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Comment by katabatic | Hacker News Reader

Features are one thing - yes, nearly all IDEs have lots of the same features. But that looks like they copied XCode 4's appearance directly. It's a pity the screenshots are so low resolution - hopefully some higher resolution shots of the Samsung software will turn up.

But even in this example it's easy to spot lifted design elements:

* The centered tab selector buttons in the title bar of each pane

* The overall styling of the widget pallet, including the round-rect selection

* The arrangement of the primary toolbar and its assorted option buttons, which clearly mimics XCode.

* The colors and gradients

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A screenshot of Eclipse that I grabbed off Google Images: http://img.brothersoft.com/screenshots/softimage/e/eclipse_i...

I don't use a lot of IDEs, but I honestly can't see any substantial distinctions between any of the three. (And no, I don't consider centering a pane a distinction.)

They both look a lot like Visual Studio to me.

Eclipse is entirely different - it's not about similiar layout. Look closely at right pane both in Xcode and in Samsung IDE. Object library and inspector look VERY similiar.

Oh, come on.

http://i.imgur.com/8uL8M.png vs http://cl.ly/IjBC

http://i.imgur.com/2Kn4j.png vs http://cl.ly/Iiob

http://i.imgur.com/RYYv9.png vs http://cl.ly/IiWX

We're not talking similar features here, we're talking lazy carbon-copied user interfaces. You honestly think this was accidental and there's only one way to make an IDE?

EDIT: A few more, now that we have a hi-res screenshot.

http://i.imgur.com/SYSv2.png vs http://cl.ly/IjUP

http://i.imgur.com/2nmUn.png vs http://i.imgur.com/4NFV6.png

http://i.imgur.com/HJ9s4.png vs http://i.imgur.com/qgpWc.png (that bar above "Scheme" is, you guessed it, a drop down)

You honestly think this was accidental and there's only one way to make an IDE?

I honestly don't know. I don't use any IDE on a regular basis.

Judging by the relative quality of your screenshots, you use XCode -- is it possible that you'd be able to point out such similarities between any two IDEs, given the presumption that one IDE must be copying from another due to a current lawsuit?

> is it possible that you'd be able to point out such similarities between any two IDEs

Not down to the level of design elements that appear to have been copied here. As someone who does use XCode, Visual Studio, IntelliJ, and PyCharm all on a regular basis, I can tell you that they all look very distinct visually. They all have pretty much the same feature set, but they're absolutely distinguishable at a glance visually. It is definitely not inevitable that IDEs look the same.

Interestingly, the Samsung IDE is a Windows application. The standard practice would be to match the look and feel of the native platform the IDE runs on, but that is clearly not the case here.

"is it possible that you'd be able to point out such similarities between any two IDEs"

Most IDEs (Delphi, Eclipse, VS, VB) look a lot like VS & VB. That seems to be the template most often.

Xcode, having roots at NeXT, has always been a bit different, UI-wise. It has similar functions, presented in different ways, sometimes significantly different.

But the scrollbars and widgets are not even similar, neither are the fonts, the color pickers or anything worth talking about... The only similarity seems to be blue-grayish tones, and possibly gradients (although the jpgs of the Samsung IDE are too blurry to really tell).

Surely you're not talking about the drag and drop grid either, which was around years before Apple even made IDEs.

There are plenty of lazy carbon-copied Mac themes for Windows and whatnot, this isn't even close, it's just yet another IDE with color tones that are vaguely similar to XCode (maybe ? how many windows apps aren't gray/blue these days ?).

You're missing the forest for the trees.

Or maybe it's you missing the trees for the grass leaves? Seriously though, most IDEs (and CAD and graphic design packages for that matter) have looked very similar to those screenshots. Fuck, if we were to 'condem' every other IDE in windows using the same icon set and toolbox/tabset styles as Visual Studio, then most of them are 'carbon copies' (let's forget for a minute most of those IDEs use the OS-provided controls.)

This is really starting to sound like nitpicking by some Apple fanboys. The fact this even makes it to Hacker News kind of pisses me off.

IMO, I don't think any of your "vs" go beyond normal "similar features" of any IDE... certainly nowhere near "carbon-copied". They don't even share the same icon set or rounded-ness. If I were a juror and I was given those as evidence, I would vote "not guilty".

Is there another IDE other than Xcode whose widget palette shows an icon and a lengthy textual description like that?

Dunno. But if that is all you got... I still say not guilty. While those two are similar... they are not the same. The icons, the fonts, the colors... pretty much everything about the look and feel is different except they both use an icon and a detailed description... in that one small portion of the whole IDE. Similar? a little. Carbon-copied? not even close. not guilty.

Those... really don't look as close as you seem to think. Certainly not carbon copies.

And que the return of the look feel wars of the early 90s.

Which is a silly thing to copy. Visual studio has a different color scheme than XCode, and both have different color schemes than Eclipse.

The iconography is similar(i.e. use of a "play" button for running the debugger), but the actual buttons are definitely different between XCode, VS, and Eclipse. XCode uses the iTunes-like circular black triangle on a grey circle button. VS uses a green triangle. Eclipse uses a green circle with a white arrow.

I don't think anyone would care about this, if Samsung didn't seem to have a compulsion to copy so many Apple designs.

Copying Xcode's UI is not, in itself, a huge issue. But along with all the rest, it just looks rather shabby.

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