Sean Sperte noted that Core Image now makes it possible to use an interface depth of field to distinguish background windows. This would probably work great for many users, but as his readers commented, it wouldn’t work well for heavily multitasking users who use several windows simultaneously, such as a researcher reading from a background browser window while writing in the foreground.

The problem this addresses is real. Leopard’s improves things with stronger shadows, lightened window titlebars and other cues, yet it can still be hard at times to notice which window is frontmost.

These two screenshots illustrate the problem. Beyond a little overlap between the two lower windows, there aren’t many cues to help you appreciate which is frontmost. (These are Photoshop-ed, so slight inaccuracies exists, but you get the idea.)

 

 

An alternate solution

How about an interface brightness of field, where background windows darken slightly, relative to the front window? The following images apply a 25% transparent black to background windows. Notice how it makes the frontmost window stand out.

Core Animation could be used to animate the windows between dark and light to avoid an otherwise abrupt transition. Choose the right level of transparency and the background windows could remain perfectly legible.

Update: Hutson Howard at The Wicked Good Blog raised this point last month about how Leopard’s new window highlighting ctually gets things backwards: the lighter shading applied to background windows draws you toward the very windows you’re supposed to ignore.

Saturday, January 19th, 2008, 8:38 pm    Both comments and pings are currently closed.