Re: themes for GNOME2 docs

[Dan Mueth <d-mueth uchicago edu>]

Hi,

I basically agree with you'all, but to summarize...

We should use the default window manager, window manager theme, Gtk+ font
and theme, and any other default themes and configurations that ships with
plain GNOME. As to what this is, I think we have to punt this to the
usability team.  Since many people on this list have good thoughts on this
topic, we should all feel free to fill the usability mailing list with our
thoughts on the topic :)

When do we need to start taking our final screenshots for our documents?
We should set a date and "strongly encourage" the usability folks to
decide in advance of this date.  John - since you are on the GNOME 2
release team and know the schedule well, could you suggest a date and urge
the usability folks to decide in time for us to get our screenshots done?

As for screenshot decorations (eg. drop shadows), I think they look really
nice but make the screenshot process *much* more complicated and
time-consuming.  It also makes it very difficult to localize since
translators are busy enough translating po files.  When they find out we
have lots of new XML documentation and screenshots for them to localize
too, they will certainly not feel like firing up the GIMP for each of
hundreds of screen shots.  So, sadly, I think we have to keep it simple.

As Chris pointed out, we should expand our guidelines to go beyond just
themes and fonts.  We can use the "General Guidelines" page of
/usr/share/gnome/help/nautilus-screenshot-guidelines/C/index.html as a
starting point, copying it into the GDP Handbook, and then changing and
adding to it as needed.  We should have a look at the recommendations in
the Sun style manual and other sources and decide how we want to do the
callouts.

Dan


On 17 Dec 2001, Gregory Leblanc wrote:

> On Mon, 2001-12-17 at 11:36, Eugene O'Connor wrote:
> > I think the most sensible option is to use the default settings for the
> > desktop when you take a screenshot. Currently, the default frame style
> > is Crux, and the default theme is Default. If the screenshots reflect
> > non-default settings, users will become confused if the screenshots in
> > the documentation do not match what appears on the desktop. This would
> > impact first time users in particular.
>
> Ah, but which default settings?  The ones from the original source, the
> ones from Red Hat, the ones from Ximian, the ones from Sun, the ones
> from Debian...
>
> If we say "use the defaults", we're not going to have consistent
> screenshots, because different people will have different defaults.  I
> think we need to specify what themes and such to use, to ensure that our
> documentation is consistent.  Offhand, it makes the most sense to me to
> use whatever the default that ships from source is.  Havoc just posted a
> mail on this topic to the gnome-redhat-list, but I think it's relevant
> in a lot more places than just there.  Here's a link to that message.
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-redhat-list/2001-December/msg00030.html
>
> > I suggest that the GDP handbook should state that screenshots should use
> > the default settings rather than specify a particular frame style and
> > theme. It might be a good idea to document the default settings
> > somewhere - so that when we are taking screenshots, we can ensure that
> > our desktops use the default settings.
>
> Yeah, this sounds great, if we can get the default themes to all be
> fairly consistent and work well with each other.  Right now, I don't
> think they do this very well.  Hmm, perhaps this is something to be
> mentioned to the usability people.
> [snipped, for brevity]
> 	Greg
>
>