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March 13, 2007

huh

Anti-aliasing issues in Cover Flow

Posted Mar. 13, ’07, 8:30 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Apple » Huh?

Volume slidersBryce Kerley thinks there may be an issue with how anti-aliasing in iTunes 7.1’s new full screen Cover Flow is rendered. He provides a bunch of screenshots showing that the volume slider in that view looks blurry on some machines. I took a look at the computers I have on hand, my MacBook and my PowerMac B&W.

Clearly this is some sort of bug. There’s no problem whatsoever on my PowerMac (which is running Panther), but on my MacBook the volume slider and scroll bar sometimes look blurry in Cover Flow, in both full screen and “normal” views. Here’s the thing, though: if I’m in “normal” mode and the scroll bar looks blurry, all I need to do is drag the slider at the bottom of the pane—forcing a redraw—and it sharpens immediately. But the inverse is true in fullscreen mode: the volume slider and scroll bar look perfectly sharp (top picture) until I try to use them, at which point they gets blurry (bottom picture).

Odd, yes? How about you, readers: have you noticed this problem?


17 Comments

David said:

I've a MacBook and I've the same problem. It looks fine until I try to use it, at which point it blurs.

March 13, 2007 8:53 AM
Kotoki-chan Author Profile Page said:

My whole bar in Coverflow was blurry and has been the whole time, but it doesn't really bother me cause the computer does it sometimes while I'm typing ( Iike right now)

March 13, 2007 8:59 AM
Dan--the man said:

I got no blur on my MBP C2D.

March 13, 2007 9:05 AM
jayH said:

no blur on powerbook 12" 1.5 and on iMac G4 20" 1.25

March 13, 2007 9:06 AM
hanineal said:

It's clear in either view on my 24 in. iMac and remains so when it's used.

March 13, 2007 9:45 AM
Kelmon said:

Nice and sharp on a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro.

March 13, 2007 9:53 AM
MacGeek Pro Author Profile Page said:

My BlackBook C2D has had the blurry scrollbar issue in CoverFlow from day 1. (Before that, my iBook G4 had the same blurriness from day 1 of iTunes 7). Since iTunes 7.1, the issue is still there, and hte slider, volume, and player controls are fuzzy in fullscreen no matter what.

This all doesn't really bother me a whole lot, other than how could Apple overlook something so obvious and sloppy? Maybe they all use Mac Pro's over at iTunes development, and they haven't seen it. Well, hopefully someone over there reads MacUser, and fixes it.

March 13, 2007 9:58 AM
Olly said:

Aye, I get the blurriness here on my MacBook.

March 13, 2007 10:00 AM
jayH said:

could this be an intel only problem?

March 13, 2007 10:15 AM
Teilas said:

This problem occurs frequently (as in, all the time) on my Core Duo MacBook. I can only convince it to become clear again by dragging the slider that resizes the Cover Flow area.

March 13, 2007 10:24 AM
Jeremy Beck said:

I as well get this on my macbook 1.83 cd (There was a thread about it over in the apple forums, and no real solutions yet)

March 13, 2007 11:01 AM
Equinox said:

I for one, thought that was normal. I even think it looks nice. Or am I just a dedicated mac fan?

March 13, 2007 11:08 AM
ryan said:

Remember back when controls couldn't (without extra work) be centered and could even migrate when you resized a window? The most obvious were split panes (NSSplitView), where the "grabber" was slightly off. This is basically the same thing but could be specific to iTunes and not be at the API level...dunno...

I may have it wrong but I'm pretty sure it's the use of floats. If you don't force them to sane values (think; 1.0 or 1.5...not 1.013 or even 1.6) and the underlying API doesn't force them then drawing glitches can occur...yay.

March 13, 2007 11:28 AM
Wes Good Author Profile Page said:

I did now. I would have noticed earlier, but since most of my albums don't have art, it's not very exciting.

March 13, 2007 11:56 AM
Nicolaj said:

I got the blur on my MacBook core duo - clears up after resizing, except in full screen mode: blury all the time. I guess I am one of the few people that actually miss the Aqua UI in iTunes!

March 13, 2007 1:59 PM
morbey said:

yeah, the same...

March 25, 2007 1:28 PM
Dmitrijs Ledkovs said:

MacBook White Core Duo, Tiger, same thing =(

April 24, 2007 8:29 AM

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