OT - OSX eye candy for Windows?

[Richard Gaskin]

Barry Levine wrote:

> One of my professors asked if there was a way he could make a Windows 
> app look like an OSX app. He was referring to the shape and size of the 
> app's title bar, the red/yellow/green widgets, and the shape and "glow" 
> of on-screen buttons. He'd even like "metal" if that can be done.
> 
> He's not looking for the hacks that XP users have implemented to make 
> their PC look like OSX; rather, he'd like the app to give the OSX look 
> even if the user is running it on W2K or an un-hacked XP.
> 
> Can this be done with Rev? Are there third-party items that could be 
> glommed into a Rev (or VB) project to accomplish this?
> 
> If I can help him, it might mean a higher grade....   ;-)

You could emulate much of it with windowShapes, images, and button 
icons, but IMNSHO doing so should result in a lower grade (or in the 
case of the professor, maybe a loss of tenure <g>).

The look-and-feel of a given OS may not be preferred by those who use 
other systems, but for those who will actually be using the software 
consistency with the look and feel of everything else they use on that 
system can make a big difference in productivity.

There may be a good reason for doing this as a special case, and please 
take the pedantic response here in the lighthearted manner it's 
intended.  But the underlying message is meant seriously:

Unless there's a strong reason to support such a radical departure from 
the Win HIG it may be a far greater service to the end-user to allow Rev 
to do the great job it does using native appearances for each platform.

When in doubt, consider the corollary:  How productive would Mac people 
be with software using the XP look and feel but running on OS X? :)

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
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  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com