Red Hat engineers announced today that the very popular ClearLooks theme engine will probably be the default theme for the Gnome 2.12. The theme was developed by Richard Stellingwerff helped out by Daniel “Spark” Borgmann, others, and with some help from myself on the usability side. This was a much needed refresh of the Gnome default desktop (old theme, new theme screenshots). Hopefully, a more usable variant of the Winter-Bold window manager theme (get matching colors, on-mouse-overs, don’t get so greyed out when unfocused, buttons better vertically centered etc) will make it in as the companion of ClearLooks on Gnome instead of the currently bundled (and not as sexy) Industrial. Update: Elsewhere, GTK+ 2.6.3 was released, with bug fixes mainly for the Win32 platform.
Gnome 2.12 to Include the ClearLooks Theme as Default?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
hi im a frequent reader of osnews.
i kinda agree with you for the opinion in ‘default’ theme.
frankly i prefer mac ui design (3d theme and photo realistic icon)
i like the dark version of powermetal 2.0 theme
http://www.resexcellence.com/themes/swiz/PowerMetal/01-11_PowerMeta…
im a linux user.
I do not use themes on Windows or OSX because I don’t want to slow down my Windows (I use an old 2×533 machine) and I don’t want to use hacks on my Mac (I have a rather clean installation and the theme hack breaks things on OSX regularly, so I avoid it).
Under Unix, where the default theme of Gnome is terrible (I don’t know how they decided to use that for default 3 years ago), I do prefer Clearlooks, hands down. Before Spark showed me ClearLooks, I used to use a slightly modified versions of SmoothGnome theme or “Default/Raleigh” (I just made their buttons’ grandient a bit darker so the themes weren’t as flat on my LCD).
On the KDE side, Plastik is the best. Keramik blows. It’s so… 70s.
I’m not disrespecting your work publicly simply because you haven’t shown me a design you made. I’m just saying that just because someone worked as a UI designer, doesn’t make said person a *good* UI designer. Did I say you’re a bad UI designer? No, I just tried to make a point that randomly spewing your merits on the site every now and then has no benefit to any of us.
Just stating ‘it’s not usable’ is easy, saying why it isn’t usable might be harder. You picked the example of the milk theme. Are you saying that there *aren’t any* people out there that prefer that theme to something else because they’re able to work for longer periods of time without straining their eyes?
Also, thank you for ignoring my statement about defaults. There has to be ‘a’ default, otherwise you would never be able to select a standard theme. But stating that that theme is the ‘end all’ solution for everyone out there is pure ignorance.
Saying that something isn’t usable at all and not choosing to use it as a default are two entirely different things. One option might be usable by 50% of the people out there and the other might be usable by 80%. Does that mean that the first option isn’t usable at all? NO.
I have installed Clearlooks but cant find it back in the The Selector (Theme Preferences) in Ubuntu-Hoary.
Some body can help me?
What UI did you work on?
I used the ./configure –prefix=/usr && make install
It was a complex knowledge system that was to be used by thousands of people at the same time (oracle backend db and java front end running on Win2k servers). The engineering team was about 16 people working on the project (Nokia was funding the company).
After that, I went back to web development, which was more fun and less stressful.
first thing i thought: “plastik”
This is a welcome change over the past default, I still prefer indubstrial/winter-bold though:
http://img175.exs.cx/img175/3253/screenshot16yr.png
i find it very usable *and* cool
To be more clear, I was responsible for the UI of the system. My job was to make it usable and reduce its gazillions of screens (it was indeed a complex/ever-changing system). I had to sit down and educate myself while part of that project, even if I already had some minor experience of UI design at that point.
sorry my last screenshot lacked a focused window… so here it is:
http://img89.exs.cx/img89/7604/screenshot29go.png
🙂
I don’t like the Clear-Looks Theme.
Because of the grey color it looks as old fashioned as the default theme to me.
I would prefer Industrial or SmoothMilk Theme.
XD
Actually, the color is “creamy”, not grey. If you see it as grey, it means that you are using a crapped-up LCD. My two Linux laptops show it as such as well, while my Powerbook and my CRTs show the color as they should.
I fear that the default gamma correction of X is not that correct when it comes to LCDs.
