2012/1/15 Calvin Morrison mutantturkey@gmail.com:
Hello Everyone,
For a while I have been pondering the cosmetic and artwork related changes we should try and work on for R14. Unlike most projects, we are rather nostalgic, so going flat out new won't work for us. A new default theme or such is not advisable. Users won't like it. I think we should instead focus on creating an improved R14 style. A theme consists of: Backgrounds, Color Schemes, Fonts, Icons, Window Decorations, Widget Styles, and Screensavers. These don't need drastic revision, instead they need careful changes to help reflect our goals. Speed simplicity and customization are my top priorities.
What do we need to improve? My vote is this
What I'd do: darken a little our current default theme. The colors are a little too much bright IMHO.
Anyway I think we should look what the tendencies in other DE/OSes are, what users like and go that way.
What we should avoid is making trinity look old. And by old I mean things like win9x, cde, and things like that.
We should rework too our default layouts. Form what I've see the current tendency is to minimalize GUI elements, remove extra toolbars and icons on them and maximize actual workspace. I did it on my trinity installation and it works well. The rule I used is: if I can access a particular function through r-click, I don't need a button on toolbar. If I don't use it frequently I don't need it on toolbar. Those 2 rules left my with pretty much addres bar and back/forward buttons.
- New backgrounds - Our defaults are out of date and I don't really like
them, Every new release should see some fresh artwork. Users can keep the old one if the prefer it. These need to be pleasant to view and also look modern. (not to glossy though).
As I worte some time ago I could provide some photos as backgrounds. You can see them at my page (http://l0ner.github.com/photoblog/). Actually I prepared some of those in widescreen wallpaper format. I need only to upload those somewhere.
- Improved Window Decorations - I am not a fan of plastic. I am a fan of
the KDE2 window decoration. Either way we should set about making sure the default on is in tip top shape and has max configuration. Should we keep plastic as our default deco?
Plastic is fine. We should totally avoid using Keramik, since it's way too big and... strange(?). Window deco IMHO should be slim and almost unnoticable. Kermaik isn't. As it goes for KDE2 deco, it looks a little too much outdated and old-school (reminds me kinda of the win 9x style). Make the buttons flat, give it rounded corners and it should look more modern.
- Icons - I think we are OK with these. Some icons may need to be looked
over in our crystal svg set. I want to maximize visual efficiency of our icons. Some may be unclear or hard to see at different sizes. This should be lo
- Styles - I would like to see Plastik expanded by including more options,
especially to remove stippled drawing on the tabs. any thoughts?
I'd opt on using Polyester rather than Plastik. It's pretty much plastik updated.
5). Color styles: atm we don't provide good looking dark theme. And by good looking i mean kinda like ubuntu one. Besides like I said the default one i a little too bright IMHO.
I think we should start thinking about this now, since this release will be mostly bug fixes, changes like this could also be slipped in.
I could try to prepare some ideas after I finised fixing arch PKGBUILDs. I don't know tho when it will be since I have exams coming...
Calvin Morrison