Cocoa UI spit & polish

When playing with Interface Builder to create a UI for my application I sometimes run into the problem of trying to recreate a visual element used in Apple software. There are a lot of buttons and gradients used repeatedly in several Apple applications. When adding buttons with similar functionality I try to use the same artwork Apple uses for consistency.

The problem is that most of the buttons for example are custom designed by Apple and are not available by drag-n-drop in Interface builder.

So here is a collection of some images and custom classes that can be used for free in you application to add the spit and polish that makes your application look like a real Apple application. (Be sure to read the licenses for the specifics on copyrights).

• Polished metal buttons
• TunesWindow, a polished metal window
• Badging for everone, a class to add badges like used by Mail to your application icon.
• Plus & Minus
• Gear Icon & Add Menu
• Green Check & Red Cross
• Royalty Free Icons to be used in toolbars for example

An effort to give developers guidelines for replicated Apple interface elements was started under the name IndieHIG:

The IndieHIG Wiki is a place where developers and UI designers can come together to create a new set of Human Interface Guidelines to supplement Apple’s guidelines. Apple has neglected to update their HIG with modern UI designs and controls, so developers have been forced to replicate these UI elements on their own to keep their applications from looking dated. Since each developer has slightly different implementations of these elements, it has resulted in a fairly inconsistent look and feel for Mac OS users.

Maybe it's an idea to provide implementations of interface elements that follow these guidelines? For example the Polished Metal page describes the properties of a currect Polished window, for wich an implementation already exists in the form of TunesWindow.

I'm currently working on an implementation of a RuleEditor as used by the Finder to create smart folders:



When finished I'll document the properties of a rule editor in the IndieHIG and publish the sources of this class.

XCode Animations - Core Graphics

XCode Animations - Core Graphics:

Ever wanted to be able to use fancy transitions and animations in your Xcode applications? This tutorial provides the method and the means to implement terrific flips and ripples throughout your app, showing window transition effects using both undocumented and documented Objective-C code that can be implemented anywhere quickly and efficiently.

A small, quickly readable eBook that teaches the use of undocumented Core Graphics functionality. This certainly falls in the category of Undocumented Goodness and usage is therefore discouraged. That being said, if you would like to add effects like the ones used in applications like Quicksilver, Virtue Desktops and certain Apple applications I recommend you read this eBook.

Download (zip | pdf)