Regarding a new default theme



Hi all,
this is an email suggesting a next-gen theme for Gnome. I emailed a few people first about it privately, and Seth suggested I email d-d-l, so here I am.

Here is the mockup:
http://www.osnews.com/img/8251/butter.png

The theme I beefed up on this mockup is "Milk". I call this theme, "Butter" (because it's creme instead of white).It has its roots to an OSX third party theme, then it got ported to Gnome: http://art.gnome.org/themes/gtk2/567/ (unfortunately it was a pixmap-only theme). Both the original Milk and Gnome's Milk are so incredibly white that makes them extremely unsuitable as default themes, plus they lose points on details (details that have to be perfect on a default theme). These themes were more "promising", rather than "usable". So, I cleaned Milk up and created Butter.

Except the color changes to the theme, I have also changed the widgets. On first look, only a trained eye will see the differences, but zooming in shots or looking more closely, you will notice quite some changes to the widgets over the original, trying to make them cleaner and more consistent.

So, if anyone wants to start working on an engine that would materialize this theme (maybe even modifying Butter to add some of the *ideas* showing here: http://www.osnews.com/img/3721/test2.png , like the bold text on tabs and buttons or the rounded tab views and box frames), and maybe --just maybe-- convince Owen/Havoc to add user-switchable drop shadows on gtk/metacity (now that XOrg has better support for such stuff), I believe that Gnome 2.10 can be released with a modern, killer theme that will bring the Unix desktop to a new level.

The reason that I push for a theme that looks more involved rather than yet-another-theme-that-looks-like-all-the-rest-just-with-some-different-colors, is because I believe that is important Gnome has to finally go with the times and become more modern in the way it looks by default. First impressions and looks count with new users. The theme has to be eye catching --yet fully usable by both eye-troubled and healthy users--, has to have shadows that make the different views easier to the eye, has to look different enough from any other default theme around -- in order to differentiate itself.

I don't believe that a theme effort for Gnome 2.10 should just be a single guy's effort working in a corner by himself and when he's done to be shoot down on d-d-l after he presents his work. Instead, it should be co-ordinated with both GTK+'s and Metacity's development teams, Seth, the usability list, and get support by gtk/metacity guys by implementing new stuff as needed by this new demanding theme.

So, how could that work? Anyone's interested in developing Butter? (note: that mockup is not final, it's a first test, I am willing to work on the design/usability side with Gnome devs). Anyone interested in actually putting the gears to work to coordinate the development through all these teams? I believe that the "looks" have been put aside for a long time, and now it's the time to do the right thing and give Gnome a facelift that makes it both modern and more usable than before.

Rgds,
Eugenia

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