Show HN: FlatUIKit - Flat UI components for iOS

Great question. For classes with sufficiently rich customization options (UISlider, UIStepper, UIBarButtonItem, etc) I don't think it's necessary to provide a full-on subclass, as ultimately I'm not really changing what the class does. I'm really just providing a mixin for a particular set of UI customizations (setting colors, etc), which categories are perfect for.

Some classes (UIAlertView and UISwitch, most particularly) aren't very flexible in terms of appearance customization, so I had to reimplement them to achieve desired effects. Using them is more difficult: to use an FUISwitch (my UISwitch clone) you have to replace any UISwitches in your app with FUISwitches (also, if you were using categories/subclasses of UISwitch to do some custom stuff, they would break).

Moving logic to a base class isn't really possible, as most of those classes already inherit from UIControl (and I'm not crazy/motivated enough to reimplement them all from scratch - UIKit is awesome, and I want to lean on it as much as possible).

The single header totally makes sense, I'll be sure to add that.

TL;DR: UIKit is great, I don't want to reinvent the wheel, categories are really easy to integrate into existing projects.

>This total disregard for platform conventions does your users a disservice by making moot the effort they've spent learning how the platform operates and what to expect from UI elements and interactions.

I call BS.

Does Letterpress also exhibit a "total disregard for platform conventions"? Does Google Maps iOS app? Does Clear (the TODO app)? Does Paper? Even if so, the users are more than happy with them, and tons of other similar apps besides.

It's not 1993 and this is not Mac Word 6.0. In iOS apps are MEANT to be visually distinct and try new interaction paradigms.

Heck, even Apple has stopped advocating the blind devotion to the User Interface Guidelines document, and experiments itself with different looks (and sometimes feel) from app to app. And this has been going on for at least 5 years.

Besides, this project merely adds new visual look. Underneath it uses the regular widgets (it adds Obj-C categories to change the visual appearance), so it's just a new "theme", not a new "feel".

>On top of that, you have to reinvent all the native components you otherwise would get for free

Errr, that's kind of the whole point.

>and your app looks like an ugly odd duckling on the platform.

Or like a special unique snowflake. Like Clear. Or Paper. Or tons of other apps.

>Why do this? It demonstrates an insane level of condension towards your users, the platform they've chosen, and the time they've spent learning it.

I only discern an insane level of pissing on others people work, that they also provide for free as open source and you can very much choose not to use it or not buy any app that uses it. That, and an insane level of self-righteousness (on this response, not on the project).

>Flat UI isn't some massive new UI paradigm? I thought that's exactly what it is.

Then you were wrong.

Flat UI is merely a graphic design choice. If affects the look and overall design of the user interface (flat colors, no drop shadows, remove frills, etc).

Everything you otherwise know about the UI and how it works remains the same. Buttons are still buttons, text entry boxes behave as before, radio buttons still let you choose one option, sliders slide, etc etc. You can have a flat UI in Gnome, say, just buy changing the GTK theme to use a flat UI design. Nothing "massive new UI paradigm" about it.

CLI to GUI is a "massive new UI paradigm". GUI to Touch GUI is a "massive new UI paradigm". 3D (if somebody implements it in any way that makes sense) would be a "massive new UI paradigm".

Flat UI is merely a theme change -- plus the adoption of a less ornamental design sensibility. The apps still behave and interact the same. You just don't get corinthian lever, faux-wood bookshelves and old Braun tape machines.

>There certainly can be a fine line between building on the platform standards and dismantling them, but rewriting all UI components is very much on the side of "dismantling".

Like Apple Pro apps vs regular Apple OS X apps, right? Since they do have ALL the UI components changed. Or like iBooks vs standard iOS look. And tons of other cases where Apple did the same.

No, our suggestion is:

1) be less rude in your pissing on other people's work they offer for free.

2) Wake up and smell the HIG-is-obsolete coffee, the HIG has been not important for the most successful apps for years, and even Apple has toned down their insistence on it half a decade or so ago, including making tons of apps with different looks and even feel (from the iTunes vertical close buttons, to Dashboard widgets, to the totally different Pro apps Look and Feel ever since 2007 or so, to the App Store UI, to numerous other examples all around).

Gruber (an old fierce supporter of the HIG back in the day) has written about this:

http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/uniformity_vs_individualit...