On this page on the ubuntu forums you can find a link to a deb file: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=11412&page=5&pp=10
I think they should change the icons, they are old-fashioned.
Finally GNOME get’s a standard theme it deserves.
Woot, that looks very nice! (both the gtk style and metacity theme).
The only thing that’s needed for 2.12 now, is a color chooser (so we users can get rid of those grays and other standard colors) and a new fresh icon theme!
All I want to know is how to get the drop shadows. I look at these beautiful screen shots with drop shadows all over the place. I install package after package, and never see a drop shadoow. What’s the deal!?
You need to recompile GTK with a hack to enable this. Real drop shadows will be part of GTK when Cairo will be used, on GTK 2.8 in a few months.
> Announcing detailed product details for a beyond-next version? Does this remind anyone else of a well known company?
That’s not what gnome developers have done. They’ve just been discussing the new themes on their mailing lists, just like they discuss any other ideas they have. OSNews wrote up this story and announcement about it, not gnome.
See Ross Burton’s blog for more details, with responses from Eugenia: http://www.burtonini.com/blog//computers/osnews-2005-03-01-09-47
>No, but I don’t need one. I worked 2 years as a UI designer while in UK. Probably more than any of you around here.
You’d be amazed how many are “UI designers” around here. While I respect your opinions,I noticed that almost nothing from nowadays GUI’s satisfy you.That includes Gnome,KDE and not only.That was my suggestion, make yourself a theme and maybe a lot of us will understand what do you like. Throwing statements like this is not usable, this is not fancy or whatever without saying HOW you see it is just disrespect for the developers work.On the other hand, I find gnursid pretty neat theme.Definitely an escape from day to day styles we deal with.
>almost nothing from nowadays GUI’s satisfy you.
I am sorry, but you are wrong. I have already said that ClearLooks is good. Plastik or SmoothGnome are not bad either. There are other themes I like too, it’s just that they are not as perfect (in terms of usability) as I like them to be.
just wondering, what theme do you use on xp? ive been using watermark (one of the themes bundled with stylexp), and am quite a big fan.
I just replied on this just a few hours earlier. I don’t use themes with XP because of speed considerations.
The drop shadows in X are coming from the composite extension in xorg 6.8.0 and up. I used it for a while, and it seems to work fine most of the time, but sometimes it screws up drawing windows when you resize them. It leaves portions of the windows transparent.
“Take multimedia. The idea, as near as I can tell, is that people already spend hours a week at home watching television, so clearly television is attractive, and we want our computer interfaces to be attractive, so let’s put TV into them. To mention a few things that may be wrong with this chain of reasoning: is everything we spend a lot of time doing attractive (sleeping? breathing? worrying?); will the attactiveness of multimillion dollar production TV translate to casual computer TV? And most importantly for this essay, should computer interfaces be attractive at all? Attractiveness is the opposite of invisible.” (Weiser, 1993)
Isn’t having the maximise/minimise on the same side as the close button a stupid idea?
yes. and i’m surprised gnome hasn’t tried to change it considering other changes they have made, like the order of ok/cancel buttons and spacial file management.
yes … now, I’m also curious. If you would do a theme, what would it look like ? Making a theme and critizising one are 2 completely different things.
Oh, and I really think that if you work on it, you could do some nice usuable theme. And I’m really curiuous how it will look like. Is it possible to made a mock-up ? Or better to implement a theme? So, that discussion will have a sense and an end ! …:)
for my taste practical beautiful themes aren’t practical nor beautiful, I prefer the geaky ones
. But I recognize that they are not for everyone’s taste !
I think industrial is the most elegant and usable theme for Gnome out there. I have to agree with some of the other posts that clearlooks is a little bit too cluttered for my tast and uses too dark lines or too stark contrasts (f.e the highlights on the menu with the light line on top and left). Having said that overall it is a nice theme and i especially like the metacity theme … which i will definetly use
I have already created a mockup last September and presented it to the list. But it can’t be implemented yet, because GTK/X do not have all the capabilities needed yet.
it looks it was to early say that “redhats engineers announced today that the very popular ClearLooks theme engine will probably be the default theme for the Gnome 2.12.”
