Re: Me being Picky: A few minor points

[Filip Štědronský <regnarg seznam cz>]

Dne 15.1.2010 22:04:23 napsal Eric Raslich:
> I think you're making a big deal about something that, in the end, comes
> down to personal taste. While it has been a month or so since I used the
> gnome shell exclusively, the black color was really appealing to me. To
> say that it needs to start with a "much nicer" default look is saying
> that the look now is bad (or... mean?) and I think that's a little
> unfair. Black is a lot easier on the eyes when combined to with lighter
> text, and that's a proven fact. Not that I'm against other combinations
> by any means, but I think it's a little off to say that the default look
> is bad as it is.

It is a big deal. Yes, black is appealing and yes, it looks 
cool, at least when you see it for the first time. It may as 
well be easier on the eyes. I'm not sure. But it's not a colour 
to look at for several hours a day. As long as it's just the 
overlay, it's not _as_ critical (still I think it's enough to
ruin your day), but we can expect a matching GTK theme soon 
and whatever else. We can argue that it can be changed, but 
defaults _are_ important. It might not be an overestimate if 
I say a third of the users will just keep the default look. 
And these are the users we should care about and feel 
responsible for.

I was using a complete light-on-dark theme myself. For several 
years. And though I don't know the psychological background -
mind, I'm just a child - one thing I know for sure: it was
destroying. Many people cannot understand that at all - it rather 
depends on how sensitive you are. And even if it affects you,
it's not what you notice that is the worst of all. It doesn't
make you feel strangely bad, it merely changes the way you feel
when you don't feel anything special, just the normal, neutral,
as a programmer I would say "default", feeling. It's not an 
overstatement to say that with your desktop, the whole world 
gets a different colour (ever tried to look through several
differently-tint glasses?) All your feelings will be slighly
flavoured with that un-name-able darkish thing. You get less 
optimistic, active, willing to make a change, to do something. 
Whatever. You also often get moody and a bit harder on other
people than you'd like. 

It's extremely slight differences, yet they do a lot in the
whole image of your life. You get the idea that something was 
wrong only when after this black period is over. Then, when you 
look back, you wouldn't be able to understand what that eerie 
time was doing in your memory. Like getting up into a gloomy 
day for several months --- and then suddenly seeing the rays 
of sunshine. You won't want to get back to the darkness 
afterwards.

That's just my story to say it's not only a psychologists'
hassle. Black is not a colour for people who want to dance with
joy every morning. And we all want to be such people, right?

Sincere salutations,
Filip Štědronský
Czech Republic

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