OPEN LOOK
オープンルック / 1988–1990s / Style / Platform Screen Languages
A screen language for Unix workstations, specified by Sun Microsystems in a functional specification published by Addison-Wesley in 1989. The book defines two parallel designs, one black and white for monochrome displays and one three dimensional for grayscale and colour, sets a single sans serif variable width face for every common element, and tells implementers that restraint is the key to colour. Each pop-up window carries a pushpin at the left of its header, and pinning it leaves the window on the workspace.
A pushpin at the left end of a pop-up window's header, which pins the window to the workspace instead of dismissing it / Three dots after a label announce a window, an outlined triangle announces a menu / Scrollbars split into an elevator, a cable and top and bottom cable anchors, with the dark part of the cable showing how much is in view / The workspace is a 50 percent dither pattern and menu drop shadows are a 75 percent pattern
Dictionary entry
- Best used for
- Rebuilding a Unix workstation screen from around 1990 with a look that reads as Sun rather than Motif · Rebuilding a working screen so it survives a one bit display, using dither patterns and outlines alone
- Type
- Set every shared element in the same sans serif variable width face. Size in points rather than pixels, and scale through the 10, 12, 14 and 19 point steps the spec provides.
- Composition
- Give each window four resize corners and gather commands into control areas outside the pane. Every pop-up window opens with a header that carries a pushpin.
- Material
- Make the design work in black and white first. For the three dimensional version pick one background colour, derive the recessed shade by adding 10 to 15 percent black, and reserve white for lit edges.
- Caution
- Starting from the three dimensional colour scheme collapses the moment the design meets a monochrome display, where neither the raised edges nor the pushpin survive.
- Further study
- 仕様書 Appendix B の実寸図。要素がポイントで指定されている / 同時代の Motif と並べ、影の付け方と字の扱いの違いを見る / 押しピンで常駐させる窓と、閉じる前提のダイアログの使い分け
Related entries
Cite this entry
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- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/open-look
- Markdown
- [OPEN LOOK — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/open-look)
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- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/open-look">OPEN LOOK — IndexStyle</a>