It’s only a disscusion. And Gnome doesn’t belong to redhat … And finaly there is still much time left for the release of gnome 2.12…
see this link :
http://www.burtonini.com/blog/
I googled for the mockup but I can’t find it. Can you give me the link please ?
Just have a try.
Sorry, but it just looks way to similar to Plastik to ignore. I love plastik but this is an obvious copy.
To all those who think that the usability is in the eye of the beholder only: Wrong. Of course there are many general GUI usability rules too. There have been lots of scientific tests and studies on this subject for decades, so the usability experts do know what they are talking about. Please read some of that material before claiming otherwise. There are nice material and links about usability, for example here:
http://www.isii.com/ui_design.html
http://www.useit.com/
On the other hand, yeah, we all know that the Internet and IT world (and OS News too…) is full of self-made UI designers, as we have all suffered from the horribly unusable web (and other) GUI interfaces that they have produced… Many of those designs might have been ambitious and even good looking artistically, but usability has nothing to do with individual artistic ambitions and whims.
Usability is not about kewl and l33t looks, it is about making things clear and easy to a normal, a newbie and not so competent user. If the GUI is also nice looking, it’s a plus but not the first priority from usability point of view.
If you, for example, want to customize you GUI to look like that kewl and l33t and very “innovative” GUI interface you saw in the latest scifi movie, by all means, you can do it, or use some of the (usually horribly unusable) scifi themes already availabe. The web is full of custom themes and skins to suit every taste.
Come on, this is getting totally silly. Clearlooks is essentially Bluecurve with rounded borders and soft gradients. So it looks like Plastik, Luna and a dozen of other themes, big f*cking deal.
This is simple progression from the hard-edged look of Win95/Motif/Raleigh. And just like with those styles, the differences are in the details and overall appearance instead of the rendering of a single widget.
> Usability is not about kewl and l33t looks, it is about making things clear and easy to a normal, a newbie and not so competent user. If the GUI is also nice looking, it’s a plus but not the first priority from usability point of view.
Which is exactly what I try to advocate here.
hmmm … and in what ways exactly does clearlooks make things so much clearer and easier than f.e industrial or the old default theme ?
thanks for saying that!
😀
hmmm … and in what ways exactly does clearlooks make things so much clearer and easier than f.e industrial or the old default theme ?
I think that industrial – or for that matter also plastic or the bright and clear UserLinux theme, or many smooth-engine themes – are quite good from usability point of view too. ClearLooks may not be the final solution to GNOME usability
– but it does look very good usability-wise too.
As to the old GNOME theme, it is not horrible from usability point of view. I would guess that changing it now has a lot to do with just aesthetics too… 😉 The old theme just looks a bit… oldfashioned and uninspiring. Practically everyone agrees on that, don’t we…? It’s all dull grey, hard edged dull boxes etc. But in what ways the old theme was good usability-wise, the new ClearLooks theme certainly doesn’t make things worse but rather improves usability.
ClearLooks is like a rather natural evolutionary development from the old GNOME theme, IMHO.
>Which is exactly what I try to advocate here.
No, you didn’t. You just said they lack usability.In which respect , this is for us to guess , isn’t it? Therefore, you say that you advocate some general rules, yet you leave us to guess what usability a certain theme should have. I’m sorry , but until you won’t say what do you mean by that you just play the wise functional without giving any solution. Heck, my 3 years old boys can do that.
I googled for the mockup but I can’t find it. Can you give me the link please ?
I found this link using the OSNews search.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3725
Its from June 2003 though.
>No, you didn’t.
Oh, yes I did. I gave the Milk example twice, if not anything else.
>You just said they lack usability
There are at least 20 to 30 points. Do you think that I will sit down and write these down just to please you? Do you think my time worth nothing?
If you want a direct answer, send me **via email** a screenshot of a theme, and I will reply to you with a few points where the given theme needs fixing.
>I found this link using the OSNews search.
No, that’s not it. That’s too old.
My latest mockup was from September 2004, but I don’t have the URL handy.
