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Comment by georgemcbay | Hacker News Reader

This would be awesome though on Windows (don't have much experience programming Mac UI, so maybe there too) it would break programs that make assumptions about how the non-client area of a window operates.

Quite a few programs do custom rendering up there in a way that would make it difficult to retrofit this in a universally compatible way. These programs would at a minimum need to get events to know that the various elements have moved which would require code changes in the programs to listen for and react to those events. Given how much Microsoft bends over backwards to maintain Win32 compatibility (less than in the past, but still far more than average), I doubt they'd put something like this in unless it was a wholesale interface change (similar to Metro... which avoids this issue altogether by just not having title bars).

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The habit of Windows apps to have entirely custom UIs is relatively unknown on Macs. It's not impossible, just (thankfully) much more rare.

Probably one of the initial barriers to porting Steam to the Mac.

I really don't think that is true at all.

Agreed. It probably had more to do with the fact that their store, game details, etc. views were pretty complex. They seem to have solved a lot of that crossplatform pain by implementing most of that stuff using Webkit.

It's not a technical limitation, it's a culture limitation. Mac apps care far more about providing a consistent UI than Windows and Linux apps (although I believe those platforms have improved in this regard in recent years). It's certainly possible for a Mac app to muck about with the non-"app" parts of the window, it's just far less common.

I meant it tongue-in-cheek, but what you say is true and the Steam interface has always been a custom one. I haven't used the Mac version - how did they rectify this on the Mac?

The Steam UI on the Mac looks exactly like it does on Windows. They skinned the whole thing. And this isn't a bad thing. Steam is intended to be a single cohesive gaming platform. It should look the same on every OS that it runs on.

The habit of Windows apps to have entirely custom UIs is relatively unknown on Macs

Except for all the apps that do. Like iTunes (ships with OS X) and the Mac App Store app (ships with OS X). And Quicktime (ships with OS X).

Even some popular non-Apple apps like Twitter.

And Rdio. And Reeder. And Sonora. And Chrome.

Er, those are not entirely custom UIs, they use standard widgets in well-defined ways that the platform/window manager understands.

The question was about the title bar chrome. iTunes positions the traffic light buttons vertically when compact. The Mac App Store app positions them in the center of the title area instead of the top. Quicktime has its own chrome entirely. I'm not complaining about it, just pointing out that non-standard chromes are present on the Mac in Apple's own apps.

Really? I use both Mac and Windows and it seems to me that custom UIs are just as common on both platforms (at least among the apps I use)

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