Drop Shadows...

[JayBee]

Is it just me, or would it be handy to have a Pref Pane to adjust the apparent "height" of live and background windows? Basically, this would amount to resizing the extent of the drop shadow on windows, and might make for a cleaner, tighter interface design?

I like the shadows (they generally make my workspace feel light and airy - a better work environment IMHO), but I'd like to have more control over them.

Anyone thought about this? Or am I a madman?

[Phil St. Romain]

I like the idea, JayBee, and how about being able to adjust the level of transparency in transparent menus while we're at it. The more customization the better . . . and the fewer reasons for the bellyachers to gripe. :D

[dschep]

You can change drop shadow settings with window shade x v.2, you can even disable drop shadows if you want to.

[JayBee]

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Sweet!

Don't like the window shade featrure, but the shadow control is very nice. No harm to Unsanity, but I still hope this is built into OS X natively :)

[durandal64]

Without drop shadows, the window edges aren't defined and everything becomes annoying.
I thought a really cool feature would be to have the drop shadow light source be respective to the position of the sun wherever you are. So, at different times of day, the shadow will be cast in a different place. Moving the window would also change the position of the drop shadow. Of course, this all means monster CPU time... :)

[JayBee]

dunrandal - I know exactly what you mean. This is why I wanted something to let me control the shadows without turning them off completely. Window shade v2 now does this :D

In addition, though, if you DO turn off the shadows in WS2, you have the option to "Draw window borders" around the now-shadowless windows, which solves the problem a little.

However, I've gotten used to subcondsciously using the shadows to see which window is on top. I like the fact that OS X's desktop feels 3d. It feels like you have more space than you really do, and turning off the shadows makes everything look a lot more cluttered.

And I REALLY like the lightsource idea. The (only) problem with windowshade's method is that it's a little hit-and-hope - play with sliders until you get the affect you want. A 3d lightsource interface would be much more intuitive, and would fit with Apple's interface ethos.

Hell, it could even affect aqua buttons for the full effect! ;)