First of, all these default themes are more or less the same to me. The colors are easy and in the same range, and the overall object disposition is also the same. The only real change I see is the size of the windows buttons, and cosmetics stuff (rounded borders, bevel, etc.), which are more a personal stuff to me. That said, I appreciate the effort.
So I’d like to understand what’s the usability rational behind the MSWindows-like 3 buttons on the right of the title frame. The way I see it, every themes exposed here are following that rule. If I understood correctly, according to you, Eugenia, size of the buttons are important usability-wise to avoid “misclicking” (pardon my french). I’m ready to agree with this, if there are experiments somewhat backing up that point.
However why not just swap the dangerous button with the one on the left side? Is this just to allow users migrating from MSWindows to easily adapt to Gnome?
Finally, I’ll just add that I don’t think we need to aknowledge or contest anyone authority on the matter. The only reasonable thing that matters in a discussion is how sound and articulate is a point, everything else would just be ad hominem.
So did MDK cooker, and we’re in early freeze for 10.2. It’s a very minor bugfix release with almost nothing changed on *nix, mostly the changes were for win32. Throwing the .tar.gz’s at the existing specfile and uploading the packages is hardly rocket science, I’m sure Fedora and SuSE managed it as well internally…
I was a bit surprised to notice you didn’t mention lighthouseblue in your post on favourite themes at all…it was designed following a mockup you printed here once, and it’s still my favourite GTK+ theme by far, I’ve used it ever since then. Do you not like it, or just missed it, or what?
It’s an “ok” theme, but it’s too old now.
So I’d like to understand what’s the usability rational behind the MSWindows-like 3 buttons on the right of the title frame. The way I see it, every themes exposed here are following that rule.
This is a configuration option in Metacity, so this has nothing to do with the theme.
However why not just swap the dangerous button with the one on the left side? Is this just to allow users migrating from MSWindows to easily adapt to Gnome?
AFAIK the rational behind the default is mostly to assist people switching between GNOME and Windows to not constantly click the wrong buttons out of habit.
Of course it could be that someone is using GNOME in alternation with Mac OS, that’s why it’s configurable (there just is no GUI option for it yet).
This should not be overrated though, the close button in a modern GUI shouldn’t really be “dangerous” at all.
ah, so usability also has a use-by date? who’d have thought?
I always thought an interface that worked was an interface that worked, I don’t change the buttons on my TV every two years…
AdamW, please don’t change my words and try to be the smart…. here. LightHouseBlue is not exactly what I designed. It looks a bit like it, but it had many points that I was not happy with in terms of copying my mockup.
No, usability does not have a date (generally speaking, except for a few cases). But while usability is my No1 priority, it’s an added plus to have a theme that actually also looks good and modern too. LighthouseBlue has problems on both respects.
that’s a much more reasonable post, but none of the problems you have is at all related to the fact that it’s ‘old’, so far as I can see, so why didn’t you just post that in the first place? ah well. I think it looks very nice and I’m darned if I know what a ‘modern’ GUI looks like as opposed to an ‘ancient’ one, but so long as I can still build the source I’ll be happy while everyone else plays with rounded window edges and whatever else, I guess. opinions, here’s a bucket.
So basically, what I’ve gotten out of 150 comments is this:
1. The new theme is good, most people will be happy with it, although, as always, some will complain bitterly.
2. The word usability is thrown around much too carelessly in the Gnome camp. In this case, no one has been able to come up with any reasons why the old theme was less useable, it was just not as pretty. If that’s the case, then say so: “We updated the theme because the old one was ugly”. Let’s not dance around the point
3. There are basic guidelines for UI design. There are well established rules for making a GUI for unexperienced and casual users.
4. Advanced users may have a very different view of usability and can vastly improve the productivity of an accepted usable interface for themselves.
For example, I launch all my applications via keyboard shortcuts in KDE. No menus, no icons in sight. This is not usable for anyone but me, but improves my productivity and general long-term satisfaction with the interface quite a bit.
According to this:
http://www.burtonini.com/blog//computers/osnews-2005-03-01-09-47
This artlicle came from an email and not official GNOME stuff. Is this true? The way this article was strted, it sounded like the RedHat engineers were deciding the future of GNOME.
Forget it. I read Eugenia’s post on that site. Didn’t mean to start anything, just wanted to know her side.
