On Fri, 3 May 2002, Henrik Gedenryd wrote:
Alan Kay wrote:
But, Henrik, what is the "rational argument" for having color or even gray scale or different fonts in the developer interface or any interface? Or flowers on your desk? Part of UI is ambience.... If you don't like rounded corners, then you should be able to turn them off, etc.
You are clearly talking about aesthetics.
Exactly.
[...]
You are right in that Squeak does have an "ambience". And for anyone with graphic design training (etc.) who know how to "read" such things, Squeak's ambience reads "amateurism". There have been several people who know these things who have offered help. But Squeak will probably always be ruled by the programmer's aesthetic.
Rectangular windows are the result of "programmer's aesthetic". It's the most straight-forward thing to do. Adding roundness makes the interface just a tad friendlier.
Regarding "amateurism" in the context of rounded windows (I agree that most other visual aspects of Squeak's GUI are at best "amateurish"): The two most recent major GUIs both have rounded window corners. I'm sure they pay a lot for professional designers. On a related note, Macs have had rounded screen corners for ages, but surely not for any usability reason.
-- Bert