15 Jan
2012
15 Jan
'12
2:40 p.m.
2012/1/15 Calvin Morrison <mutantturkey(a)gmail.com>om>:
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.
1) New backgrounds - Our defaults are out of date and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.
2) 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.
3) 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
4) 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