Nowhere in the “GNOME camp” did anyone say that the old theme was less usable. The reason why GNOME is looking for a new default theme is aesthetics, not usability.
I do feel that Clearlooks is a very usable style, but I don’t feel obliged to explain anyone why this is the case. Just try it out and if you disagree, fine. Hopefully you will still like it.
The widgets I see look good, but the first screenshot with the old theme shows Evolution doing a complex interface with lots of widgets while the new one shows a much simpler window. I would like to see matching (and more complex) side by sides.
I’m also going to chime in with other posters, the window decoration sucks. Looks just like XP before I have a chance to turn off Luna.
Am I the only one who really enjoy the default theme as it is right now?
It was my first reaction as well. It made me think of Platik, and not of XP.
Yes.
I read just a few days ago about an upcoming design competition for the new default Gnome theme.
Is it over already? Who was the judge? “Redhat engineers?” And who were the other contestants?
Well, admittedly, the close button might not be as dangerous as it was in the beginning, if applications or the WM ask the user a confirmation. This button would just become annoying when mistankenly clicked.
I wasn’t aware of this configuration option in Metacity. My bad, it seems to be a feature implemented a long time ago…^^;
luna has
1) garish colors
2) exagerated bevels
3) the impression that a teletubby exploded on your desktop
clearlooks has
1) pastel colors
2) subtle gradient
3) the impression that youve gone a portal in time and downloaded bluecurve three or four versions ahead.
if you like minimalistic themes, this one wont disappoint. if you use something with “XBOX” in the title, you will hate it. personally, im a big fan.
The theme is very usable and looks great which is a big plus for a usable theme usually its tough in the theme world to be able to have your cake and eat it too.
The light highlights on the menu and the attention to the corners of buttons and the smoother than SmoothGnome feel is really good indeed.
Yes very nice but I prefer the Winter Metacity style of theme for the Windows.
I am using the ClearLooks Olive on my Ultra 5 workstation with the blastwave.org packages but I went with the Bold Winter.
Sorry did not think the Metacity theme did the ClearLooks proper justice.
Btw, the green stuff goes great with the BlankOn icon theme.
We need like a full icon, Metacity and gtk2 theme that blends together really well. But icon themes I know take a ton of work.
Great stuff.
>If you want a direct answer, send me **via email** a screenshot of a theme, and I will reply to you with a few points where the given theme needs fixing.
Eugenia,if you post something in a public board then expect the consequences.Not everybody has the same opinions as you do.You made a statement, back it up. You want ME to send you a screenshot when you bashed almost ALL the themes? Come on, don’t you think is the other way around?And [insert name here] theme needs fixing? Says who? And why??? What’s wrong with gnursid and what’s wrong with milky ?!? Those are the questions.
Could you please be more specific what you prefer about Winter compared to Clearlooks? Clearlooks is mostly modeled after Winter, so the differences are rather subtile… In fact Clearlooks was based on Winter before I switched to Industrial for practical reasons. It still might change a lot.
gonxical has richer details than clearlooks, but I give clearlooks points for partial focus rings and a native engine. Oh, and get rid of the bluecurve arrows, please! Normal arrows would suffice.
Way to go GNOME, very origonal, ripping Enlightenment themes yet again. Good goin’.
These themes are rooted in Winter, an origonal work of Rephorm and default theme in DR16.7.1:
http://enlightenment.org/index.php?session=bbf7395452&id=11&select=…
Oh no, i love (and using) good and flat themes like the simple gnome theme. We doesn’t need this plastik-clone.
By Spark (IP: —.dip.t-dialin.net) – Posted on 2005-03-01 18:39:01
Could you please be more specific what you prefer about Winter compared to Clearlooks? Clearlooks is mostly modeled after Winter, so the differences are rather subtile… In fact Clearlooks was based on Winter before I switched to Industrial for practical reasons. It still might change a lot.
The icons inside of the buttons are smaller and more distinctive especially on a 1024×768 resolution.
Basically the lines are fatter and the icons smaller so they hold up on high and low resolution boxes. Especially on a lower resolution the big buttons with the thin, sharp lines of the Industrial style model feels too harsh.
