UI Mockups
Mostly earlier designs.
So, I believe I mentioned the fictional Gultics OS, yes? And its NT counterpart, Alliance? Well, there was a fair amount of fiction going on behind all of this. Simultaneous to much of my early work in actual UI customisation (evident in the earliest screenshots of Telerin—the ones with wide titlebar buttons) I spent a great deal of time slaving over MS Paint drawing strange, Amiga- and Mac- inspired interfaces for Alliance. The idea was that it would all mature into workable prototypes as I got better in the code. Some of it actually did, amazingly enough—Cheddar, Cmdsys, and Sidebarry are descendants of this school of thought, and representations of topbar and sidebar applications feature prominently in the mockups.
I'm not sure if there's anyone else in the universe who shares my fetish for unusual UI widgets. I'm not talking about buttons that have been shaded by an eighth-grader to look like something coughed up in the style of Windows Media Player 6's incredibly dull play button (or anything by Amazon ever), but eccentric, unusual paradigms for representing and interacting with user response. Nextstep's menu system and its crazy scroll bars, Windows Chicago's sexy diamond radio buttons, or the craziness that was Build 58 (check out the multiple start buttons and the 3.x-esque caption buttons. Isn't that cool and weird at the same time guys?)... or the Amiga's cycle buttons (like dropdowns, except with no menu; good for things with three or four options!)
These things are nifty and cool. So, naturally? I wanted to come up with my own. Most of them are extremely childish and derivative.
Alliance 1.0
One element that many not be so obvious is that the bar at the left edge of the window frame underneath the title bar was conceived as a way to access program menus. This is a little in conflict with the assumption of the topbar's purpose, which was to reveal menus as well, like an Amiga.
Alliance 1.5
Alliance 1.9
Alliance 5.1
The bar at the top is actually an altered screenshot of cmdsys, woohoo.
Sol 13 Frame
Sol 14 Frame
Sol 15 Frame
