Notefile for Mac take 3

8 Responses

1. Pro Mike Piontek

   After living with the previous design for a while I've finally decided to rework it one more time. There were two main issues with the previous design:

   It didn't feel quite at home. It felt like some weird mashup of a widget and an app. Which is sort of what I was going for, but the balance was off—it needs to feel more like an app. I think these latest tweaks help significantly. The corner radius is now standard, the title bar is the normal height, and the buttons match up perfectly with their standard positions.

   It was buggy. First a visual quirk popped up in Mountain Lion. Then it got fixed… and then a week later it showed up in 10.7.4. Now that I'm using the standard corner radius I won't have to worry about it anymore. I've also had cases where the window just didn't have a shadow when it first launched, which should no longer be a problem now that it's an opaque window with a standard shadow.

   So! Here we are. I miss the roundier corners, but overall I think it's a great change.

   12 months ago

2. Pro Prathyush

   I'm being honest : You're one of the very few people I know who juggles code and pixels so very well. All the stuff you make for Mac/iOS have that intangible taste content, the Apple design vibe.You're surely one of the very few guys who sweat it down on pixels and code. That detailed description stands a testimony : First paragraph on design, second on code. I read somewhere that you been doing this for 20 years. Guess that explains how you are doing it well :) Continue kicking ass/pixels.

   Put that eulogy down because of the frequency of your work coming out here. I just wish that you would show more of your work like doodles/UI mockups here more often.

   About the shot, I think the height of the titlebar is right and amping up the saturation does make it look better.

   2likes

   12 months ago

3. Pro Garrett Gee

   Much better with the smaller radius..

   12 months ago

4. Sebastiaan de With

   Yes, yes, yes. This is a big step in the right direction. Good work.

   12 months ago

5. Rune Madsen

   I like this version better too. It looks like "widgety" with smaller corner radius. I also think it looks way better with the more subtle close, max and min buttons.

   12 months ago

6. Pro Sarah Mick

   I think they're all great - but I much prefer the larger corner radius. The rest of the design is a bit playful yet simple...I think the rounded corners suit it. Fabulous work.

   12 months ago

7. Pro Mike Piontek

   Thanks all!

   @Prathyush Pramod Thank you. It's tough. I think my work suffers sometimes from me trying to do too much. I should probably spend more time on design—doing a ton of iterations and really polishing the details. On the other hand, it's amazing to be able to come up with an idea, design it, and then build it. And while I do love having someone to tell me "no, that's not good enough", it's great not having anyone to tell you "no, that's not possible".

   It's especially tricky with something like the this Notefile design—where I'm changing a design because of bugs I can't find a good workaround for. It can be tempting to tweak a design to make it easier to implement, but I want the best design I can come up with, not the easiest one to build. In this case I think was the right decision though—now that I've used it for a while, I wouldn't go back.

   1likes

   12 months ago

8. Pro Prathyush

   @Mike Piontek Never. It's always great be one's own boss and critique your work hard. Even if it means tonnes of hours of love and labour lost. Life's short and I think it should be spent on worthwhile stuff like this, pushing boundaries and satisfying oneself :)

   12 months ago