I prefer the down arrow as oppossed to the icons but I can see both points of view on that.
In all there are too many Metacity themes following an Industrial model and I think Winter especially Winter Bold is one of the few that is both a bit different and at the same time very functional. This is especially the case with matching Metacity themes designed for a gtk2 theme where sometimes it feels like everyone is doing the same thing.
Sorry for not giving enough detail before.
Are you using the stand-alone release of the Metacity theme? Because I made the icons smaller there already. I’m using the Industrial drawing routines instead of pixmaps like Winter, because this allows the icons to scale with font size and it does not have the aligning problems you get with pixmaps.
In all there are too many Metacity themes following an Industrial model and I think Winter especially Winter Bold is one of the few that is both a bit different
But aside from the rounded buttons, Winter (for XFCE) is almost a straight Industrial copy. So I’m not sure what you mean with the “Industrial model”.
Yes, Gnome is obviously copying the Plastik theme from KDE, but what’s the problem?
I’m a KDE guy, and I think this is good news.
The more Gnome copies KDE, the better Gnome will get. The more KDE copies Gnome, the better KDE will get. People tend to only copy the good stuff.
That’s the beauty of competition. One camp comes up with a great idea, and eventually everyone gets it. There’s nothing wrong with that.
There’s going to be alot of “We had it first!” drama, but in the long run, it’s the end users who win.
Without competition, things start to stagnate. That’s when the end users suffer. Just look at what happened to IE once Netscape was gone…
No I am using the one that compiled when I compiled the theme engine itself.
The Winter set I have has the Prelight Bold and plain Winter versions and the Metacity theme is just different from Industrial to be nicer at least on my low res crap Ultra 5 Sun.
The buttons are smaller, less sharp and the down arrow as opposed to the app icon lets the whole thing flow a lot better. The whole thing feels and this is subjective as is most of what I am saying more rounded and less harsh.
I went out and downloaded the new metacity theme but maybe its just my setup and I need to try it on a real computer at a higher res. Why? It is not resizing very much. The close, min and max are still really big and the buttons still seem almost overly square and the lines inside the buttons thin and harsh.
But once again adjusting to use another Metacity theme is not really a big deal.
Could you mail me a screenshot how it looks on your setup?
By Spark (IP: —.dip.t-dialin.net) – Posted on 2005-03-01 20:03:08
Could you mail me a screenshot how it looks on your setup?
Of course, but I feel like its a minor quibble at best.
No prob.
friendly competition is pretty much the way it is between kde and gnome. its the users who vehamently hate each other. dunno why, people are dumb i guess…
@johnny
By mattb (IP: 216.191.126.—) – Posted on 2005-03-01 20:22:32
friendly competition is pretty much the way it is between kde and gnome. its the users who vehamently hate each other. dunno why, people are dumb i guess…
At least the ones who post the kde vs. gnome crap.
176 comments and counting on what may be the new Gnome theme. Yes that’s right. I read between the lines. It isn’t the new Gnome theme, but obviously some people, including Eugenia want it to be. Notice the word probably above.
Personally, I think the new theme looks better – but does this include the widget theme and new icons as well? There’s a difference. Thanks for putting up a comparable screenshot by the way.
There are parts of it that look a bit like Plastik, including the buttons and some widgets (window decoration doesn’t though), but can you really avoid saying “Oh, theme X looks a bit like theme Y” when you’re trying to achieve the same thing – something usable that looks attractive at the same time?
Just installed the ClearLooks theme on Ubuntu. It is okay, but I definitly like the original Ubuntu theme more.
What excactly are the usability benefits that have been made for this theme?
Why is the menuline darker than the rest of the theme? It looks incosisting to me. Is it a usability issue? I do like the tabs, tho.
so, this was the only mockup I found from you
http://www.osnews.com/img/3721/test2.png
And … yeah, I really don’t like it.
So, my critic to it :
*Why do radio buttons have a small line accross them, positioned a the right of the button? Why not something that in the middle (A point in the middle is allways nice I think).
*The drop-down menu … Woa eh. Why do the arrow point _to_the_left_ ? It should point to the bottom – Because drop-down menu open in that direction. Or does that arrow mean I can erase what is written in it : “Female” ?
