Ver 3 Weaker graphic design distracts

[jmck at mac.com]

On Wednesday, January 5, 2005, at 11:07  AM, 
ooutline-ml.5.haelo at spamgourmet.com wrote:

>> I find the checkboxes more appropriate for typographical documents (as
>> they are neither forms on a web page nor system controls),
>
> I pretty much had the same comment. Yes, they are more typographic
> than OS X's checkbox widget, but that still does not mean they are
> good enough. There is something subtly "wrong" with the size and
> boldness of the status icons in general. They should be diminished
> just a tad, either pixel-wise or raising the value of the colour to a
> charcoal grey, as opposed to jet black.
>
> In short, it is a step in the right direction, but not good enough,
> and overall I feel they are more distracting than OO2 and some other
> outliners, even with the improvement to the checkbox factored in.

I have to take some of the blame for these checkboxes looking as they 
do, as in early sneaky peeks of OO3, they were a little smaller and 
charcoal grey, and I complained about this. My issue was that my eyes 
were working harder to to scan the status of the boxes, relative to 
OO2, whose aqua checkboxes provided great contrast between checked and 
unchecked items.

( I agree with the list that aqua UI elements should not be used in a 
document context...)

Come to think of it, the Group's solution -- to make the boxes larger 
and black -- does nothing to increase the contrast *between* checked 
and unchecked items. Perhaps unchecked boxes could be grey, and checked 
black?

John McKenzie