Clever but non-standard slider in Mac OS X

14 Aug 2007

I’ve never noticed it before so I can’t tell you how long it has been in Mac OS X. If you have a Mac with ambient light sensor (I only tested on two MacBook Pros running 10.4.10), go to the System Preferences and select the Displays icon. The bottom of the window will reveal a surprising animation:

The ever experimenting interface builders at Apple have created a special kind of slider for adjusting the brightness to visually convey that the ambient light sensor is active and that the brightness (and slider) will adapt to the environment. Such a good idea even if the implementation is not that clear, particularly since you’ve probably never seen this control before.