*Rounded writable textArea : I don’t think this is nice – because then only one character has to be entered – like a number – it’s a vaste of place, it looks also bad then …
*Three different kind of “Button” : Why is there a need of three different kind of button : One that has a shadow (See the apply) button. An other one that is flat, and one who’s rand is darker … (the OK button). I mean, it’s clear that the ok button is the one that has the focus. But I don’t know why the other buttons looks different …
*The menus : Is it a good idea to have some 3D between menu and submenu ? I mean that one that is between one menu, and the submenu. keep it simple!
What I liked :
Sliders look very nice. Scrollbar too. Tabbed pannel have tabs which are easy to distinct from each other
CraHan, would you rather have Eugeina not say this upfront and then have it found out? That way you would have been able to attack her for not mentioning it. Although either way you would have attacked her.
What she did was disclose the work that she did on the project up front. That’s called “full disclosure” and is the correct way to do things.
Of course, you seem to be the type of person that just likes to attack for whatever reason. Especially someone who can get defensive about some things and especially when you have an axe to grind with her.
Everybody is talking about how the screenshot looks like Plastik… I agree it really reminds me of plastik, but it also reminds me of Beos..
I don’t know what exactly makes me think about beos.. It may be the fonts (most likely), and the thin lines around some of the objects, like the selection on the File menu and around the buttons.
The screenshot is certainly much better than what most distributions have. It would make a very nice enterprise desktop.
I don’t know if it’s my fault, but it seems most distributions nowadays think that you have vision problems. All the fonts are really big by default, and so it’s just impossible to work on 1024 lines (like the first few screenshots).
There are some small adjustments that need to be done, like the text on the status bar, that could be lowered a couple of points, but overall it looks very nice and polished.
This theme is exactly what GTK needed — and if the author didn’t do it I would have finished mine. In fact, I was working on a very similar theme that combined some of the seemingly roundedness of Industrial with the straight edge scrollbars, and column headers of Smooth. It wasn’t complete yet, but here was a screenshot of the work in progress:
http://www.dotink.org/~gent/content/Images/Screenshots/linuxprogtkt…
anyway, clearlooks came along, and I just switched to that — now everything is good. It’s got it’s own engine too, which means, unlike mine, it wasn’t hacked together with elements from both industrial and smooth.
>so, this was the only mockup I found from you
> http://www.osnews.com/img/3721/test2.png
>And … yeah, I really don’t like it
That’s because you are looking at the WRONG mockup. I replied to this hours ago, I don’t have the URL handy for the new mockup of september 2004.
The sooner Enlightenment E17 is released the better IMHO. I’m just hanging out for the stable release and then I’m kissing Gnome goodbye which has become nothing but a CPU hog over the last few years… The themeing structure and the garish themes used in Gnome haven’t helped either!.. And for those who will try and tell me that some of themes are gorgeous or beautiful… please stop kidding yourselves. If you were around years ago when Enlightnment set the standard then you will know what I’m talking about.. Nothing at the moment still comes close (KDE and Gnome included!).
Here is the theme you were looking for and could not fine:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2004-September/ms…
Clearlooks is great, i installed it on my ubuntu install. and yes, it needs to be the default. its so much better than anything else.
Ummm… hope you don’t think thats a usable theme?
is the most disgusting theme design that I’ve ever seen.
I’m sorry, but clearlooks, and even the new mockup that you sent to the list (which was a rip of someone elses theme) is lightyears ahead of it.
WOW, GTK+ 2.6.4 is already out!
..and I suppose you can do better Mr Anonymous? I don’t understand the constant ‘Eugenia-bashing’ that goes on around here.
I for one like her concept artwork and agree (mostly) with the comments she’s made about the various designs during this discussion. I know some don’t, but as always, you can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.
Why so much hostility over a theme? Jeez. Get a grip.
and so could everyone else that’s spent 5 minutes with GIMP and the .themes directory.
There’s no hostility, it’s gross and that’s my opinion. It’s not a knock against her at all so no hostility.
..whenever you’re ready, I think we’d all like to see what the ‘perfect’ theme looks like….and to think, all in just 5 minutes with GIMP. Wow!
