Hmm… What would make for a good list of dark-to-light descriptions?
As he was working on Photoshop CS6’s new dark UI feature, engineer Joe Ault put in bread-based placeholders for the brightness values: Pumpernickel, Dark Rye, Whole Wheat, Sourdough–then solicited suggestions from the team. Steve Guilhamet from QE explains.
The base ground rules were 4 names that reflected the tonal range of the 4 UI options, with consideration for cultural variance and localization (e.g. Pumpernickel in Scandinavia is not thought of as a dark bread). There was a food theme to start but it opened up a bit. We had beer, coffee, tequila, macaroons, rice, cakes, etc. There were moon phases, seasons, rocks.
Steve suggested clouds (Cirrus, Stratus, Cumulus, Nimbus– “Because you can’t see ‘Cloud’ used enough these days”), pirate flags (Henry Every, Richard Worley, Stede Bonnet, and John Rackam), and more. My favorite, though, is one he mocked up:
Eventually things died down & the UI ended up with just unnamed color swatches–the right move, I’m sure, but a bit less fun. (Hard to say, though, what would happen if one held down modifier keys while clicking them in the Prefs dialog…)
John, since you mention the UI change: may I ask you what did prevent the Adobe team to implement “White” in the suite of possible background (not Theme) color?
I think it should deserve a place with Black, Dark Gray, Medium Gray and Light Gray. After all we print on White paper, and a soft proof on a white background is quite common.
I won’t mention the shock that the light blue (for some unknown reason the default Custom Color) causes me every time 😉
Davide
Very, very cool !!
Thanks for that !!
Any others that may spring to mind to entertain us simple folk ?
[Try making a Layer Comp named “Layer Monkey 0.” (If bananas still appear somewhere in there, I can’t find them.) –J.]
Layer Monkey 0 changes the name of my Layer Comp panel to “Layer Monkey!”
Tooltip now says “Monkey with the layers panel!” and the icon changes.
Have a feeling I should be doing something else to the layers panel. Work now, more time to play later.
Thanks John.
[I think you’ve pretty well plumbed the depths of the Layer Monkey thing. 🙂 Joe & I always talked about hiding something “burrito”-related in there or elsewhere, but I don’t think he ever did it. –J.]
Always nice to get insight into the development process, including some playful moments – and to get hints to funny tricks; just wonder if these also work in localized versions. Anyway, i liked the post.
Go Lego. You can never have enough Lego blocks or mini-figs in your life!
so why on mine does it just delete the swatch?