Proposal for a New GTK+/Gnome GUI

A few months ago I was designing the UI of Sequel OS. I am not part of the project anymore, but I kept developing the UI in my free time, just when I was feeling a bit creative. Yesterday, in my Gnome 2 article I mentioned that it would be nice if Gnome/GTK+ adopt a new default theme. So, here is my proposal for the project, mockups seen for the first time in public… Update: One more mockup I just (quickly) created just to show to some readers that the theme is clean when used in a normal app. Update2: Vote for the poll inside. Update3: Download the Gnome window manager theme here.Sequel was a “sequel of BeOS”, so you will see a few widgets that look similar to Zeta/Dano design (e.g. radio button, checkbox), but I have taken them further and enhanced them.


If anyone feel like coding it, by all means start creating a theme that looks like it, but please alert me that you do, so we stay in touch, as I can help and feed the development with more states and widgets that are not seen in the only two mockups I include here today.


Before starting coding away (well, if you like it ;), please bear in mind:


This are _not_ final mockups. I am sure they can look better if more work can get into them


It requires Toolkit changes (GTK/QT/whatever), it is NOT a matter of writing a simple theme for it. To get that look and feel, their shapes, sub-widgets etc, you will need toolkit support. If people from GTK+ team read this, please consider at least allowing bolding of headers, tabs, buttons and menus.


ALL widgets have on-mouse-over states. All of them. Including the radio buttons, checkboxes, scrollbars, even drop-down boxes. It is not as simple as implementing the two basic states (enabled, disabled) as the idea was to have on-mouse-over state, and even animation (for radio and checkboxes when they get clicked)!!


The “ZSnake” effect (the selected menu that continues to flow on the menu and on the drop-down menu) should be flicker-free. Dano/Zeta OS does this trick too, but their implementation ain’t flicker-free.


Be careful of the colors involved! The background color of the application menu has a different color than the body. Same goes for the Tab views.


If you manage to get the toolbars underneath that menu and see them together they really look nice… 😉


The font sizes on the different elements are calculated and important, so please consult the mockup.


Should add some [optional] shadow underneath the windows and the menus, just to ice the cake…


I believe the colors are light and inviting, in contrast to Gnome’s default grey look.


Metacity needs to add the ability to take one pixel off its corner in addition of the usual “arc” shape that it offers.


Remember again, this is not final work. It _can_ be better, leave your comments or mockups in the discussion area. I do believe though that Gnome needs to implement a modern, good looking, inviting theme and I believe my proposal is close to this goal.


And now, the mockups:
A test window.
The important window that shows a number of widgets. (Update: People don’t seem to understand: This second window is there just to show the available widgets, NOT an application that is busy and cluttered! This theme IS clean, without losing its modern looks. Just look at the first mockup. Do not confuse the second busy window with a real-life application. The second mockup is just a placeholder for the widgets so developers can have them all in one place!)
Update: Erick Woods worked on an alternate scrollbar to better match the sliders.


Another update: This is a more silver-ish version, and while it looks a bit pale, scrollbars/sliders are now more consistent with the rest of the wigets.


Note: The poll is now closed.



Poll results

179 Comments

  1. 2003-06-06 9:41 am
  2. 2003-06-06 9:43 am
  3. 2003-06-06 9:46 am
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  8. 2003-06-06 9:57 am
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  30. 2003-06-06 10:41 am
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  33. 2003-06-06 10:48 am
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  38. 2003-06-06 10:57 am
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  60. 2003-06-06 11:33 am
  61. 2003-06-06 11:34 am
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  66. 2003-06-06 11:42 am
  67. 2003-06-06 11:49 am
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  69. 2003-06-06 12:04 pm
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  75. 2003-06-06 12:43 pm
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  87. 2003-06-06 1:21 pm
  88. 2003-06-06 1:41 pm
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  90. 2003-06-06 1:47 pm
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  97. 2003-06-06 2:14 pm
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  100. 2003-06-06 2:28 pm