Re: Settings for screenshots - more general response

[Shaun McCance <shaunm wolfram com>]

On Wed, 2003-07-16 at 04:24, Eugene O'Connor wrote:
> Shaun, 
> 
> This messages responds to the more general, strategic points you made.
> 
> Eugene
> 
> Shaun McCance wrote:
> > 
> [snip]
> > 
> > Well, I don't think Gnome default should be the final deciding factor.
> > Screenshots should basically use defaults, except where changes are
> > desirable to make the screenshot more readable in documentation.  One
> > concern is that users seeing screenshots with tons of different themes
> > are going to be distracted.  Another concern is the general readability
> > of the documentation.  Things like how quickly the eye can distinguish
> > parts of a window, or how well you can read text directly above and
> > below the screenshot without having your eye drawn to the screenshot.
> > 
> > Yet another concern is accessibility.  Screenshots, by their nature,
> > aren't very accessible.  (Therefore, documentation should really to be
> > usable without them.)  However, we can try to make the screenshots work
> > for a fairly large number of people.  Lots of people use larger fonts
> > because their eyes just aren't that sharp.  I don't think we should use
> > 15pt fonts in the screenshots, but clearly my earlier suggestion of 9pt
> > was way out of line.  Lots of people need contrast.  I don't think we
> > should use the High Contrast theme, but if you use a theme with a decent
> > amount of contrast, it will be generally readable by more people than if
> > you used a theme with less contrast (Simple, Metal).
> > 
> > The Traditional theme basically wins on all of these points.
> 
> I agree that we do not need to slavishly follow the "plain GNOME"
> defaults - there may be valid cases to make exceptions. However, I do
> think that it is important that we list the current "plain GNOME"
> defaults, and use them as a starting point. At that point we can discuss
> if and where we need to deviate from the "plain GNOME" defaults. 
> 
> If we find that a particular default setting makes a screenshot
> unreadable, or more difficult to read, then we should feed that
> information back to whoever has specified that default setting. For
> example, if we find that the default Window title font size is too small
> in screenshots, then it is quite possible that the default Window title
> font might need to be changed.

Basically, I agree.  I think it's entirely possible that we might want
different settings (mostly with font sizes and rendering), but we should
certainly communicate with developers, since it will nearly always be
the case that better screenshot settings will make for better default
settings.

> So I think our first step here is for someone with access to a desktop
> built from the tarballs on gnome.org to fill in the gaps below:
> 
> "PLAIN GNOME" DEFAULT SETTINGS
> Window manager: 
> Theme: 
> Fonts:
>    Application font: 
>    Desktop font: 
>    Window title font: 
>    Terminal font: 
>    Font Rendering: 
> Menus and Toolbars: 
>    Button labels: 
>    Toolbars can be detached and moved around: 
>    Show icons in menus: 
> Background:
>    Picture: 
>    Picture Options: 
> Contents of the desktop environment:
>    Panels: 
>    Desktop: u
> Contents of the panels (left-to-right):
>    Menu Panel: 
>    Bottom edge panel: 
> Locale: 
> 
> [snip]
> 

I'll grab the tarballs today or tomorrow to fill this in, unless
somebody beats me to it.

--
Shaun