You know how in the Binder, when a status color is used to highlight something, it does so with rounded edges, creating almost a “lozenge” shape? Well, for some reason, I just hate that. I would love to see the Binder use “shiny beveled rectangles with square edges,” or whatever the official Apple Human Interface Guidelines call those thingamabobs. Alls I know is they’re infinitely better-looking than the lozenge-shaped highlight, and they seem to “feel” more solid when doing drag and drop, too, just from using them in other apps. Any way this could ever possibly become a feature? Pleeeease? (Note, I’m not talking about the usual sidebar highlight, as in the Finder; this object has more of a sharp-cornered look to it with a slight inward bevel on it, and sort of shiny-seeming on the top. Anyone else know what I’m talking about?
Do you have any screenshots from another program that demonstrate the bezel rectangular for label colouring of items? I can’t think of anything off-hand that does this. Whenever software displays a label colour to a list or outline tree item it uses the lozenge shape like Finder does. So I’m not even sure what this would look like!
Well, to be honest, I’ve never seen it used except in sidebar items in some programs that have sidebars. (Though I’ve never been fond of the lozenge shape in Finder, either!) But I figured, the Binder is a sidebar (of sorts), so perhaps it could use this too. I’ll try to find a screenshot and post it. But either way, even if using one of those isn’t appropriate or possible, I’d still like to see the lozenge-shaped highlight go in favor of a regular, rectangular highlight.
I know this isn’t what your asking for, but I’ve found that I prefer having the icons in the binder use the status colors, rather than having the lozenge shaped highlight around the titles, but that’s because I didn’t like so much bold, sometimes clashing colors glaring at me from the binder.
So basically kind of the way Outliner highlights rows? It’s not a bezel, but that might be replacing one kind of visual noise (all of the curved edges) with another (all of the shiny edges). I’ve never been a huge fan of Finder’s label presentation, either. I always preferred the old OS 9 look which just tinted the icon. I think solid bars could look okay, but perhaps a bit “old fashioned”. Robert is right though, the “if you find it gaudy…” answer has typically been: use icon tinting.