Actually the hostility is coming from Euginia because she can’t accept the fact people do have different opinions. Go through every post and you will see what I mean. It’s all one sided and all “mine is better” attitude.
And if “Usability” was the most important thing on the agenda, then why say the following comment in the original post;
ClearLooks on Gnome instead of the currently bundled (and not as sexy) Industrial.
Looks to me that “prettyness” is more important than the so called “Usability” case thats being talked about so much here.
“Looks to me that “prettyness” is more important than the so called “Usability” case thats being talked about so much here.”
That shows nothing except that you are a fool which draws unsubstantiated conclusions.
All it shows is that sexiness is desirable, nothing more. Do you disagree with that?
If you have a choice between a theme that is ugly but very usable and one that is sexy and very usable, tell me, which would you choose?
Eugenia and the better half of the world would probably go for the latter.
BTW: I actually like Industrial a but better because I’m getting tired of all these rounded themes, but I see Eugenia’s point. Had I not felt the need for a truly *original* theme, I would have agreed that ClearLooks is better looking. But it seems that every few months, I dislike anything that looks like what I have previously used. I call it the *newness* factor ;p
Yeah, I know what you’re saying. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Very true.
But what bugs me, and no doubt countless others going by some of the comments in this thread, is that when something like…
“ClearLooks on Gnome instead of the currently bundled (and not as sexy) Industrial.”
..is said, suddenly the vocal minority can’t jump at their keyboards quickly enough to tear Eugenia down for daring to utter such a thing. As I said before, it’s just a theme, but for reasons I’m unable to comprehend there are people out there that take comments like this as a stab to the heart. Crazy.
“To all those who think that the usability is in the eye of the beholder only: Wrong.”
Then what’s a high contrast theme for? We use our eyes to know where things are on the screen and which buttons to push. Being able to differentiate elements (if for example you’re colourblind) is usability and it is in the eye of the beholder. No GUI doctorates, just common sense. Something which is seriously lacking in the IT industry these days.
>http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2004-September/ms…
So, I have to say : I like it, it looks clean. It’s not really that usuable the tabs are difficult to distinguish from each-other, that would be difficult to recognize on a bad TFT, oder a notebook. But yes, overall, I think it’s a quite clean theme.
The overall (innovative?) idea that appears here seams to be that everything projects shadow. I really like that idea – not only windows should project shadows under Xorg, but all widgets from which I want to do so. Where should be a bit to set to true for each widget – so that one can have accelerated shadow. Then every theme would look a lot better, and this would improve usuability for all terms … (except the dark ones
) .
Then what’s a high contrast theme for? We use our eyes to know where things are on the screen and which buttons to push. Being able to differentiate elements (if for example you’re colourblind) is usability and it is in the eye of the beholder. No GUI doctorates, just common sense. Something which is seriously lacking in the IT industry these days.
Exactly what I was trying to point out in one of my previous posts. Why not make the high contrast theme the default so even people who have a hard time distinguishing GUI elements have a more usable default?
By not putting this theme as the default do I have to conclude it’s not a usable theme? Or that it’s less usable than industrial?
It all depends on who you ask, and that’s what I was saying. It’s a personal thing (which doesn’t eliminate the fact that there are a some common rules for all themes that one shoule take into account).
Mate I think your missreading what the other anonymous person was trying to point out.
I think if anyone who is going to report on something then they should at least be a little more careful in their choice of words. If I was the desginer of Industrial I’d bit a little peed off with that comment. People do see and read things differently (thats human nature) and if someone new to Gnome reads it the first thing they are going to do is ignore that theme based on Euginia’s comment (not really in the spirit of the Gnome community is it).
The power of the media is powerful and can turn people’s opinions by simply reporting biased and untrue statements. And to tell you the truth there’s been a lot of crap said in this thread including comments from Euginia that fit both categories.
As for me I don’t care what theme is installed as long as it caters for older machines like my PIII 550 (ie isn’t a CPU hog)
and I have a choice to change it if I want. ClearLooks looks ok but I haven’t tried it yet as I currently use the Lila them on my Gentoo box and won’t be changing it too soon cause i LOVE it. 