One of the items on the roadmap for version 6.0 of Substance look-and-feel (code-named Sonoma) is to polish the appearance of existing components. Today i’m going to talk about visual enhancements done for the text components in the latest 6.0dev drop of the library.

These enhancements address two major points:

• Adding more contrast to screens that have a lot of user input fields, such as text fields, formatted text fields and password fields – by creating an “inset” look
• Modernizing the appearance of these controls – by smoothing the corners and borders

Here is a screenshot with a few text fields under Business skin in release 5.3:

And here are the same text fields under the latest 6.0dev drop:

The same text fields under Gemini skin in release 5.3:

and under the same skin in the latest 6.0dev drop:

The same text fields under a more colorful Dust Coffee skin in release 5.3:

and under the same skin in the latest 6.0dev drop:

Finally, the same text fields under the dark Graphite skin in release 5.3:

and under the same skin in the latest 6.0dev drop:

Note that this is still work on progress, and you’re more than welcome to leave comments on the new look.