A pretty please (regrading Fedora 9 theme)

[Máirín Duffy]

Valent Turkovic wrote:
> Did you listen to Linux Action Show podcast review in the link that is
> provided? They also mention icons and few other issues, but best
> listen to it if you can.

Sorry, I didn't, I don't have much time these days. A summary of actual
issues brought up would be helpful.

>> The wallpaper could have been more exciting, yes. The rest of the
>> artwork I think is better with a more simple design, though, without too
>> much in-your-face branding. We don't want the distro to be akin to an
>> overly gaudy person wearing way too much makeup, you know?
> 
> I see your point of view and I understand it. I must tell you that I
> don't have anything againgst Fedora design but I honestly don't see
> any big difference between Fedora 6 (which I run at work) and Fedora 8
> which I run at home. 

You don't see a difference between the artwork in Fedora 6 and Fedora 8?
You must be in the far minority. Fedora 6 had much darker colored
artwork than Fedora 8, and it was much more heavily branded.

> If I took screenshots and compared them I would
> probably see differences but to an ordinary user and not art team who
> works on those changes they are so subtle that we don't see them. Only
> real difference we users actually see is the wallpaper.

I think maybe you're talking more about GTK+ and metacity themes, while
in our discussion about the Fedora 9 artwork we are talking about the
artwork - the wallpaper, splash screens, etc. The former hasn't changed
very much no, the latter has changed dramatically and I am not sure how
you could actually argue that any differently.

> I use fedora desktop around 10h per day but I look at firefox, gaim
> and openoffice and not widgets. The parts of the Gnome I look the most
> are top and bottom panels and of course wallpaper...

Okay, that is different than the artwork we are discussing for sure. If
you have a GTK+ and metacity theme you would like to propose for
consideration in F9 that would be great. Artwork though is a very
different process. I am not sure though how you would confuse Martin's
sketches of water waves with designs for GTK+ and metacity themes, that
seems a bit of a leap.

> Could I trouble you for an oppinion?
> Did you have an opportunity to run LinuxMint? If not please look at
> this screenshot:
> http://www.linuxmint.com/img/screenshots/celena/1024/mintmenu.png
> 
> What do you think about the theme on Gnome panels. I believe that
> fedora hasn't changer it's... maybe ever, no? What is your opinion on
> that? I must admit that the LinuxMint design team really surprised
> me... they had some "experiments" with the look of their distro that
> didn't came out well in some previous version, but I must admit that I
> really love the panels - it is subtle but still looks very nice.

That looks like it's the applications menu from SuSE. I don't really
like it from a usability POV - it appears to overwhelm the user with
choices. It also looks a bit too much like Windows I think. I think the
menu we have in Fedora is much easier and less overwhelming to use but I
guess I would have to see or run some comparative usability studies to
know if the SuSE-style menu has a negative impact on usability. (I am
guessing so from a comparison of the number items presented. Less items
tend to be easier to work with.)

~m