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

[Sven Claussner <scl gplus gmail com>]

Hi Jehan,

On  22.1.2016 at 3:30 PM Jehan wrote:

> On 2016-01-22 13:25, Sven Claussner wrote:
> > - the theme should have a neutral color to not distort the image's
> > color perception.
>
> What is a "neutral" color? I do not know such a concept.

see Tobias' answer, simply said a variant of gray.

> > - A pure white theme would reflect the proper appearance of the image
> > printed on white paper.
>
> So should the whitest theme be even whitest? ("pure white" #FFFFFF even?)

Elle's e-mail from 23.01.2016, 5:29 PM describes it best.
As Elle points out, the padding color is the most important piece for
adjustments here. We could try out Elle's example colors or perhaps
check with one/some of the industry standard ICC profiles from
http://www.colormanagement.org/index_en.html if they held useful
information for us.


> > I think we should involve the users to decide over it and run a user
> > test/evaluation like Peter Sikking did some years ago for the tools
> > (it's in the GUI wiki). Then we knew for sure and could meet the goals
> > I've outlined in the spec (http://wiki.gimp.org/wiki/Specs:UI_Theme).
>
> If you are in LGM, we would welcome any kind of usability session where
> we would gather users to test GIMP on various topics.

I'll not be at LGM this year. But the idea of involving the users
to test GIMP on various topics is a good one!
Let's find other ways of doing it. For instance Google Hangouts like
the Metapolator people practice it for meetings could be a choice.
The hangout sessions could be recorded and archived for later use
(and BTW it's a nice way to meet each other one more time w/o long
distance constraints). Of course, Google is not everything, and I'm
open to alternatives.



> > BTW: Krita has 8 themes with more or less small differences, PS CS 6
> > has 4 themes.
>
> As a side note, this is not a competition. We should support what we
> think is best, whatever other software are doing.

I agree with you. It was meant as a side note and food for thought how
others deal with this topic.


> [...] I am fairly confident we can now
> have a few themes while keeping minimum maintainability.

I guess you mean minimum work resp. maximum maintainability, don't you?


> I do hope that current contributors will stay for the long run! :-)

+1


> > - 1 system theme for proper system integration,
>
> What is a system theme? Do you mean the default theme?

No, a theme that closely resembles the operating systems appearance.
See the notice on constraints in my spec draft.


> > - optionally 1 theme for roundtrip work with other FOSS graphics tools
> > (Blender, Darktable, Krita)
>
> I don't understand what is a "theme for roundtrip work"? How could a
> *theme* be helpful to work with other software?

For visual consistency, which is also a reason why designers of
operating systems, GNOME etc. write Human Interface Guidelines.
If one often switches between e.g. Blender and GIMP, then s/he should
not feel distracted by the programs' different looks and feels.
I was inspired by Krita's Blender theme.
To be honest we can only achieve an approximation here as every
program has its own styles as I found out in the meantime.


> > - optionally the current 2.8 theme. Some people might like it
> > because they are used to it. We don't need yet another save-export-like
> > discussion.
>
> We will keep the current theme at the very least for development
> version, if not for the release, because it is basically a nearly "raw"
> theme. So developers will always need it to differentiate GTK+ bugs from
> theme bugs.

+1


> > We could provide a link collection to other good themes together with
> > a tutorial on how to install them or later extend the plug-in registry
> > to hold themes and art resources (brushes, patterns etc.).
>
> Having a good extension platform is one of my project for the close
> future, but that's a very different topic. :-)

Fine! Pat also mentioned something on the gimp-web list. Let's collect
our thoughts and then see what could be done. But perhaps getting the
registry running again and polishing some other w.i.p. stuff is more
urgent now.


> > I hope to find time to move my spec to the GUI wiki in the next days.
>
> Cool.

Done. See http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/UI_Theme_workgroup


Greetings

Sven