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1. Embed this notice
   linear cannon (linear@nya.social)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Dec-2025 14:26:54 JST linear cannon

   in reply to

   • Scott Jenson
   • Michael Porter
   @scottjenson@social.coop @MichaelPorter@ottawa.place for whatever this is worth, in the field of open source things, KDE Plasma 6 gets this particular detail right
   
   (never mind that i'm running FreeBSD and not Linux in this capture, it's the same experience on both)
   
   web frameworks, on the other hand....
   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Scott Jenson (scottjenson@social.coop)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Dec-2025 14:26:56 JST Scott Jenson

     in reply to

     • Michael Porter

     @MichaelPorter Ha! It's funny you should mention the diagonal tracking on Mac hierarchical menus. I worked at Apple then and the team was very proud of that little touch. In their mind, it would be inconceivable to ship without that addition. There are so many ways that Linux/Windows is *still* catching up to the early Mac.

     I'm glad you liked both Smooth and Fade. My goal was just to play, see where it took me. I'm trying to think of other ways visual feedback could be made more stable/calm.

   • Embed this notice
     Michael Porter (michaelporter@ottawa.place)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Dec-2025 14:26:57 JST Michael Porter

     in reply to

     • Scott Jenson

     @scottjenson I like this - I came across your post after repeatedly messing up an image search because navigating to a submenu is intolerant to diagonal mouse movement (one of the gems of the Mac UI that I’ve always appreciated). I kept selecting a colour preference instead of a size preference. Little touches in a UI go a long way.

     Keeping the duration at 50 ms, I definitely prefer “Smooth" over “Fade” and “Classic”.
     I can see how the graininess of Classic might appeal to some people – There's no ambiguity at all as to where the mouse is hovering – but personally I don't think anything is sacrificed with the Fade, and it definitely feels calmer 😊

   • Embed this notice
     Scott Jenson (scottjenson@social.coop)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Dec-2025 14:26:58 JST Scott Jenson

     in reply to

     In today's profit-driven, move-fast-and-break-things mentality, this type of exploration may feel out of place. But that's the whole point; we've lost what's important and why we're here in the first place. What does this type of thinking unlock?

     You can play with this on my website: https://jenson.org/x/highlight.html

     What would you do differently? This is an experiment, not a solution. I hope there are other, better ideas to try.

   • Embed this notice
     Scott Jenson (scottjenson@social.coop)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Dec-2025 14:26:59 JST Scott Jenson

     Yesterday, I noticed a table view with a hover highlight that just felt "flickery." It reminded me of a harsh fluorescent lightbulb. Sure, it worked. It's even what we expect. But inspired by Amber Case and her "Calm Technology" manifesto, I wondered if there was a way to make this simple, even trivial, interaction feel more analogue and calm.

     I tried a few things and explain them in this one-minute video.