Color labels

[tomasc]

please design color labels consistently with the OS X UI - the label should be applied on the text, not icon. thanks, your happy user.

[ndouglas]

@tomasc

please design color labels consistently with the OS X UI - the label should be applied on the text, not icon. thanks, your happy user.

It’s almost like you were in my head last night as I suffered a terrible nightmare about what would screw DTP up the most

(I feel bound to respond with righteous horror to this and your other suggestion, lest this be somehow implemented while the developers are drunk and playing “Forum Roulette”)

I personally prefer the label to be applied to the icon rather than the text, and the reason is that the OS X implementation of labels is atrocious.

@Tog

OS X is, in general, extremely attractive, sometimes to the detriment of the interface. (The Dock is a case in point.) In one instance, however, Panther has both created something truly ugly and struck a blow against good interface in the process. I refer to the newly-implemented colorized label scheme that can make the screen all but unreadable. Instead of coloring the icons, they are wrapping giant colored ovals or stripes around or through the text.

The tinting scheme used in 9.2 didn’t work with all icons, specifically those that were of a single color other than that desired for the label, but that was because the algorithm wasn’t very sophisticated. It is quite possible and even easy to change the color of any icon without making it monochromatic and without making it look wrong. I laid out such a scheme in Tog On Interface a decade ago, and it was easy to do then, too.

Making things even worse, the team failed to map the OS 9 colors to OS X, so many of the documents are showing up in colors unfamiliar to the existing user base. Finally, they have carefully emulated the worst features of the System 9 system, too few colors, and a lack of ability for users to choose their own colors. This needs fixing.

The DEVON developers have solved those problems. OS X should be more like DEVONthink, in other words.

[tomasc]

i still think the os x way is more recognizable and just looks much much better. and – having devonthink use the same way of labeling would make me so happy

[gerber]

Ugh. Not me. I find that labels in OS X work exactly the opposite as intended. When I highlight something and then try to view it in a list later, inevitably my eye skips over that horrible jelly bean shape.

Mark

[Maria]

Hi,

if I remember well the labels were the OS X way in the beginning, but a lot of users (me included) complained.

In fact, I do not use labels in the Finder because they are so disturbing.

Best,
Maria

[grvaughan]

I agree that labels are very confusing in OS X.

The labels I created prior to OS X now look terrible!

Following Apple on this would be a mistake.