Apple may be known for their superior design, but sometimes even they slip-up. Take the buttons in 10.4’s Mail.app. The little rounded “lozenges” have the effect of making the buttons indistinct from one another—if you were to only look at the buttons shape, for example, you couldn’t tell them apart.
Even Apple seems to have realized their solution isn’t perfect. Take a look at the toolbar above, which is what you’ll see by default if you create a new message in Mail. Notice how the “chat” button isn’t in a lozenge? Why? I’m guessing because to put a little bubble inside a little bubble would have looked pretty stupid.
Fortunately, should the move strike you, you can replace the icons with their Panther versions using Andrew Escobar’s Mail Stamps program. There used to be a program that would simply strip the lozenges off called Cage Fighter, but it’s been inoperative since 10.4.6 (should you wish to do the substitution yourself, instructions and lozenge-less icons are available).
Sadly, as the (now-vanished) images of Leopard we posted last week showed, the lozenge buttons are spreading to Preview. Meanwhile, I continue in my prayers that this menace will be ultimately defeated.
[via Hawk Wings]
"if you were to only look at the buttons shape, for example, you couldn't tell them apart." How does one only look at the "lozenge" Shape?! I have tried squinting and I still can see the distinct and identifying icons within.
I guess I don't understand what the problem is. What's wrong with having a uniform button shape? Like Terry said, I can easily see what each button does.