Re: [trinity-devel] Visual facelifting proposals

On Friday 26 February 2016, 07:44 wrote E. Liddell: The TDE-menu-icon is configured as a file reference and thus stays correct even if the icon set is switched. Activating the Ravefinity "vibrantly simple" icon set was as simple as installing into the right place and activating via control center ... Yes and no. As an optional set it does no harm, but at least the OpenSuSE repo has very wide dependencies configured. When selecting "trinity-desktop" and "trinity- desktop-applications" more or less everything was forced ... Without previous explanation and preparation the thus provoked first contact of the unsuspecting "modern user" with TDE-LoColor might intimidating and not in the best interest of Trinity ;-) Sorry, that was just an impression, I didn't follow up in depth. It might be caused by some inconsistencies between several desktops (and their settings), I was testing at the time. Yes, but Tango actually was forced as requirement of "trinity-kmymoney-common-1.0.5-14.0.2_1.oss421.x86_64" Depends on what the vision for Trinity is. I imagine it difficult to widen the user base and achieve a long term perspective of survival, if the first impression of new users is "stale". (CrystalSVG is very decent artwork, no doubt) Don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing on the aesthetic level -- a desktop is a very personal working environment and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. (And I don't care, what personal and aesthetic decisions a user will take, because normally I don't have to look at them nor use them ...) My point is ergonomics: A user might be accustomed to a specific icon set since over a decade, the re-cognition being essential to off-load mental workload and a fluent use of the desktop. The same is true of other presets like window- shapes+behavior, button-placements, coloring and especially highlighting. IMNSHO the cardinal sin of GNOME and KDE4/Plasma5 is the arrogant and dictatorial attitude of a few negating year-long efforts of many by: * ignoring the user's experience in their individual ergonomics * scraping features, which were honored not only by usage but by fine-tuned configuration, feedback, and improvement * underestimating the ease and speedup provided by of years of implicit training with a specific desktop set-up, and underestimating the effort changing all those reflexes (imagine changing the pedal layout in cars ...) The question is: how to cater for different user expectations, communities and especially the modern, mostly impatient non-exploring approach to new SW. That was the core question of the following proposal: au contraire, I'd prefer to have this functionality in the "tdepersonalizer" and control-center. In "tdepersonalizer" as a few preconfigured fine-tuned and consistent themes (introduced by screenshots) plus a choice tag preset for the control-center. In the control-center the tags act as a filter to visible icon/cursor sets etc. If users wants to start with a specific "modern look", that is what they get -- and until they decide to widen their perspective by changing the filter tags. Equally, if users specifically choose a "KDE3.5"-similar experience, that is what they get, and that may apply to further "classical" or even "nostalgical" setups. The two of us might consider a CDE or Win98 look-alike horribly in-ergonomic, somebody else might feel "at home" (and would run away screaming, when forced to work with our specific setups ;-) And exactly that could be the unique characteristic (and "selling point") for Trinity: You will feel at home with "Trinity Desktop Environment", if you are looking for a classical graphical desktop -- having enough screen estate to work with parallel windows and driven by mouse or similar pointing devices as well as a full-fledged keyboard --, as it is flexible enough to support most/any/all workstyles. (Some native speaker might want to hone this text, should it be found agreeable at all ;-) ciao, ThoMaus