Mac OS X native interface

• Dec 23, 2014 - 04:05

Is it possible that before MuseScore 2.0 is actually released, the Mac version can be redesigned to look like it's the Mac version? Tooltips, dialog boxes, checkboxes and radio buttons, Cancel/OK type buttons, tabs, and so on — all have strange, non-native looks in the 2.0 betas. MuseScore 1.3 handled all these kinds of things normally. The new style looks utterly foreign to the Mac environment.


Comments

In reply to by Thomas

"Understanding" can mean different things. I think I understand that this is the way things are now. I don't really understand why. All I know is that the Mac version of 1.3 used the native style perfectly well, and this is a change for the worse. (This is the reason Mac users hate having to use the GIMP.) Are you sure you won't change your mind?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Let me be a little more clear about why I don't understand. You see, I've used MuseScore 1.1–1.3 over Mac operating systems from 10.5 Leopard through 10.10 Yosemite, during which the Mac OS X visual style was changed more than once. The app's appearance changed with it. The same version of MuseScore looked different to match the operating system it was running in. Attached are three screenshots proving this.

It seems beyond doubt that you don't need to actually redesign the application's appearance to match each operating system's style — you simply need to tell the app to use whatever the system style is. (I might mention that virtually* every single app that runs on a Mac, including all of the open-source multi-platform ones, does this just fine.)

In fact, I think you had to go out of your way to make MuseScore 2.0 always use that specific foreign style.

I'll accept that for some unfathomable reason you think this change is a good idea. Just don't try to tell me it's because it's "too difficult" to let the app's style match the system style, because I don't believe it.

*The one and only exception being the GIMP.

Snow Leopard.png Mavericks.png Yosemite.png

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In reply to by Isaac Weiss

No one ever said it was "impossible", or even "too difficult" to do if you limit yourself to only stock widgets as I guess some programs do. But the reasons why it is not really that simple in general are not "unfathomable" - they are summarized quite nicely in the post Thomas linked to. In particular, the various custom widgets developed for MuseScore do *not* work out of the box in other themes and require extra development effort to support and maintain, plus there are the other concerns he describes. MuseScore is developed by a very small team who have to choose carefully what to spend their limited time on. And I for one am glad it tends to mostly be on features and bug fixes.

Again, please accept that the people who develop this free software and have studied this in detail and understand exactly what the tehcnical issues and tradeoffs are have made their decision based on sound principles.

In reply to by Isaac Weiss

I believe those things *are* stock widgets, but it's not as simple as using stock widgets for some items, custom widgets for others, and expecting it to all just magically work with any theme. I don't pretend to understand all the technical issues either. But I know the developers have looked at this in depth and made their decision about what they consider to be worth the time and effort to support.

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