System backgrounds in OS X

[Richard Gaskin]

Ian Wood wrote:
> I'm probably mixing up terminology here, but aren't the windows  
> *content* regions on OS X always white, no matter which version of OS X?

That's a good question.  From the user's perspective, the "content 
region" is where they put their content, be it a drawing space or a 
field for typing or whatever, separate from any toolbars or other 
controls which may exist in that window.

In this context I'm using "content region" in the generic sense used in 
Inside Mac, referring to the whole interior of the window below the 
title bar and within the window's edges.

Windows of style modeless, modal, and palette automatically take on the 
appropriate OS color/pattern one would expect, but toplevel windows in 
Rev do not, and programmatically it's far simpler to leave document 
windows in an app as toplevel, and reserve modeless for specialized 
auxiliary views and/or controls.  And on Windows, modeless is a 
radically different window style altogether, completely unsuitable for 
documents.

What Rev does with making every toplevel stack white is appropriate for 
drawing applications, which are ironically uniquely difficult to make in 
Rev as opposed to, say, SuperCard.

For more common uses, like forms or really just about anything else, the 
standard OS appearance would be more appropriate.

Frankly it's surprising that support for common native appearance of 
toplevel windows has been left out of all upgrades to date, even as it's 
available on Windows.

Hopefully a little nudging via votes will see this addressed.  Thank you 
for turning up the original request - I've marked the new one as a 
duplicate and closed it, referring to the original you found:

<http://quality.runrev.com/qacenter/show_bug.cgi?id=5186>

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
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