Aqua vs BeOS Interface
アクア / BeOS インターフェース
Aqua comes from Apple UI and BeOS Interface from Platform Screen Languages. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Aqua
Mac OS X's design language of buttons you want to lick. Jelly gloss, pinstripes, deep shadows and the genie effect staged digital components as objects you could touch, and set the terms for UI throughout the 2000s. What the web made of it with images is Web 2.0 Gloss.
BeOS Interface
Be's interface language threw away the full width title bar and put a short yellow tab on the top edge of each window instead. The user's guide calls sliding that tab a unique feature of Be windows: hold Shift and the tab travels sideways, so stacked windows leave a row of visible tabs rather than burying one another.
| Aqua | BeOS Interface | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 2000–2014 | 1995–2001 |
| Family | Apple UI | Platform Screen Languages |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Gel-gloss buttons / Pinstriped grounds / Deep drop shadows / Metaphors of water and light | Only the front window's tab is yellow; every other window keeps a gray tab / The tab is as wide as the window's name, not as wide as the window / Holding Shift and dragging the tab slides it along the top edge of the window / The Deskbar stands in the upper right corner with running applications stacked below it |
| Best used for | Recreating 2000s digital culture with the texture it actually had · Making what is clickable read at once as a pressable object | A workspace where many windows stay open at once and every window's label must survive being overlapped · Making an interface that reads as clearly not-the-others through a single decision rather than more color |
| Type | No shadow on text, weighted to stay legible over gloss | A small sans, one line of it, living inside the tab; names get cut short rather than trailing into an ellipsis. |
| Composition | Components evenly spaced, gaps left for shadows to fall into | The tab occupies only as much of the top edge as the name needs, and because tabs slide, window positions are chosen so overlapping windows line their tabs up in a row. |
| Material | A hard white highlight above, reflection and deep shadow below | One light gray carries the whole surface; only the front window's tab is painted yellow and the rest stay gray, with no third color invited in. |
| Caution | Gloss and shadow applied evenly to every component hides what is actually pressable, leaving texture where hierarchy should be. | Spreading the yellow around as a general accent destroys its one job, marking the front window, and the tab drops to decoration. |