Re: [Gimp-gui] GIMP Theme UI now and future.

[Ben <draekko software gmail com>]

On 12/30/2015 12:07 PM, Jehan wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 2015-12-30 18:05, Elle Stone wrote:
> > On 12/29/2015 08:57 PM, Akkana Peck wrote:
> > > Both the light themes seem quite dark and not very contrasty
> > > (with black text and icons) compared to the GIMP I currently see,
> > > which has a background color of #dcdad5 rather than the #bdbdbd
> > > used in both of the light themes for most icons and menus;
> > > except the menus in the alternate light theme, which are pretty
> > > close to what I see now in GIMP.
> > >
> > > I'd like to see a theme option (whether or not it's the default)
> > > that has similar contrast to the current theme; the new themes will
> > > be harder to read for at least some users.
> >
> > On my system the "light side of GIMP" theme and the current default
> > GIMP theme are very close in tonality, with the "light side of GIMP
> > theme being a tad lighter. Here's a screenshot showing the two themes
> > side by side:
> > http://ninedegreesbelow.com/bug-reports/gimp29/light-side-vs-default-small.jpg 
> >
> >
> > If I had to choose any of the new themes, it would be the "Light side
> > of GIMP" theme. By comparison, the current default theme looks a bit
> > outdated and the new theme is very pretty and modern-looking. But I
> > like the current theme better for three reasons:
> >
> > 1. The "light side of GIMP" theme has a lot of darker tones in things
> > like sliders, boxes for choosing parameters, the menu bar, and really
> > just about everywhere. This makes for too little contrast between the
> > sliders, boxes, etc and any contained text. It seems to me that a
> > lighter shade of gray would make the text stand out better.
>
> I agree. Also do we want the theme to get rid of colors? If I were to 
> decide, I'd say no. For sliders for instance, I quite prefer this 
> blue|white colors to the white|grey proposed.

Unfortunately that changes a number of widget colors. It also breaks the 
feel of it.

> > 2. Also the new theme UIs for things like Gaussian blur, Curves, etc,
> > are always larger than the corresponding current default GIMP theme.
> > As screen real estate matters a great deal, I prefer the smaller UIs.
>
> I agree. Draekko, is it because of the UI images which adds pixels 
> here and there? If so, could these be made to the strict minimum, as a 
> compromise between "beautiful" and "don't waste real estate space".

These themes have the same look and feel across ALL platforms. So its 
consistent. Sadly changing that requires reworking a number of png's as 
well as reworking most of the spacing values (padding,margins,etc...).

> > 3. Also the new themes lack a good indication of where the grab areas
> > are for resizing windows and subwindows. Maybe users already know that
> > the subframes can be resized? And they know where to find the
> > (completely unindicated) grab handle for reproportioning the space
> > between the upper and lower subframes?
>
> I agree. Draekko, could this be fixed?

I made that a conscious decision not to have them for two reasons, 1) 
those pane separators are fugly and add mostly useless spacing, 2) they 
add a space break between top of the notebook and can add a line in 
between canvas and tools toolbar on the left side which is really 
distracting. To actually really fix this requires reworking the actual 
UI code and that's waaay more work than i want to spend on this. But 
adding only the separator is easier to do than the above but will have 
annoying breaks in the UI.