Early versions of DP and Performer didn't always use the Mac OS (System 7) windowing system for dialog boxes, and the interface had all of those funky triangle and stair-stepped icons (like the Chuncks icons, etc). Compared to a program like Vision, Performer seemed odd to me. But it always felt more complete.bayswater wrote:That was the style of the day./quote]Shooshie wrote:bayswater wrote:I think it's a leftover from when DP had a unique interface pre-OS X, only used SD2, used that weird plugin format, and had a window for everything. If I look at a screen shot of DP 4/5 now, it does look weird.
How do you mean? Most Mac apps at the time, and even now, just used the standard OS windows and tools to manage them. DP had additional buttons, menus and extra doodads on its window frames. These windows were lilely very useful to long term experienced users, but made it difficult for new users to transfer learning from other applications. That's what I think would lead to the "weird" label.
I suspect Apple made it difficult to customize windows the way MOTU had done when they went on a Branded Look And Feel crusade with OS X. And so we got DP 6 that looked like any other app (and therefore was not "Weird") An interesting exception now is Apple itself which still uses their "pro" theme for a couple of their "pro" apps, incorporating low contrast grey on grey, miniscule menu bars, and tiny buttons. The new Weird.
I bought DP in 1993 because of an ad I saw in Electronic Musician that showed DP natively running four tracks of audio using the Audiomedia II card. From what I recall at that time it was either that or a Pro Tools system. That was too expensive so DP won by default. Once I got to know it, other DAWs felt awkward.
I can understand when people who don't use DP first, think it's a deep or mysterious program, but all DAWs are a little bit strange compared to your average application. I think it took most DAW developers a few years to consepualize how a DAW should look and work.
You're right though. Apple breaks their own Human Interface Guideline suggestions all the time.