Future trends in skins

Published on February 18, 2004 By Sput In WinCustomize Talk

It strikes me that as screen resolutions increase we are faced with a choice.

a) design things at the same size (in pixels) and hence have everything get smaller and smaller as resolution increases

design things bigger (within reason!) so that they can take advantage of increase detail whilst staying approximately the same final size to the user.

At present, it seems that most people (me included) are happy to luxuriate in the increased desktop realestate liberated by ever shrinking icons/window borders etc...BUT, what about when screens become 4000x3000 pixels?

Current skin/icon designs at that resolution on even a 19" screen (assuming that to be common in the future) would render even a 128x128 pixel icon at less than 1/2 an inch (1.23cm) across - and more worryingly, a 4 pixel window frame border at just 0.4 mm!

There will undoubtedly be changes to the way the GUI works in that time (Longhorn developments regarding use of Direct3D and emphasis of vector based interface designs noted), but is there milage in designing skins that will take advantage of these developments?

It would mean windows that are incredibly "chunky" looking on a current display @ 1024x768, or even 1400x1050 - but these designs will look great as technology catches up

Whatcha think?

Comments (Page 1)

DavidK

on Feb 18, 2004

skinning has a future?

kongit

on Feb 18, 2004

svg!

Sput

on Feb 18, 2004

...and growing I would lay money on.

(but seriously)

If I had any money, I'd be looking for shares in companies like StarDock...Everything these days tends to be "skinable": Mobile phones, portable CD players - even some cars and some shoes.

I see it as an extention of the industrial revolution (with the emphasis on revolution)...things before industialisation tended to be bespoke (even if lots were made). Industrialisation and factories brought about the famous "any colour as long as it's black" idea. Now, people are able to express individuality within mass produced goods through customisation being designed into them, and it seems that people like that - enough to pay for it too. Look at how much people will pay for a little bit of extruded plastic to clip on the front of a mobile phone? As computers become ubiquitous in the home as the center of an integrated entertainment system, you can bet that Mr.Gadget will want his fancy system to look better/different to his mate, Mr.GotOneToo

Sput

on Feb 18, 2004

svg - very true...I wonder when WindowBlinds will support importing that format directly?

kongit

on Feb 18, 2004

whenever computers get fast enough, and the range of screensizes gets large enough to require it.

DavidK

on Feb 18, 2004

Are there any skinning formats that actually use svg now? and does svg have any advantage over flash, which does basically the same thing?

DavidK

on Feb 18, 2004

btw Sput - this is a great question and should be good for a lot of intelligent discussion... (now that I have to go somewhere

)

craeonics

on Feb 18, 2004

As long as we are stuck with 72dpi interfaces, this is a moot point. If your resolution increases (and I mean the dpi ratio) skins will get bigger and stay the same at the same time (get it?).

At any rate, vector based skins should be more fun, primarily because of its flexible scaling and rotation and stuff.

moshi

on Feb 18, 2004

#6 by DavidK - 2/18/2004 2:11:44 PM Are there any skinning formats that actually use svg now? and does svg have any advantage over flash, which does basically the same thing?

a, yes. Metacity, GTK+ and icons (all *NIX stuff, GTK+ is ported to Windows though). there are probably a few more, but these are the main ones.

b, SVG is a completely open format.

BoXXi

on Feb 18, 2004

...BUT, what about when screens become 4000x3000 pixels?

HeHe...at least my skins will fit on the screen then.......

Sput

on Feb 18, 2004

craeonics - but we're not stuck at 72dpi. Most displays now will operate at at least 96dpi and usually higher.

For example, lots of 15" laptop screens we've dealt with recently are running at 1600x1200, which means a dpi of...er..(quick bit of pythagorus again)...12" horizontally with 1600 pixels, is 133.33 dpi. And I can assure you that everything is TINY on those. Standard 32x32 icons become just 1/4" across (approx - or 6mm)...If you don't believe me I'll have to have someone bring one in and take a digi-photo of a ruler held up against the screen

I certainly can't wait to see vector based GUI's start....oh wait a moment, I already have

It was called a NeXt Cube and we had one in the research lab when I was at Uni back in 1989!

So, Microsoft are only 15 years behind the state of the art already

Sput

on Feb 18, 2004

BoXXi -

just what I was thinking about my own virtual skins, which prompted me to ask the question.

Sput

on Feb 18, 2004

Hey - I just realised that I wrote my first "skinable" application back then too - under X windows you can choose different window manager apps to change the appearance depending on your preferences...does anyone know an earlier computing example of things being "skinable"??

(sorry - going off at a tangent now!)

Stumpy

on Feb 18, 2004

What about those that cannot afford to keep up with the latest ??

kongit

on Feb 18, 2004

hah I forgot about metacity and xwindows...and I am using them right now!

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