A pretty please (regrading Fedora 9 theme)

[Máirín Duffy]

Valent Turkovic wrote:
> On 1/1/08, Máirín Duffy <duffy at redhat.com> wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> 
> http://bayimg.com/MAiagaABL
> http://bayimg.com/MAIAIaaBL
> 
> Look at these two screenshots, can you guess which is FC6 and which is
> F8? You probably can... but I would bet lot's of people wouldn't. One
> is my work FC6 desktop and other is my home Fedora 8.

The first is clearly FC6, fairly apparent because of the metacity theme 
(which is quite different between both releases in both design and 
color) and GTK+ theme (the one in FC6 doesn't have the blur on the tabs).

However neither of these screenshots shows any of the large amount of 
artwork that goes into the release to distinguish it - the wallpaper, 
etc. But I get your point. You are talking about GTK+ and Metacity 
themes, NOT the actual release-specific artwork themes that the rest of 
us are talking about. Please let's not confuse the issue here.
> 
> 
>>> 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.
> 
> Yes :) Sorry for the confusion, but I was talking generally about
> complete Fedora look and artwork, I'm not too much familiar with the
> terms you probably use every day, so sorry for the confusion.

If you have suggestions for alternative GTK+ and metacity themes we 
would like to hear them, but telling us you don't like what we have now 
is less than helpful.

We do tend to like to go with what GNOME has chosen upstream. Somewhat 
recently jimmac blogged about potentially using a dark GTK+ theme in 
upstream GNOME.
> 
> The grub graphical menu, splash screens and wallpape are different but
> complete look of Fedora hasn't changed that much - here I think about
> GTK+ and metacity themes and icons.

Okay, please don't refer to that as the "complete" look as a lot of hard 
work goes into the artwork that we do change from theme to theme 
(although a lot of work went into our new metacity theme for F8 as well).
> 
>>> 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
> 
> I can ask the author of the theme I posted you the screenshot because
> I'm not the author, but please first tell me what you think of it?

I think I made my thoughts clear in my response.

>>> 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.)
> 
> I was asking you to look at the artwork, to be more precise to look at
> the gnome panels GTK+ theme - not the Gnome slab application menu.
> 
> 
> That isn't subtle, that is a major difference compared to default
> gnome applications menu. I like it how MintLinux has implemented it
> but I hate, hate, hate how OpenSuse has implemented it, but that is
> offtopic.

It looks glossier and it has annoying and distracting diagonal lines in 
the file menubar area. Beyond that the GTK+ theme doesn look too 
different than what we have in F8 to me. The vertical line in the 
right-click menu is interesting. The metacity theme is rather bland imho.

~m