MacBeans Screenshot Album
Thursday, 13. November 2008, 13:30:20
It turns out that only registered Flickr users can view photos in full size and some of you might have been unable to view the previous screenshots in their actual sizes. I've created a new photo album on Opera and from now on I'll put high resolution screenshots of MacBeans there.
Click on the thumbnail for larger view
UPDATE: NAAAH! 
Opera converts the uploaded images to JPEG. 
Click on the thumbnail for larger view Opera converts the uploaded images to JPEG. 
WIDGETIZE
Anonymous # 15. November 2008, 05:05
Great, thanks very much for listening ;)
Looks visually already more appealing than the NetBeans default look, but having two views with highlighted title bar is a little bit distracting. I would find it more user-friendly if only one view could be highlighted at a time.
Keep up the good work!
behrangsa # 17. November 2008, 16:35
Anonymous # 19. November 2008, 01:26
Wow, that looks so much nicer. I can't wait for this to be released.
Anonymous # 19. November 2008, 10:14
Thanks much for the pointer to the launcher option. Works fine.
I would try to eliminate the spacing between the different view components altogether. I don't understand why enterprise applications seem to favor such border cruft vs. a clean and elegant look (it's the same problem with Eclipse actually).
Especially when creating RCP applications, it would be nice to have an outstanding default appearance, but for branding it should be very helpful to be able to easily apply skinning. You should definitely consider to raise this question on the NetBeans mailing list in order to enhance the NetBeans core for enhanced skinning capabilities. Your module serves as a nice example in what direction things might evolve.
A nice example of a modern status bar:
http://www.vmware.com/files/images/screens_fusion/f2/maclike_vmlibrary_lg.jpg
Looks much like the Tiger source list bar, but with a Leopard touch. The screenshot lacks some nice icons, pure text is a bit boring, but you get the idea.
Anonymous # 20. November 2008, 12:14
Whoo, thanks so much for this! I actually like netbeans quite a lot (mostly because of its simpler RCP and form designer), but MacBeans makes it a lot more pleasant to work in.
I've never liked brushed metal, so I'm happy that it doesn't turn that on by default.
I agree in principle with the first anon above -- only one tab should be distinctly highlighted, but the active tabs in other tab panes shouldn't look like any other available tab, either.
If you're looking for a next step, I'd say fixing the look of minimized window buttons/tabs is the next worst aspect of the default UI -- very chunky, they are.
behrangsa # 20. November 2008, 17:24
At the moment I have implemented a status bar like Coda's but as the components added to it are opaque it doesn't look good. I will play with other status bar styles and either stick one or let the user select his/her preferred one.
Also as soon as I feel the code is ready for a 0.1 release I will announce it on NetBeans' Users and Apple's Java Dev mailing lists.
I also completely agree with you that IDEs could have much cleaner and elegant user interfaces. I am planning to compile a complete list of stuff that are impossible to customize in NetBeans and post it on the dev mailing list. Maybe by the end of December though
@Chas,
Good to know you like MacBeans
I have implemented an experimental SlidingButtonUI as it can be seen in the screenshots but I have not commited it to the SVN repo yet. I try to commit it by Sunday night.