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Re: Making the "default" GNOME theme explicit,

Two points about this string:
- The non-auto-update of the GDSG is becoming a problem. This is not the first time that someone has made comments based on old information from a previous rev of the GDSG. We need to resolve the updating of project documentation such as the GDSG so that we do not have to go over old ground.
- Now, admittedly the GDSG did not exactly address the issue of the distro variations problem, more sidelined the issue. The team at Sun have come up against this problem and we are trying to develop a strategy approach to make things easier for everyone to re-use the same documentation. We need to finalize our thinking on this issue, but I'll definitely be getting back to the mailing list about the distro variations topic.
- As for the best people to define a default theme, well, I agree that the accessiblity people have an essential voice, but I do believe there should be strong graphic design input supported by usability and accessiblity. So far, though, graphic designers have been thin on the ground in GNOME country, alas. 

Pat




From: "Eugene O'Connor" <Eugene Oconnor Sun COM>
Subject: Re: Making the "default" GNOME theme explicit,
for documentation sceenshots
To: Adrian Custer <acuster nature berkeley edu>
Cc: gnome-doc-list gnome org
Reply-To: Eugene Oconnor Sun COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems

Hi Adrian,

You are looking at an outdated GDSG (V1.0). The latest GDSG in CVS (V1.2) says
the following:

"Default Settings

As far as possible, use the default settings for the desktop when you take a
screenshot. Include the window frame when you take a screenshot of a window. "
(see gnome-docu/gdp/style in CVS)

At present the GDSG is not automatically updated from CVS - this is the subject
of bug 116049.

For the 2.4 User Guide and System Admin Guide I used the default settings
specified at
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-doc-list/2003-August/msg00009.html. The
plan is to document these "plain GNOME" default settings in the GDP Handbook. Do
these "plain GNOME" default settings (that is, the settings that apply in the
tarballs from gnome.org) meet your requirements?

Eugene

Adrian Custer wrote:

Hello,

In case some of you are interested, I've just sent the message below to
the GNOME foundation board hoping that they might propell some
decision/collaboration with the sun or red hat or other accessibility
groups. If you have comments, add them here and future contributors can
be pointed to this thread.

keep up the work,
--adrian

**********************************************************************

Hey All,

As part of the gnumeric documentation effort, I'm evaluating the theme
which should be used for screenshots. The current standard is outdated
because the terminology used no longer applies. The current standard is
also incomplete. For optimal documentation we need help from one of the
accessibility groups re-defining the standard and giving documenters an
easy way to set that standard.

The documentation effort wants to have a standard look for all the
screenshots. That look has several aims:

       1) To show off GNOME as a fantastic desktop
       2) To be readily legible on screen both in browsers and help
       systems
       3) To be readily legible when printed (both in colour and in
       black and white).

These aims require that someone with knowledge about these issues, which
I assume are along the lines of what accessibility people think about,
decide on a configuration that best fullfills these goals. I personally
do not own a printer so can't decide on either of the printing issues.

Documenters need to be able to take any distribution and configure it to
the standard. GNOME ships in a million different forms (distributions)
each configured with a different look (theme). The current standard,
which was established way back in 2.0 days (I believe), states:

       As far as possible, use the default settings for the desktop
       when you take a screenshot. Include the window frame when you
       take a screenshot of a window. The default window theme is Crux.
       The default UI theme is Default.
http://developer.gnome.org/documents/style-guide/screenshots.html

In these days of GNOME 2.4, the only "Theme" config we have is from the
foot menu: Applications->Desktop Preferences->Theme. This gives us a
choice of themes which can then be configured more precisely by clicking
on the "Theme Details" button which gives us three choices:
controls, window border, icons. The guidelines talk about "UI theme"
which may be "controls" and the "window theme" which is probably "window
border". The "icons" setting should probably be GNOME. Note that we have
not set default fonts or other settings I may be overlooking which are
critical to the look of screenshots.

The current docs for the various GNOME apps have miscellaneous
look-and-feel but the documentation project is not sufficiently advanced
yet for this to matter.

Abiword:        no screenshots
Eog:            looks like the current standard
               crux window border, ?default widgets and ?? icons
Evolution:      looks different
               http://www.ximian.com/support/manuals/evolution_14/x474.html
gnome-terminal: looks like the current standard
               crux window border, ?default widgets and ?? icons
nautilus:       looks different
               no docs online.

Proposal:
       The foundation should request that one of the accessibility groups take
a serious look at this and develop a "Documentation" theme which would
configure the GNOME theme, the window manager look, the icon set, the
default font and other issues I may be overlooking. This theme must be
configurable from the standard distributions: GARNOME!, Debian, Red Hat,
Mandrake, Suse, tarballs... jdub has indicated a willingness to ship
GARNOME with a suitably beautiful and legible theme enabled by default.

Thanks for your time,
adrian
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