5.shtml
Wrong URL? (the "all flat" url below is the same as this :)
T> I think a flat button design that matches the
"1px solid dark-grey"
T> borders of the rest of the site might be a good idea - in fact, just
like T> the current search button.
I had this idea too.
http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki5d.shtml
And I don't like it. It looks like a work of a man who doesn't like
his work.
I really like it for being consistent. I would probably add a shade of
color to the background, so that the buttons stand out more. Like so:
http://bloodgate.com/tmp/wiki_buttons_bright.png
This also adds a nice splash of color to the otherwise "silvery" page.
A related side-note: Why make the buttons images? At first I thought they
are so small because you monitor has a different resolution, but it then
occured to me they are *always* that small (silly me :), because they are
images with a fixed size. On my 1600x1200 resolution the buttons are
really really tiny.
It would be possible to replace them with some HTML code like so:
<span class="button bold"
onmouseddown="dosomething">B</span>
<span class="button headline"
onmouseddown="dosomething">A</span>
<span class="button link"
onmouseddown="dosomething">Link</span>
...
That would allow the buttons to change with the texsize (height: 1em). It
would also allow for the buttons to be colored differently in different
skins. I think that would be worth it. [0]
Best wishes,
Tels
[0] While we are at it, move the button definitions to a config file. It
is a pain in the lower regions to add custom buttons back after each
software update...
- --
Signed on Sun Jan 15 21:39:16 2006 with key 0x93B84C15.
Visit my photo gallery at
http://bloodgate.com/photos/
PGP key on
http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
"helft den armen vögeln" -- gegen kleinschreibung
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